Ted entered his destination into the onboard nav system. The route was easy, just follow the I-10 to the turnoff, then head south. The group would meet at the Bayou End Bed and Breakfast, check in, and then spend the first afternoon getting to know each other and understand what the week would be about.
He’d driven from the French Quarter to the Garden District home of Judge Charbonnet. Thanks to the judge, Ted knew the exact time Kirsten would leave. He waited until Kirsten had pulled out of the drive and then followed her. Blending into the ebb and flow of St. Charles Avenue, he realized it wouldn’t be hard to keep tabs on her, not in the bright red Escalade she drove.
She got on the highway, heading west. Ted plugged his iPod into the car’s stereo system, and music filled the cabin. He’d created a special playlist to drive with filled with great old classics and some new stuff, all of it upbeat, to keep him alert.
An hour later, they passed through Baton Rouge. He glanced at the display on his console, calculated the time, and figured they’d get to the B and B in about two hours. If she didn’t make any stops, that is.
While the car ate up the miles, Ted thought about the dream again. He’d skipped the fortune teller at the voodoo shop, deciding that was just too touristy. And it went in direct opposition of his stand that such things were nothing more than hocus-pocus made up for the benefit of the paying customer.
But something niggled at the corner of his brain. Cops were a superstitious breed, and in New Orleans, everything took on an air of the mysterious. He knew lots of cops that believed in voodoo, magic, and their powers.
Ahead, Kirsten motored along at just the exact speed limit, and he’d had to set his cruise control to keep from passing her. Bad enough all the other cars passed them, but he didn’t want to look like he was following her, even if he was.
However, with nearly a dozen people in the painting course, he figured most of them would be coming from nearby. It wouldn’t draw attention even if she noticed. He had his cover. He was just another artist, like her, taking a class.
But the vision of a faceless lover, covered in curling blond hair, just wouldn’t leave him alone, and before too long, he had to shift in his seat to arrange the hard-on making his jeans far too tight.
He’d packed a box of condoms and a tube of lube, just on principle. You never knew who you might meet, and there might be other artists, like him, interested in exploring the beauty and pleasures of the male body.
Still, hooking up with someone taking the course had its risks. Would he be expected to spend every night with whoever he fucked? Or worse, would he expect Ted to be there in the morning too? Or that everyone would know about their liaison?
Oh hell, no. He didn’t do mornings, didn’t do anyone more than once unless it was strictly understood there was no relationship.
Ted groaned and rubbed his cock. “Looks like no action for you, buddy. Sorry.”
Ted didn’t do the big R. Relationships. He shuddered at the thought of it. His last one, with his patrol partner, Douglas, if you could call unrequited love a relationship, had nearly killed him.
How could he have been so stupid to fall in love with a straight man? A straight man with a wife he adored. And kids. A man firmly entrenched in the heterosexual life, a man who never once gave Ted the idea that there could be any chance for them.
What a fucking disaster.
Never again. He’d taken the cure, and it had been hard and cold and painful. Hell, it’d taken nearly a year and a half of therapy just to get the image of Douglas lying in his arms, bleeding to death, out of his mind every time he closed his eyes. The complete sense of helplessness, the overpowering knowledge that he’d failed the man he loved, that he should have been first through the doors of that store, not Douglas.
Now he only saw it in his nightmares. Red blood covering everything—his hands, Douglas’s shirt, the floor of the store. Douglas gasping for air, groaning in pain, struggling to stay alive, then the goddamn utter stillness that had destroyed Ted’s heart.
If he had to spend the rest of his life never caring for another person, then so be it. Anything would be better than going through that pain again.
The B and B came into view, sited between two massive oaks, thick arms undulating down to brush the ground and then bending upward to the sky. They were similar to the ones in his dream, but not quite the same ones.
Ted pulled in, right behind Kirsten, and parked in the small lot. He kept his sunglasses on and took a deep breath. Showtime.
He got out of the car and waved to some of the others standing around on the wide porch. “Hi! Is this the place for the artists’ retreat?”
“Sure is!” One gray-haired lady sang out, as the others motioned him up to them. “You must be”—she scanned a clipboard—“Ted?”
“That’s right. Ted Canedo.” He shook hands, then turned to watch as Kirsten came up the steps, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her.
“Hi, I’m Kirsten.” She gave them all a million-dollar smile, displaying gleaming white teeth, baby blue eyes, and an adorably crinkled turned-up nose. Oh, she was a trophy; just dip her in gold, put her on a pedestal, and call her done.
There was just something so wholesome about her, he couldn’t imagine her cheating, but then again, he couldn’t imagine her marrying Charbonnet.
“Hi, Kirsten.” Ted greeted her, along with the others. He turned to the lady who seemed to be in charge. “What’s the plan? Check-in, then bags?”
The older woman nodded and motioned him inside. “Most of the others are here, and we’re still waiting for the artist himself to arrive.” She went behind the counter. “I’m Marie, one of the owners of Bayou End. My husband, Maurice, is getting the appetizers ready out in the kitchen.”
She pushed some papers across the desk at him, and he took them, signed, and gave them back. She handed him an honest-to-God old-fashioned key to his room. “You’re in the Pelican room. Upstairs, on the right, third door. The men will share a bath, hope you don’t mind. With only three of you, it shouldn’t be too hard, should it?”
“No, I’ll manage.” Ted had thought there would be more men, but if she counted the “artist himself,” that left only one more man, and the likelihood either of them was gay dwindled. The prospects for hooking up didn’t look good.
Kirsten rolled her bag up to the counter and checked in. As Ted left to go back to his car and get his bags, he heard her say, “I hope all the women don’t have to share one bathroom?”
Marie’s reassuring answer followed him out the door, but he never heard Kirsten’s reply. From what he remembered of the Web site for the B and B, it had several full baths upstairs and even one or two down.
Ted grabbed his bags, left his art supplies in the car, locked it, and headed back to the lobby, which had been a large living and dining space converted into several seating areas filled with overstuffed chairs and sofas.
He went upstairs, counted the rooms, and came to his. After fumbling with the lock, Ted opened the door and stepped inside.
It was lovely, much better than he’d thought when Marie had said “Pelican Room.” Done in browns and rustic reds, picking up the colors of the brown pelican prints on the wall, the room felt warm and cozy. The large queen bed, covered in a lovely old quilt, screamed comfort.
He ran his hand over it and pushed, sinking into what had to be a feather bed.
“Good Lord.” He sighed in appreciation and turned to put his things away. He took his kit out of the bag and placed it on his nightstand, then hung up his clothes in a tall French armoire against the wall. Through the window, he could see out over the parking lot on the side of the house.
Excellent vantage point to watch everyone who came and went. He was a lucky duck. Or pelican, as it were.
He chuckled.
Best to get back down and scope out the others. Maybe the “artist himself” had shown. If not, Ted didn’t want to miss the fanfare, confetti, or whatever accompanied the maestro’s arrival.
He trotted down the stairs and strolled over to a gathering of people in the living room. Everyone smiled at him. Most of them were ladies in their late forties and fifties, with a few younger women sprinkled in.
If he’d been straight, and fifty, this would have been a happy hunting ground. But he wasn’t, so it was neither happy nor a hunting ground.
“Is Darcy here yet?” Kirsten joined the group. She’d freshened up, put on a coat of lipstick, and pulled her hair into a loose ponytail of cascading blonde curls. She looked even younger than before.
“Do you know him?” Ted cocked an eyebrow upward, curious to see what she’d say.
“No, we’ve never met, but I just love his work.” As she talked, she moved her hands , and her huge diamond wedding set flashed like a revolving lighthouse beam. “How about you?”
So she wasn’t hiding the fact she was married.
“I didn’t really know who he was; I just wanted to get away somewhere and paint. When I found the course online, then checked him out, I liked what I saw.” Ted shrugged.
“We all come to Darcy in our own way,” intoned an older woman with short dark hair who sprawled in a high-backed green velvet chair.
The room of women twittered and giggled, and if he hadn’t been standing right there looking at them, he’d have sworn they were a group of thirteen-year-olds sighing over the latest teen heartthrob.
“So do most of you know him?” Ted sat on one of the couches.
“I’ve studied with him twice before. He’s brilliant but temperamental,” a short, plump redhead with close-cropped hair and glasses warned him. “He’s British.” As if that told him all he needed to know.
“Well, shouldn’t hold that against him.” Ted smiled. He’d done a thorough search on the Internet about their instructor. Wentworth had studied art in England and France and had made a name for himself with his impressionist landscapes. Now at almost fifty, he was doing the North American tour, teaching classes all over the country. And for what Ted had paid for the one-week course, Wentworth was making a bundle.
If the man was as charming as the ladies made him out to be, then perhaps he was the one Kirsten was hooking up with, despite her claim never to have met him.
If she was cheating with anyone. He was beginning to have his doubts about it. There were only three possibilities here at the hotel, and it certainly wasn’t Ted. That only left the missing guy, and Maurice, the owner of the place. As since Marie looked to be in her early sixties, Ted figured Maurice was not his man.
A woman rushed into the house and skidded to a stop.
“He’s here! He’s here!”
Everyone, except the woman in the chair and Ted, bolted for the door. Ted glanced at her, she shrugged and jerked her head toward the doorway.
“I suppose we should attend the official arrival.” She stood, and Ted rose too.
“As long as I don’t have to curtsey.” Ted offered her his arm. She took it as he led her out the door and onto the porch. “It seems he’s made quite an impression on everyone.”
“Darcy tends to do that.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “His appearance is striking, and he has this way about him.” She winked at him. “Sort of a cross between Fabio and Andy Warhol.”
Andy Warhol with a long flowing mane of white-blond hair and Fabio’s muscle-bound body?
Now, this Ted had to see.