Or had he lied because she was pretty?
Carter shook away the troublesome thoughts. If she was booked through June…he could practically hear the profits cha-chinging already. If only he could get the doors open. He checked his watch, annoyed he’d been called down here to meet the safety inspector only to find the place empty. Well, almost empty.
A twinge of guilt nagged at him. At least he hadn’t lied about being a lawyer. He was licensed to practice law in New York, and he was the lead counsel for Hammond House, securing all the proper permits and ensuring all the boxes got checked before the first guest showed up.
A rap sounded on the glass, and Carter leapt to his feet, forgetting for a moment about the still-healing stitches below his knee. They didn’t forget, though, and pain screamed up to his hip and down to his ankle.
He managed to hobble to the door and unlock it, letting in the thin man carrying a clipboard with a thick wad of papers attached to it. Papers Carter needed the safety inspector to sign so he could release his event planner to move forward with the grand opening celebrations.
“Hello, Mister Thomas.” Carter shook hands with the man, easily sliding into his public relations skin. Heaven knew he’d had countless hours of practice working for his father’s commercial real estate firm.
“Mister Hammond.” The safety inspector’s eyes swept the lobby, and a pinch of annoyance snagged in the back of Carter’s throat. His designs were flawless, his construction foreman meticulous. If Mr. Thomas had been able to fit them into his busy schedule last week, Carter could be opening this weekend.
He stifled the irritation and swept his hand toward the kitchen. “Should we start in the back of the house?”
Mr. Thomas flipped a paper. “I’d like to start in the guest rooms, actually. You have fourteen, correct?” The man peered over his glasses.
“Correct.” Carter stepped toward the triple-wide staircase. “Should we take the elevator or the stairs?”
“I only need an official certificate of safety for the elevator,” Mr. Thomas said. “So let’s take the stairs.”
Two hours later, Carter escaped the not-yet-air conditioned Hammond House, loosening his tie as he crossed the street to the beach. He’d finished one of the most grueling inspections of his life, especially as this one felt so personal. Before, his father took care of the issues, gave assignments to his people to get the job done and the doors opened.
Carter had to do all of that himself now, in an unknown city he felt a pull to as strong as gravity. He ran his fingers through his hair, taking a moment to enjoy the sunshine and the glint of light bouncing off the Gulf of Mexico.
“Most people wear swimming suits to the beach.”
Carter twisted to his left, careful not to torque his injured leg. He’d twist farther though, if he could get a better look at the stunning woman standing just a few feet behind him. “Sabrina Arnold.”
“It’s actually just Bri.” She focused on the horizon, her dark honey eyes far away but intoxicating nonetheless. “Look, I’m really sorry—”
“Forget about it,” Carter said, drinking in her bronze skin—and wishing he had a beverage to cool his suddenly parched throat. “It’s no big deal.”
“It is to me, Jason.”
“I actually go by Carter.” At least that was the truth.
She nodded and tucked her hands into her cutoffs. “You wanna walk?”
“Walk?” He peered in the direction she was looking.
“Yeah.” A smile tugged against the corners of her mouth and she swept her arms toward the wide open water. “Some people like to walk on the beach. It relaxes them.”
Nerves skittered through Carter, making his wound tingle. “Did you come over here to relax?”
She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Sometimes the bed and breakfast business is a little overwhelming.” She glanced at her hands like they had something undesirable on them.
“I’m sure it is.”
She took a couple of steps away, but Carter stayed where he was, unsure if his leg could handle the push required to walk in the squishy sand. But living alone in New Orleans this past month had been harder than he’d anticipated. He’d lived alone in New York City too, but he knew that city. Knew the people in his father’s firm, knew a dinner out with friends was a phone call away.
Here, he didn’t have friends. Carter reminded himself he also didn’t have his father breathing down his neck, and that reward was worth any number of lonely nights with a microwaved meal for one.
But here was Bri, looking at him over her shoulder, her dark curls wafting in the breeze. Carter wasn’t stupid enough to think they could really be friends. But maybe they didn’t have to be enemies.
“Can we go slow?” he asked, exaggerating his limp as he made to follow her. “I hurt my leg, and it’s still healing.”
Bri’s eyes swept down his leg as she waited for him to join her. They stepped together, him moving at the speed of a sloth and Bri kind enough to accommodate him.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was walking around Hammond House when I shouldn’t have been.”
She stopped dead, facing him with wide eyes. She swallowed hard enough for him to see the movement in her slender neck.
He threw his head back and laughed. “That was a joke.” He took a stiff step, relieved when she came with him. “Though I did get injured at Hammond House, when I was walking through with the construction foreman.” Which was why the safety inspection had taken two blasted hours. And the questions! Endless.
But Bri didn’t need to know any of that. “So tell me about New Orleans,” he said.
She flung her arms wide. “What do you want to know?”
He chanced a glance at her, somewhat surprised at how hot his blood ran with her beauty, how comfortable he felt. “My mother is buried here,” he said, the words spilling from his mouth as if he needed to get them out. “When the chance arose to come here and work on Hammond House, I took it, no questions asked.”
“I’m sorry about your mom,” Bri said, her own voice slathered in sadness. “Did you know her while she was alive?”
His lips flattened into a line. “No. My father didn’t speak of her much, and we don’t have the kind of relationship where I could ask him now.”
She nodded as if she understood complicated relationships, and Carter suddenly found more than her cutoffs and the leg they showed attractive.
“Did you grow up here?” he asked.
She bobbed her head up and down. “My parents died when I was young. Car accident. I was raised by my nana.”
Carter’s fingers brushed hers as he stepped, and he pulled them away, though he felt a connection to Bri that ran as deep as his own history to New Orleans.
“Is she still alive?” he asked.
Bri rubbed her arms like it was cold on the beach. “This isn’t exactly relaxing me.”
He chuckled, the sound half filled with nerves. “Sorry. I have a tendency to ask too many questions.”
She slid him a sideways glance that showed she wasn’t upset. “Must be the lawyer in you.”
“Must be.” They walked a few paces with only the sea breeze between them. “One more question…?”
“Oh, all right.” She grinned, and the warmth behind it matched the near-summer sun. “Go on then.”
“Will you show me around the city? Teach me the history? I—” Carter tried to clear the emotion from his voice, but he only succeeded in scratching his throat. “I never knew my mother, and I’d like to.”
Bri squinted at him, and Carter wondered what she was thinking.
“This isn’t about mining me for my B&B knowledge, is it?”
Carter’s feet found roots in the sand. “What? No.” He couldn’t believe she’d asked such a thing. Hadn’t she heard the strangled emotion in his voice?
“Just checking. There’s a gala—”
“Bri?” a man called from behind them on the beach.
She turned toward the sound, her eyes rolling back in her head when she saw the man coming toward them. She looked back at Carter with pure panic racing through her expression, twisting to face him and put herself between him and the approaching figure. “I need a favor.”
Carter glanced at the guy walking toward them. Walking really fast. Almost a run, really.
“With him?”
“Hold my hand,” she hissed as the man arrived. Her hand slid down his arm and into his.
“Bri, it is you.”
She twisted, sliding herself into Carter’s side. “Oh, hey, Wes.”
Wes wasn’t bad looking, in Carter’s opinion. Tall, but more on the eats-too-many-Twinkies side than the pro-quarterback side. Sandy blond hair, eager blue eyes. Over-eager, maybe.
He grinned at Bri until he noticed her hand twined with Carter’s. Wes’s face fell and when he regained his composure, a hint of anger stained his expression.
“Who’s this?” Wes glared at Carter like his skin radiated poisonous fumes.
Bri glanced at him, her eyes on full begging mode. “This is my boyfriend, Carter.”
“Carter who?”
Carter disentangled his fingers from Bri’s and offered his hand to Wes. “I’m Jason Carter.”
Wes dismissed him before he’d finished speaking. “So I guess you don’t need my extra ticket for tonight’s gala?” he asked Bri.
Carter’s ears perked up, and he reached for Bri’s hand again, squeezing once. Was it a universal sign that one squeeze meant yes, two for no?
“Actually, Wes, I do.” She glanced at Carter. “If you’re still willing to give it to me, then Carter can get in.”
Carter very much wanted to get in, though he was suddenly more excited about spending the time with Bri than trying to situate himself into whatever New Orleans culture was happening tonight. But he didn’t think Wes wanted to give Bri his extra ticket. Oh, no. It was very clear Wes wanted to attend with Bri.
She flashed Wes a huge smile, and even Carter found himself softening. Whatever she wanted, she could have.
Wes clearly wasn’t immune to the brunette’s charms. His shoulders slumped and he sighed. “Yeah, okay.” He reached into this pocket and thrust the ticket at her. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Bri squealed and engulfed Wes in a quick hug. “Thanks, Wes.”
He held on a moment too long, took too deep of a breath. Carter catalogued it all, wondering why Bri didn’t want to be on Wes’s arm at whatever gala was happening tonight.
She fingered the ticket while Wes headed back to the Abbington parking lot.
“So, I guess we’re going to a gala.” Carter plucked the ticket from Bri’s fingers and found the Jazz and Heritage Gala insignia—the same one he’d seen around town for weeks. He’d never been much into jazz, but then again, he’d never come to New Orleans either.
“Ooh, black tie. I’ll have to dust off my tux.” He slid his fingers into hers again, semi-surprised she didn’t yank them away.
Something moved between them. Something magnetic, that spoke of a force larger than either of them.
“You brought a tux from New York?” She removed her hand from his, but it happened in slow motion, like she was doing so unwillingly.
This is crazy, he told himself. She doesn’t even know your real name.
“I brought my whole wardrobe,” Carter said. “I moved here to open Hammond House.” He limped toward his new establishment, his skin missing the warmth of hers.
“You’re opening Hammond House?” Bri asked.
Carter almost fell, but managed to pass off his stumble as part of his limp. “Of course. The owner can’t come down until right before the grand opening, and there are many details that need to come together before then.”
“You don’t really need to come to the gala,” she said. “I mean, you can if you want, but you don’t have to. I’m sure you have a ton of work to do for the grand opening. I just didn’t want to go with—anyway, thanks for helping me out with Wes. He’s a nice guy, but—”
Carter put his finger on Bri’s lips to quiet her, imagining what it would be like to kiss her. He stared at her mouth for a moment past appropriate before lifting his eyes to meet hers. “I have time for the gala. It’ll help me get out, learn more about the city.”
He didn’t articulate that what he wanted to learn more about was her.
Chapter Three:
Her lips still buzzing from Carter’s touch, Bri stood in front of her mirror, the guest house in the corner of Nana’s property sweltering in the record heat. She’d forgotten to turn on the air conditioner before she’d left for work.
She scraped her sweaty bangs off her forehead and cringed at the antiseptic smell of her hands. But she’d wrestled with a toilet and couldn’t quite be convinced her hands didn’t still smell like it. At least she’d won. The new fixture in the bathroom didn’t leak anymore, but she did need a new bottle of hand sanitizer.
She couldn’t believe how quickly her plans for the Jazz and Heritage Gala had changed. She’d been planning to skip this year’s event instead of attending with Wes, sitting with Nana for a few minutes while he worked, and slipping out the back like she usually did.
Wes worked security for the city, and the week-long Jazz Fest usually wore him to the bone. The kick-off gala normally cost hundreds of dollars per plate, but Wes got in free, with a plus one. And Nana, a long-time contributor to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, always bought a seat for dinner. But she hadn’t been feeling well this week, and she’d told Bri that morning that she wouldn’t be attending the gala.
Bri hadn’t intended to take Wes’s extra ticket, but then again, she never intended to go out with him, something she’d made very clear. The hope the man possessed was admirable, if she thought about it.
Sighing, she turned away from her reflection, satisfied that the elaborate French knot she’d tied in her hair would stay. She stood in front of the fan she’d positioned to blow into the bathroom to make sure she didn’t sweat through her makeup, wishing she’d had the foresight to tell Carter she’d meet him at the gala.
She hadn’t gotten his phone number either. Nope. She’d just left him standing at the entrance to his boxy B&B and employed her Dismissive Tone when she’d said good-bye.
A wiggle of discomfort spread through her as she remembered holding his hand. The feeling had bordered on ridiculous—no way she and her new rival’s lawyer could be anything but mere acquaintances. Friends wouldn’t even work.
And yet…something had existed between them. Something powerful, that spoke of companionship, especially after she’d learned his mother was from New Orleans and that he’d never met her. Bri felt robbed of getting to know her own parents too. And that ache never went away.
She switched off the fan. “It helps that he’s as handsome as the day is long,” she muttered, repeating something Nana used to say about her husband.
“Who is?”
Bri yelped and leapt backward, her right ankle twisting as her heel hit the uneven tiles in her bathroom.
Carter stood at the mouth of her hallway, his handsomeness practically beaming down on her. The man must’ve had a master tailor craft his tux, because nothing off the rack could fit a man so well through the shoulders, hang just right at his waist, be pressed into such crisp lines.
The man screamed attractive. And wealthy.
“Carter, you scared me.” She stepped tenderly on her right foot, relief gushing through her when only a twinge of pain registered. At least she wouldn’t be limited because of yet another bathroom problem. “How did you get in?”
“Sorry.” He ducked his head for a moment, then raised his eyes again to meet hers, a measure of sheepishness in his gaze that struck her as adorable. “I asked your front desk clerk where you lived when I realized we never made plans for tonight.” He flipped his phone over a couple of times while panic poured through her at what he’d seen at Abbington House. Did he find the
“lobby” quaint? Run down? Boring?
“I should probably get your number.”
Bri blinked, trying to get her mouth to keep up with her mind. Seconds passed before she finally quipped, “Oh, you should, huh?” Bri plucked his phone from his fingers and swiped it on.
“Yes,” he said, following her with a stunted gait into the front room, where the door stood slightly ajar. “I knocked, by the way. Called out too. I didn’t just barge in.”
“Sure, you didn’t.” Bri flashed him a grin over her shoulder, not surprised she hadn’t heard his knock over the roar of the fan.
“Are you entering your number? I mean, we could get separated tonight, or I might need to know the best place in the city to order eggs benedict tomorrow.”
Amusement danced through her, exhibiting itself on her face in the form of a coy smile. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.” She typed in her name and number. “Most guys who want my number just ask for it.” She held his phone out to him.
He took it and slipped it into his pocket. “Does that happen a lot? You know, guys asking for your number.”
Bri laughed, the sound round and full of body. “I’d have to go out for that to happen.”
Carter took a step closer. “So you and Wes…there’s only something between you for him, right?”
“Are you asking if I’m single?” Bri enjoyed the swooping of her stomach, though her brain shrieked that she and Carter could only be acquaintances.
Acquaintances!
Do you see his shoulders in that tux? His dark hair so devilishly swept to the side? Come on!
“Are you?” he asked.
She tucked her elbow into his. “I’m assuming you have a fancy car, Mister Carter. So I’ll let you drive.” She didn’t want him to know she rode a bicycle to work and back each day. She liked the exercise, and well, the money she might’ve used to pay for a car she spent on new toilets for Abbington House.