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intention. He had no idea how to keep her both happy and at arm’s length.
    “Melanie…I—” He tried to apologize, but she wasn’t listening.
    She clamped her lips shut, blinked rapidly, then spun on her heel and disappeared into the crowd without another word.
    See? That’s what he was talking about. Whenever things got heated, Melanie walked away rather than hanging around to slog it out. But that didn’t make him feel any better.
    He hadn’t been totally honest with her. Yes, he was afraid that if they teamed up to transform the restaurant, at some point she would leave him high and dry. But there was a lot more to his hesitation than that. He wasn’t really worried about Chez Remy’s. The restaurant had a solid reputation. What worried him was the way he felt whenever he was near her. Melanie made him want to do stupid, impulsive things. Like take her to bed.
    Damn, but he wanted her.
    And that did worry him.
    He headed to his office at the hotel and tried to work on the upcoming menus for the celebration Chez Remy had planned for Mardi Gras, but he couldn’t get Melanie out of his mind. She might appear to be tough and sassy, but he knew it was all an act designed to protect her heart. He had a few tricks like that of his own, and one of them was his journal.
    He had just started writing her out of his system and onto the pages of his journal when the phone rang.
    Caller ID told him the call was coming from the Stratosphere, his old place of employment in Seattle. He lifted the receiver with some trepidation. “Hello?”
    “Robert, it’s Joe Harding.” Joe had taken over Robert’s former job.
    “Hey, Joe. What’s up?” He tried to sound light and casual, but his grip on the phone tightened.
    “Just thought you’d like to know someone’s been calling around, asking questions about you.”
    “What kind of questions?”
    “Personal questions.”
    “By someone, do you mean like the cops or a P.I.?”
    “Don’t know who he was, but he said he was asking for a friend down in New Orleans.”
    What was this all about? Were the Marchands checking his background? But why now, four months after they’d hired him? Robert’s stomach tensed. Why couldn’t the past stay buried, damn it? He’d paid for his mistakes.
    “What did you tell the guy?” he asked Joe.
    “Me? I said nothing, but some of the wait staff spoke to him. Don’t know what they said.”
    “Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it, Joe.”
    “Hey, I know you’d do the same for me.”
    Robert hung up the phone feeling unsettled. Who in New Orleans was having him investigated?
    And why?
     
    “R OBERT L E S OEUR DOESN’T trust me to watch his back? Well, I don’t trust him to watch mine.” Melanie stormed into herapartment, mumbling under her breath and stripping off her sweaty exercise outfit as she went.
    The little black kitten that had shown up on her doorstep last week darted under the couch. She’d fed it and now she didn’t know what to do with it. She wasn’t much of a pet person. Sweet as they were, pets tied you down. Realizing she’d startled the poor thing, she immediately softened her step and stopped grumbling.
    “Here kitty, kitty, come see me.” She dropped down on her knees and peered under the couch. The kitten eyed her with apprehension. She wriggled her fingers and the little creature came to her. “I’m sorry. We won’t discuss Robert LeSoeur anymore.”
    Melanie cuddled the kitten for a few minutes, then set her down and headed for the bathroom. She tossed her clothes into the cheap discount store hamper someone had given her—why spend money on a fancy hamper when it just held dirty laundry?—then yanked the elastic band from her ponytail and tossed it onto the counter. She adjusted the shower as hot as she could stand it, stepped into the old claw-foot tub and pulled the curtain.
    Steamy water trickled over her shoulders, calming her down. Okay, so maybe she’d overreacted to Robert’s