thirty

Seeing all his hard work and sacrifice disappearing, he started toward Claudette, hands outstretched, to lie his way out of it the way he’d always done. Two heavyset, broad-shouldered men merged out of the shadows. Maurice pulled up short. Both were dressed in black business suits, but their eyes were flat. “What’s going on?”

Ignoring him, a livid Claudette came around the desk and crossed the room to Mia, who had her head down, crying. The man nearest Claudette accompanied her.

Maurice saw all his plans evaporate over a worthless woman. “It’s her fault. She’s been after me since I came here,” he shouted. “I was just trying to teach her a lesson so she’d leave me alone.”

The young woman’s head came up. Her teary eyes widened as she looked at Claudette. “I didn’t. I swear!”

Claudette placed a gentle hand on the woman’s trembling shoulder. “I’m sorry. Has … has this happened before?”

Shame flushed her cheeks. She tucked her head. “He threatened to have me fired.”

“She’s lying!” Maurice started toward Claudette, but the burly, clean-shaven man with her blocked his path. “What are they doing here?”

Once again, Claudette ignored Maurice. Instead she spoke to the man standing close to her. “Mr. Thomas, please take Mia to the kitchen and have Bridget look after her, then ask Simon to drive her home.” Claudette looked back at Mia. “I’m sorry, Mia. More than you’ll ever know. You have my word that it won’t happen again.”

Opening the door to the study, Claudette stepped aside. “Please go with this man. I’ll call you later to see how you’re doing.”

The young woman nodded, then allowed the man to take her arm and lead her away.

Closing the door, Claudette went behind her desk and picked up a manila folder filled with a two-inch-thick stack of papers. “This,” she said to Maurice, “is a complete file on you from your birth in Akron to a middle-class, hard-working couple who kicked you out when you were seventeen for dealing drugs, to your arrest for embezzlement in Atlanta sixteen months ago.”

Sweat popped out on Maurice’s forehead. Damn. “My parents were just being hateful. I was never charged with anything. My record is clean.”

Claudette threw the file on the desk in disgust. “Only because the actual embezzlement was done by an employee of the insurance firm. My information says you talked her out of implicating you, but the theft was your idea.”

“That’s a lie!” Maurice yelled, his mouth as dry as cotton.

“That’s not what she says, is it, Mr. Lawson?”

“No, Ms. Thibodeaux, it’s not,” Lawson said, his soft voice a glaring contrast to his brawny build and cold eyes. “She said he promised to help secure her release, but he disappeared two weeks after she was convicted and sent to prison. She said she’s been trying to contact him ever since, but he didn’t show up until three weeks ago after she warned his cousin that if he didn’t, he’d be sorry.”

She’d threatened him, all right. He thought he had conned her into keeping her mouth shut by telling her he was working on a deal that would make them rich. Once he had the money, he’d get a high-priced attorney and get her out. She just had to give him a little time. He’d lied, of course. The door behind him opened and the other man came back and positioned himself on the other side of Claudette.

“Bodyguards? You think I’d hurt you?” Perhaps he could still talk his way out of this … if he could get her alone.

Claudette simply stared at him. “You lied from the start. You even charmed DeLois in Human Resources at Thibodeaux out of doing an employee or reference check on you. Your surname might be French, but you learned the language from one of your many lovers.” Her voice chilled. “A trapped animal is unpredictable.”

His mouth hardened. “You didn’t think that when I was on top of you!”

Both men started toward him. Claudette simply raised her hand and they stopped. But if looks could kill, Maurice knew he would be knocking on the gates of hell. He loosened his tie. “I’m sorry, honey, you caught me off guard. Send these men away and we’ll straighten this out.”

Opening the folder, she took out a sheet of paper and placed it on the desk so he could see it. “And how do you propose we straighten out your marriage to Ann?”

Shit. He gulped.

“You married her so she couldn’t testify against you—then you left the city and came here. There is no record of a divorce.”

“I-I…”

Claudette talked over him. “Please show this person out of my house and make sure he takes nothing bought with my money.”

Maurice’s eyes bugged; he started backing up. “You can’t do that! How am I supposed to get back to the city? What about all my clothes, my car?”

“See that he gets the essentials.” Claudette settled into her father’s chair. The fit was perfect.

“Think of the gossip!” Maurice warned. “I’ll sell the story to every tabloid in the country,” he threatened when they grabbed him by the arms and pulled him toward the door. “You’ll be the butt of jokes across the country.”

“But I’ll be free of a leech like you.” Claudette leaned back and folded her arms. “Which you may not be, if Ann Young has her way. Seems she won’t need to testify if the police find certain incriminating evidence against you. That wasn’t your first illegal operation.”

“No! Stop! You can’t do this!” he screamed as they pulled him out the front door. His humiliation was complete when Mia, Simon, and Bridget watched as he was stripped down to his black silk briefs, then tossed a pair of faded jeans and a grubby sweatshirt.

*   *   *

Kristen knew what Rafe was going to say before he opened his mouth. Her hand clenched her pen as he came through the gallery door just after they opened on Saturday morning. She could only be grateful there weren’t any customers and that Jacques was in the back unpacking a shipment. “Hello, Rafe.”

He stuck his hands into his pockets, then pulled them out again. “Hello—I came to see if … if everything is all right.”

She gripped the pen and held his tortured gaze. “I’m fine.”

His stance rigid, his eyes desolate, he asked, “You … you aren’t pregnant?”

“No, I’m not.” She barely managed to get the words out without sobbing.

Relief washed across his face. “I been thinking that it’s probably best that we don’t see each other anymore. I’ll be busy and you’ll be busy with your job and everything.”

Her nostrils stung. She swallowed. “All right.”

He nodded, looking lost and alone. “If you ever need me though, you call.”

“I’ll be fine.” She picked up his business cards on the desk and handed them to him. “I want you to have the rest.”

His large hand closed around the cards. Her heart cried out for him. “Good-bye, Kristen.”

The door closed. She watched him walk away and felt as if her heart was being wrenched from her body. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her eyes shut in pain and misery.

The door opened. Her lids snapped up. It was Claudette, not Rafe. Kristen tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t support her. She let the tears flow.

“Kristen, I’m sorry. I’m not here to cause you any problems,” Claudette rushed to say. “I’ve come to apologize. I’ve spoken to Marvin, and you can have your old job at the museum back.”

“What’s going on here?” Jacques asked, coming from the back of the gallery.

“I came to apologize,” Claudette said, standing by Kristen’s chair. “I’m afraid I’ve made things worse.”

“You mean you finally see Maurice for the user he is?” Jacques asked, but he was kneeling in front of Kristen. “Rafe?”

“Yes,” Kristen said, her voice trembling as violently as her body.

“I understand,” Jacques said with a wealth of meaning. “Go home and try it tomorrow.”

“I can’t stay here. I’m going home. To Shreveport.” She took her purse from her bottom desk drawer and stood. Her teary eyes pleaded for his understanding. “I’m sorry.”

Coming to his feet, Jacques waved her words aside. “I’ll take you home.”

Kristen shook her head. “I’ll be fine. You can’t close the gallery.”

“I can.”

“I can stay here,” Claudette offered.

Both looked at her.

“You don’t have to. I can manage.” Kristen extended her hand to Claudette. “Thank you for coming to see me and for clearing my name with Dr. Robertson.”

Claudette took her hand and held it securely. “I’m just sorry there was a need and that you had to go through this.”

“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten to know Rafe better.” Her smile unbearably sad, she left.

“I feel responsible for her,” Claudette said, watching Kristen, her head bent, walk down the street.

“You shouldn’t. You were as much a victim as anyone,” Jacques told her.

“I was a fool.”

“You were lonely and vulnerable,” Jacques said, hoping no one came into the gallery until he could tell her what was on his mind.

“Gossip is going to run rampant when this gets out.” She told him everything. “The Thibodeaux name will be dragged through the mud.”

“Why don’t you give them something to talk about?” He took her hand, felt it jerk in his. “Have dinner with me tonight. In fact, how does your schedule look for the next twenty or thirty years?”

“What?”

“I love you,” he said without hesitation. “I didn’t realize it until it was too late.”

Claudette’s heart thumped. She was attracted to Jacques, felt comfortable with him, but was that enough to build on? “Jacques, I don’t know. I haven’t had much luck with men.”

The gallery door opened and a couple entered. Jacques immediately went to them. “There’s an emergency and I have to close.” He pulled a card from his pocket and scribbled in it. “My card—and I’m offering a forty percent discount on your purchase as my way of an apology.”

“Thank you, we’ll certainly be back.”

Jacques closed the door and flipped the “closed” sign. “Where were we?”

“No one has ever put me ahead of business,” she said softly.

“That’s because you hadn’t met the right man,” Jacques said. “James and Maurice don’t count.”

Shock crossed her face. “You knew about James?”

“We were at a party together a week before he died. He’d been drinking and I took him home. He told me about your marrying secretly, but he had to agree to an annulment or your parents would have filed charges against him because he was twenty-one and you were sixteen.”

Stunned by the revelation, her eyes widened in disbelief.

Jacques never suspected she hadn’t known. Taking her by the arm, he gently urged her to a chair in front of Kristen’s desk. “He loved you, Claudette. A private detective your father hired found you the day after you eloped. James said you were the only one who ever believed in him.”

“I thought he had used me.” She gazed up at him with misery in her eyes. “I thought I had made another mistake with Maurice just as I had with James.” She shook her head, still trying to take it all in. “How could they have done that to me? To him?”

“Your parents were very rigid in their beliefs and what they wanted for their daughter.” Jacques leaned back against the corner of the desk and folded his arms. “They didn’t think James was good enough. They might have been right. He tried to straighten up, but the night he was killed in the one-car accident, he’d been drinking and using drugs.”

Her hands clutched in her lap. “I might have saved him.”

“Or he might have taken you down with him. Your parents were only doing what they thought was best. It’s tough being a parent,” he said thoughtfully.

Claudette looked at him. “Damien is wonderful. I’m proud to have him working for me.”

“Thank you,” Jacques said. “It wasn’t easy. He was rebellious as a teenager.”

Her lips curved and she relaxed against the chair. “He still is.”

Jacques’s arms fell to his sides. “What do you mean?”

Claudette could smile about it now, although at the time she had been annoyed with Damien. “He came to me last week and told me he was dating Angelique, that she had worked her way though two years of undergrad school as an exotic dancer and if I had a problem with it, he’d see me in court if I tried to fire him.”

Jacques grinned. “That’s my boy. He does make me proud.”

Her face softened. “He had a good example.”

He caught her hand and hunkered down in front of her, saying a little prayer that he could get back up without embarrassing himself. “Does that mean you’re going to go out to dinner with me tonight?”

Her hand trembled in his. It surprised her how much she wanted to go. “Jacques, I just threw my hus—Maurice out of my house, but I still feel like a married woman.”

“You’re not, and that’s all the more reason to go out and celebrate.” He kissed her hand. “We’re not as young as we used to be. We wait too long and the parts might not work.”

She blushed and then laughed. “Jacques.”

He picked up her other hand. “It’s good hearing you laugh again.”

“There hasn’t been much to laugh about lately.” Maurice had made her feel desire, but he had never given her laughter. She had a feeling Jacques could give her both. “I don’t know.”

“Stop thinking about what your father would have wanted, what people will say,” he told her, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice. “Do what you want.”

Her hands trembled even more in his. “I haven’t done a very good job of that in the past.”

“That’s because you haven’t had me,” he coaxed. “What do you say we give us a try?”

Claudette stared down into his warm brown eyes. Jacques was one of the most honorable and dependable men she knew. Deceit wasn’t in his nature. “If I say no, will you ask me in a couple of weeks?”

“Yes.”

She smiled and felt a lightness in her heart she hadn’t felt in a very long time. “Then ask me and we’ll see.”

*   *   *

Kristen ran an errand, called Angelique, then caught the 4:30 flight out of New Orleans. Even though she was routed through Houston, the taxi pulled up in front of her mother’s and Jonathan’s home in Shreveport shortly before seven that evening.

Picking up her small carry-on, she started up the curved driveway to the sprawling one-story ranch house nestled among towering oaks and rang the doorbell. They had wanted to give her a key, but she hadn’t wanted to impose on their privacy.

Kristen rubbed her hand up and down on her white trousers. She hadn’t called. She had no idea if her mother was at home or at one of her many volunteer meetings. Kristen’s hand clenched, and she glanced back toward the street. The likelihood of a taxi passing was slim to none. She was about to sit in the red deacon’s bench on the wide porch when she heard the lock turn.

Eleanor’s eyes went from elation to concern on seeing her daughter. In less time than it took Kristen to draw in an unsteady breath, she found herself enveloped in her mother’s arms, breathing the scent that was uniquely hers. She held on and let the tears flow.

“Honey, you’re home now. I’m here. Whatever it is, I’m here.” Somehow, Eleanor managed to get a sobbing Kristen and her luggage inside to a Queen Anne chair in the living room off the foyer. They sat in the same cushioned seat until her tears quieted.

Kristen opened her purse for a tissue and dried her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to cry all over you.”

“Honey, what is it?” Eleanor asked, smoothing Kristen’s hair back from her face.

“I’m pregnant.” The story poured out. By the time she finished, she was digging in her purse for another tissue. “I love Rafe so much, but my love only brings him pain.”

Furious, Eleanor muttered under her breath about a part of Rafe’s anatomy that she’d like to bring a little pain to and prevent him from fathering another child.

“Mother, please don’t hate him,” Kristen pleaded, then tucked her head. “It was only that one time. We both … it wasn’t his fault. I went to his place.” She finally looked up. “He believes in his father’s legacy of cruelty more than he believes in us.”

“Come on, let’s get you in bed and I’ll bring you some tea,” Eleanor said. She felt happiness at the thought of Kristen having a baby and anger that the father hadn’t cared enough to stand by her and share what should have been a joyous occasion.

“He’s making you a tea caddy for your birthday.” Kristen swallowed hard. “He made me a writing box. I forgot it. His work is beautiful.”

Eleanor didn’t trust herself to say anything. She helped Kristen to her feet and into the bedroom she used when she stayed with them. After putting her to bed, Eleanor went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Jonathan, please don’t be in surgery.”

He answered on the third ring. “Dr. Delacroix.”

“Oh, Jonathan!” Eleanor cried, her arms circling her waist as she leaned her head against the white cabinet.

“What’s the matter, Eleanor?” Jonathan asked, his usually calm and self-assured voice rising in anxiety.

“It’s our baby. I just put her to bed after she cried her heart out.” Eleanor reached for a napkin and dabbed the moisture from her own eyes. “She’s pregnant with Rafe’s baby.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Your patients—”

“Can be rescheduled or seen by Malcolm or Gerald,” he said, referring to the two associates in his practice. “What kind of man would I be if I took care of another man’s family and neglected mine?”

“I love you,” she said quietly.

“Love you, too.”

Eleanor hung up the phone, debating if she should call Adam and ask him to come. He and Kristen had always been close. Perhaps he could help, but she had a bad feeling that only Rafe could take away Kristen’s misery. Eleanor had always liked him. She had been in the courtroom in Little Elm when he’d shown the judge the scars on his back to help Lilly win her divorce case. There was something lonely about him that pulled at you, but at the moment she wanted to make a eunuch out of him without anesthesia.

The phone rang while she was debating what to do. She quickly lifted the receiver. Rafe, let this be you. “Hello.”

“Hello, Mother, it’s Adam.”

Eleanor tensed. There was no mistaking the distress in his voice. “What is it? Is Adam Jr. sick again?”

“Myron is dying and he’s asking for Lilly,” Adam said flatly. “She insists on going and I refuse to let her go by herself. We’re waiting on the cab.”

Lilly’s ex-husband continued to cause problems for her family. “You’re right to go with her. You want to drop Adam Jr. off here?”

“No. She needs him.”

“And you,” Eleanor said, understanding completely. You needed your loved ones around you even more in a crisis. “This won’t be easy for her.”

Adam snorted. “He wants her forgiveness so he can die in peace—never mind all the hell he put her through or the pain seeing him will cause. I can understand why Rafe refuses to go.”

Eleanor’s grip on the phone tightened. “Have you spoken with him today?”

“Lilly’s tried several times but she keeps getting his machine,” he told her. “We’ll call when we reach Houston. We’re staying at the Wyndham. There’s the cab. Let Kristen know, will you? I think she and Rafe have become pretty close.”

“Yes?” What an understatement. Rafe, I could cheerfully strangle you for doing this to Kristen, for making her miserable at a time when she should be happy and celebrating.

“’Bye, Mother.”

“Good-bye. Take care.” Eleanor hung up the phone. Adam and Lilly had enough to deal with without being worried about Kristen.

The back door leading from the kitchen to the garage opened. Jonathan came in with his arms wide, reaching for her. With a muffled cry, Eleanor sought the shelter and comfort of his embrace.