Red Hot Holiday Bundle Page 9

  “So?”

  She fumbled with her apron strings until Chloe settled her hands against them and untied the knot for her.

  “I haven’t heard from my brother in days.”

  “Tally, I’m so sorry.”

  “It could be nothing, but I’m a little worried.”

  “It’s probably nothing. You know how he is with that crazy music scene he’s into.”

  “I know. You’re probably right. Look, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She ran out of the kitchen and Chloe followed. Standing at the head of the stairs, she saw how Christien followed the lovely Tally with his eyes.

  Christien was finishing up the gumbo as Chloe came back to the table. They were pulling out their wallets to pay the check.

  Jack waved his hand. “It’s on me.”

  Christien nodded and stood. “I’ll see you later. Adieu, Chloe.”

  “The crème brûlée was fantastic,” Jack said, as Christien started up his motorcycle.

  Chloe basked in his praise. “Good.”

  “You have yourself a nice evening.”

  Walking to his town house, he disappeared inside. Dusk was settling over Court du Chaud. The court would soon be awash in twinkling Christmas lights. Through many windows, Chloe could see Christmas trees, their branches adorned with homemade ornaments, priceless heirlooms, and whimsical bric-a-brac. Chloe picked up the empty bowls and took them into the kitchen.

  The bell on the door sounded. Chloe stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Hi, Anna. Ready for the night shift?”

  “Sure am. You’re free to go.”

  Chloe took off her own apron, gathered the ones that had been discarded in the bin next to the door and exited the kitchen. “Call me if you need me.”

  “I will, but you go rest. You look tired.”

  Chloe smiled softly at the concern she felt radiating off Anna like a warm fire. Before Chloe left the café, she switched on her own twinkling lights to illuminate the inside windows and the outside balcony and stair rail. “Didn’t sleep well last night,” Chloe said as she went out of the café door, running into Claire Braden dressed as impeccably as ever.

  “Hi, Chloe,”

  Chloe smiled and said, “Claire. I’ve been meaning to ask you to join Josie Russell and me on a committee for a Mardi Gras float. Are you interested?”

  Claire paused and said, “Yes, and thank you for including me.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll call you with the details. Just leave your number with Anna at the counter.”

  As Claire entered the café, Chloe thought how great it was that she’d finally found her own identity. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, Randy Schneider, the gentleman that he was, waited for her to pass by before he proceeded.

  “Hello,” she offered.

  He responded in his deep, melodious voice. “Good evening, Chloe.”

  Good chemistry between Randy and Claire. Lots and lots of potential, Chloe thought. She crossed the square, to the brick piazza that had been part of Court du Chaud since it was built, taking a moment to admire the beautiful Christmas tree in the center. The tradition made her feel at home, an integral part of the court. Humming “Santa Claus is Coming To Town,” she made her way to her own town house.

  She looked toward Jack’s place and wondered if she’d see him prowling the court, those haunted eyes turned up to the sky.

  2

  INSIDE HER TOWN HOUSE, she dropped the aprons into her washer and started it.

  She changed into a pair of short, red-denim shorts and a black tank top. Pulling her hair into a messy topknot, she entered her bathroom and filled her watering can. Out on her balcony, she watered her plants.

  After taking care of her herbs, she spent the rest of the evening going over her books. Visions of dark eyes and hair kept invading, so Chloe gave up about 11:00 p.m. and went to bed.

  But she tossed and turned, unable to get Jack’s gaze out of her mind. Giving up, she got out of bed and walked over to her bedroom window.

  She could make out his face clearly as he sat on a bench in front of his town house, shirtless, the tattoo stark against the bronze of his skin.

  With the moonlight gilding his hair, he looked like a dark angel with wickedness bred in the bone.

  A wickedness that called to her, tempted her. A wickedness that left her mouth dry with a hunger she’d never known before. This seductive heat spinning through her blood sang inside her veins, sang an old song and stunned her, leaving her unable to look away from his dark, haunting eyes.

  She wanted to do more than heal this man. She wanted so very much to connect with him on a level that she wasn’t even sure about. One so deep, so real, so clean, it took her breath away.

  She pressed her face to the glass and forced herself to breathe slowly.

  She had good intentions mixed in with all this yearning.

  She’d heard the road to hell was paved with good intentions. And she’d bet her dark angel knew the way.

  JACK SIGHED as a cool breeze blew over his heated skin as he sat and stared up at the moon. The café was dark and silent, yet cinnamon seemed to linger in the air. He’d had that dream again. He rubbed at his face to get rid of the gruesome images. His one and only failure. He’d tried to save them, all those souls on his conscience, their blood on his hands.

  He shifted and rubbed the back of his neck. Guilt, remorse, pain rose in him.

  At the time, Chris had been suspended from the force for punching a defendant in court. The defendant agreed not to press charges, but insisted that Chris had to publicly apologize. Chris refused. Jack felt that Chris had just quit, disillusioned with a system that worked much too often in the criminal’s favor. Jack refused to quit. He’d never quit anything in his life.

  Sure he’d been required to see the shrink, but he’d mouthed all the right answers even as his gut twisted. The deaths would always weigh on his conscience. No amount of talking would change that.

  His gaze shifted to Chloe’s balcony, to the plants there. He’d seen her watering them earlier, her gentle hands touching the leaves as her mouth moved.

  He found it so damned endearing that she talked to her plants. He wondered what she said.

  He caught movement at the window, his sharp cop’s eyes missed very little. So, she couldn’t sleep either.

  Had she tacked that envelope on his door? The scent was hers.

  Hell, why didn’t he just say it. He wanted it to be her.

  He wanted her.

  It wasn’t smart. A woman like that would want more than he was willing to give. He knew it instinctively. But damn, smart wasn’t part of this equation right now. Smart was about as far away as it could get.

  He heard a door open and saw Chloe slip out of her town house. She glided over to him. He took a deep breath and leaned back against the bench back support.

  “Hi. Couldn’t sleep?” she asked, her voice hushed.

  She smiled at him and there wasn’t anything tentative about this woman and damned if he didn’t like that. She looked so fragile and delicate with her strawberry blond hair trailing down the smooth column of her neck; tickling the hollow at the place he’d die to place his lips.

  He clenched his hands and closed his eyes, burying the pain deep inside him and letting the charm flow.

  “No. You?” Jack replied.

  “No.”

  “Worries?”

  She nodded, her gaze going slowly over his face as if she could read him like an open book. He shifted, caught in that magical gaze, so warm, so welcoming. He wouldn’t be giving up his secrets that easily and never to this woman. His professional life in the NOPD was so removed from this courtyard with its old-world charm and its pretty flower boxes. This is what he went to work every day to shield. She was what he risked his life to protect.

  A twinge of guilt, a woman falling, her dark hair spilled over the pavement. The charming facade slipped. Her sharp gaze narrowed.

  “Are y
ou all right?”

  He forced himself to relax and shrug as if it were easy. “Right as rain.”

  “For a minute there, you looked…like you were thinking of something awful.”

  “Must have been a trick of the moonlight.”

  Somewhere near a woman’s voice, lovely in cadence and melody, began to sing.

  “Who’s that?” He stood and looked around.

  Chloe nodded toward the center of the court. “That’s Tally. She sings sometimes when she gets home from work. She’s a lounge singer for The Blue Note.”

  “It’s beautiful, soothing.”

  “Do you need to be soothed?”

  He turned to look at her and she was standing so close he brushed against her arm.

  “Ma mère used to sing me to sleep after thunderstorms and a bad day.”

  She didn’t move her arm or step away from him. “What kind of bad day?”

  “Fightin’ mostly. I was trying to defend Christien for riling up someone else.”

  “The makings of a cop even then.”

  “How did you know I was a cop?”

  “There are very few secrets here in Court du Chaud, Mr. Castille. For instance, I know that you got this tattoo in the military.”

  The tip of her finger brushed the barbed wire and his groin filled, hot and heavy. It happened so fast he wasn’t prepared. He’d thought he was in control, but the urgency was sweeping through him in a tidal rush, hurting, hard and hammering his blood. He couldn’t back away from Chloe Matthews.

  He took her wrist and very slowly drew her hand toward his face. With a deliberate challenge in his eyes, he brought her palm to his mouth and kissed her soft flesh.

  She gasped, so softly in the hushed night. Tally sang on about fever and wanting. He pulled her closer to him. Taking her hand he placed it around his neck. Leaning down he picked up the other one and put that one around his neck.

  Very slowly he began to sway.

  “The tattoo was a rite of passage. All the guys in my platoon had one.”

  She looked up at him and he sensed she wanted something from him, but he didn’t know what. It certainly felt like it was more than he could ever give.

  He wasn’t a man to cut and run, but what he saw in Chloe’s soft, gentle eyes made him want to bolt. He was touched by violence almost every day. It seemed wrong for him to be this close to her, afraid some of it would rub off on her. But she felt so good in his arms he wanted more.

  They continued to sway, even though Tally had stopped singing. In the dark, he saw a figure run across the court.

  “Chloe, is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Do you have a minute?” Tally asked, apology in her voice.

  Chloe pulled away, saying softly to Jack, “I’ve got to go.”

  He nodded as she left his arms and he watched her slip her arm around her waitress friend.

  They went into her town house and closed the door. It was time for him to get some sleep.

  “CHLOE, I KNOW it’s late, but I had to tell you my brother called me just a few minutes ago and he’s fine.”

  “I’m soooo happy. Hope you told him to call you more often so you know what’s going on.”

  “I did. He got the message loud and clear”

  “Where was he?”

  “He had a gig out of town, but, of course, he didn’t let me know. I’m so relieved. He promised to come over for Christmas dinner. Bree and I are going to cook.”

  Tally and Breanne had raised their brother themselves. Instead of going to college like they wanted him to, he’d detoured and become a roadie, getting work with whatever band was hiring. “That’s great. I know you and your sister have had some tough times lately. Your brother doesn’t need to add to your stress.”

  Tally nodded her head. “So, I couldn’t help noticing that you and Jack were, um, getting to know each other.”

  “He’s a very intriguing man.”

  “Is that why you tacked up that envelope to his door today?”

  “Busted.”

  “Big-time.”

  “I’m getting in the Christmas spirit and leaving him little gifts. I’m Santa’s Sexy Elf.”

  “I don’t know, Chloe. He looks as much of a heartbreaker as his brother.”

  “Both need healing.”

  “I’m not into healing other people like you are, Chloe. I’ve got enough to worry about with my brother and my own wishes and dreams. I don’t need the kind of trouble Christien could bring.”

  “Maybe. Jack seems much more pragmatic and Christien seems much more sensitive than he lets on.”

  “How do you do that?” Tally asked, perplexed.

  “Do what?”

  “Read people so well.”

  “I’ve got what my mother would describe as the gift.”

  “As in ‘woo-woo’ stuff like reading people’s auras?”

  “Not exactly, but I do get ‘feelings.’ Been doing it all my life, even when I was a small child.”

  “Be careful with that man, Chloe. I’ll let you get to bed. Good night.”

  Chloe walked with Tally to the door. “I’m happy about your brother. See you at the café tomorrow.”

  But it was hard to concentrate on sleep when all she could think about was the feel of Jack Castille against her body which still tingled as if he’d left a lasting imprint. Up close he was even more striking, his skin velvety soft, his scent knee-melting.

  But it was still his eyes that got to her, those dark orbs to the soul. He’d been hard-pressed to disguise his pain from her. The charming smile hid a secret she was going to ferret out of him. She was obsessed by it. If a wound wasn’t drained, it would fester until its poison killed.

  And Jack Castille had too much of a dazzling soul for any of that blinding beauty to be dimmed.

  IN THE MORNING, Chloe rose groggily and immediately headed for the shower. The memory of the feel of Jack against her last night fueled her imagination. Instead of her hands sliding over her body, they were his hands, his mouth kissing her neck, making her body tingle with a heightened awareness that she’d never felt before. She shivered under the hot spray, her hands cupping her breasts, sliding between her legs, finding the hard, hot bud of her clit. She cried out softly, closing her eyes against the pleasure that snapped through her body at the thought of Jack’s fingers touching her.

  She leaned back against the heated tiles and stroked her aching flesh, kneaded her breasts until she exploded in a strong, stunning orgasm.

  After she dried off and got dressed, she went to her Queen Anne writing desk and pulled out a piece of scarlet paper along with a red envelope.

  She wrote the verse that ended up taking two pieces of her spicy paper. Before she went down to open the café for breakfast, she grabbed another Santa pin and tacked the envelope to his door.

  Whistling a soft tune, she opened the door to her café, and stepped inside. As she walked into the kitchen, she heard the bell. Chloe set down the freshly washed aprons she’d brought from her town house and turned as Tally came into the kitchen.

  “Need help with the beignets?”

  “Sure, but you didn’t have to be here for another two hours.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t sleep with all the strange noises in my house. I thought I’d give you a hand.”

  “You do know that your town house is supposed to be haunted?”

  “Of course I did. My uncle Guidry told me all about the legacy of the town house and the haunting of Dampier. When Bree and I inherited it, we had to do a lot of renovations to the place to make it into two separate living areas, but it was worth it. We both wanted to live in a haunted house.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Sure, maybe I’ll find the treasure and solve all my problems.”

  Chloe laughed. “You’re not afraid of Gabriel Dampier’s ghost?”

  “No, and if I see him, I’ll make him tell me where he buried all his treasure.”

  They l
aughed together as Chloe measured out the flour for the day’s beignets. But as she worked silently with Tally, her thoughts drifted to Dampier. Pirate, thief, swordsman, businessman or savior, Dampier’s legend was well known in Court du Chaud. Complex in nature, shrouded in mystery, and a larger-than-life personality, he lived on in the role of auspicious hero even two centuries later.

  It was the title of hero that earned him his entrance into the city and his place at Court du Chaud. For their heroism in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson fulfilled his promise to see that Jean Lafitte and his brigands, including Gabriel Dampier, were exonerated of all criminal charges, releasing Dampier to live as a free man. But when society turned their backs on him, he thumbed his nose and built the “hot” court. Now mystery and legend surrounded the court and the residents whispered of treasure and voodoo curses. Chloe always speculated as to why she’d get this terrible wash of pain through her every time she passed Tally’s town house. Perhaps Dampier’s ghost did haunt Court du Chaud. She wondered why and what would put him to rest.

  The day turned out to be very hectic, and at two o’clock in the afternoon, the radio announcer broke into a lively Waylon Thibodeaux song with a newsflash. There was a robbery in progress at the MLS Bank and Trust downtown and shots had been fired. The announcer went on to report that the police had surrounded the bank trapping the robbers inside.

  Chloe stopped stirring the jambalaya she was cooking for dinner, her heart in her throat. She felt edgy and scared, but she had a sense that not all her feelings were her own. It happened in a split second, and she couldn’t be totally sure.

  As the afternoon wore on, and in between serving customers and cooking, Chloe caught snatches of newscasts as reporters broke into the lively Cajun music with other bulletins. It seemed the bank robbers had taken hostages and had barricaded themselves inside the bank. At the moment it was a standoff. The announcer reported that a hostage negotiator had been called in.

  She wondered about Jack and the on-again, off-again feelings of jagged fear and gut-tightening pressure that had plagued her all day.