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grabbed something from behind his seat and
exited the car. She got out before he could walk around to her side, and she
could see he was doing that. Southern manners died hard.
    He’d donned a worn leather jacket that looked like the
coolest garment nature ever created. The supple leather had molded to his body
shape, familiar creases blurring what looked like hand-drawn images. He tossed
the keys to a doorman, who grinned and touched his fingers to his hat. “How the
other half live,” she murmured.
    She’d managed to get a rental car at the airport on her
arrival, but nothing like this one and it had gone back the week after she
arrived. Bell’s paid her a decent salary, but hotel management was notorious
for low wages and hers was no exception when compared to other industries.
    He shot her an amused glance, then turned his attention to
the store’s elaborate façade. “Nice, ain’t it? My mother used to come here.”
She detected a bitter tone to his words that she didn’t understand. However,
when she added two to two, she soon got to four.
    When Bell’s had bought into Great Oaks, the first thing
they’d had to do was structural repairs. It was a wonder the place hadn’t
fallen down on its own and the worst of the damage had occurred in the last
twenty years, when Mrs. Austin Beauchene had been in charge.
    Despite not having the money for repairs, she’d shopped at
one of the costliest places in Baton Rouge. By the time Bell’s had taken over,
Mrs. Austin Beauchene’s personal belongings had been packed away. They remained
in neatly labeled packing cases in a small storeroom, waiting for her son to
claim them. He hadn’t seemed in any hurry to do so, but to do him justice, he
hadn’t had the time. Too busy making records, touring and partying with the
band. She’d read a little about the drug-addled orgies Murder City Ravens and
their ilk indulged in. And she recalled the news of one of the members going
into rehab a few years back. Was that Jace? Maybe he’d gone back to his old
ways, she thought, in a desperate effort to find something that would distance
her from him.
    Was he addicted? She didn’t think so. She wasn’t so
sheltered that she didn’t recognize the pale-faced, glassy-eyed look. Some of
the kids at her high school had spent a lot of time scoring and consuming
drugs. She’d even tried a few of the milder varieties but they hadn’t impressed
her. Pot didn’t add anything to a brownie, it was all the other way about, as
far as she was concerned. What was the point of ruining good food when there
was fine wine in the world?
    He glanced at her. “No.”
    “What?”
    “No, I’m not an addict. Not anymore.”
    She blinked, shocked. “How did you know that’s what I was
thinking?”
    He grinned but with little humor. “People get a look.
Calculating. Depends if they want the stuff or not, because everybody knows
where there are musicians there are drugs. One time, maybe. Not now.”
    He reached for her hand and she didn’t resist, stunned by
his frankness and his ability to read her thoughts. One day she’d ask him. No
she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t meet him again unless he came to one of her parents’
restaurants to eat, and then she’d stay in the kitchen if she happened to be
present. He wouldn’t remember her other than as an embarrassment.
    Despite those thoughts and her fierce denial, when they
connected, she shivered.
    “Everything okay?” He sounded as if he actually cared.
    Of course he did. He’d seen her nipples, as had all the
workers at Great Oaks that day. But at least he’d shown her his in return.
    Nobody questioned the sight of a man with a naked chest and
leather jacket towing a woman in a see-through white blouse and a shirt three
sizes too big for her walking through one of the swankiest stores in the city.
In a moment she realized why. Women stared at him, eyebrows rising, but with
smiles curving their lips, mascaraed eyes fluttering.
    That was another