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heard. You here to get even with people, son?”
    He’d thought that’s why he had come home. But now… The memories of Irene’s goodness, finding the town in such sad straits and the odd tenderness he’d felt when Kate had asked his help for a friend and not herself made him want to reconsider his intentions.
    Hell. Not sure of his own motivations anymore, Chase ignored Irene’s question and asked one of his own. “Did you ever meet my grandmother Steele? Did she ever come to Bayou City? I don’t remember meeting her or even hearing her name when I was a kid.”
    Irene shook her head sadly. “No, child. Your mother, Francine, died believing her own mother hated her for marrying your father. I tried to encourage Francine to call Lucille when the time was getting close for your birth.” Irene hesitated and sighed. “I think she might’ve done it eventually…if she’d lived.”
    Chase had no memory of his mother, only pictures and the stories that Irene had told him when he’d been little. He didn’t have any reason to grieve for a woman that he’d never known. But inheriting money and a family from her had made him rather sorry that they’d missed talking to each other.
    â€œWhy did my mother marry my father, Irene?” Knowing what he’d learned recently about Lucille Steele and her family, he couldn’t imagine now why ayoung woman from such a good home would run off and marry the town drunk.
    Irene laughed. “Love would be my guess. But that’s a question that you should ask of your father.”
    Chase remembered asking his father lots of family questions as a boy. Only he’d never gotten any answers. He’d learned early that simply asking the questions only made his father sink further into the drunken stupor that had been his old man’s constant companion back then.
    Today, his father wanted to talk, but Chase couldn’t manage to listen. There was too much heartache in the past for him to forgive.
    He shrugged off Irene’s suggestion. “Someday maybe.”
    After he’d said goodbye to Irene, he spun the Jag around in her front yard and headed back to the B&B. There wasn’t time now to go look at the old shack.
    And that was really for the best. Too much thinking and talk about his childhood unsettled him, and he wanted to be sharp for his confrontation with Kate tonight.
    Something had snapped in him when he’d seen her out on the terrace last night. His whole body ached to touch her—to taste her—once again.
    His gut clenched and his mouth watered at the mere thought of her. Those weren’t the reactions he thought he would have after all this time of hating her. But there it was. Nothing to do but make the most of it.
    Â 
    The best restaurant around was not in Bayou City but fifteen miles away at a country crossroads closer to New Iberia. A place where it was usually impossible to get a table at the last minute, the owner of Kizzy’s Café greeted Chase like an old friend and seated them in a private corner at a booth set for two.
    Everything was so lovely. Kate marveled at the eclectic feel of the antique country store that had been turned into a modern Cajun fine dining establishment. Crisp, white tablecloths, mismatched chairs and cozy booths hidden in secret corners. Heavy blue pottery dishes, and centerpieces of baby pink roses in shiny silver vases.
    Her friend Shelby had first learned to cook as an employee of this restaurant before Madeleine was born. But Kate herself had never been in the place.
    Looking around to see if she knew any of the other diners, Kate was pleased to see that no one else in the place had taken any notice of them. The gossip around town about her and Chase had already reached epic proportions. If anyone from Bayou City saw them out together it would only make things much worse.
    The waiter brought a bottle of expensive sauvignon blanc