Bourbon Street Blues Read Online Free Page A

hadn’t known he was looking for. Something he didn’t want to want.
    “Yo, Parker!”
    Startled out of his thoughts, he turned with a frown to face the contractor. A bull of a man with a barrel chest and hands the size of dinner plates, Joe Billet was staring at him, impatience flashing in his eyes.
    “Sorry,” Parker muttered. “Just thinking.”
    “Not real happy thoughts, by the look of it,” Joe noted.
    “Not particularly. What’d you want, Joe?”
    “It’s the ladies’ room,” the other man said, already turning toward the back hall. “We got those brass fittings in there like you wanted. Thought you might want to have a look.”
    “Right.” Parker nodded and followed. Much safer to keep his mind on the café than to let it wander down roads that would only lead to trouble. He ignored the mental image of Holly Carlyle smiling at him and followed his contractor.
     
    L ATE-AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT slanted through the kitchen windows of the Hayes’ house, making the pale green walls shine with warmth. Holly sniffed the steam rising from the huge stainless-steel pot on the stove and gave the shrimp gumbo a stir.
    “Oh, my,” she said on a blissful sigh. “Shana, you are the best cook in all of New Orleans.”
    The woman at the sink laughed, tossed a dish towel over her left shoulder and shook her head. “You’re easy to please, missy.”
    “Not at all.” Holly turned from the stove, took a seat at the round, pedestal table and looked around this so-familiar room. White-painted cabinets lined the walls and brass-bottomed pots hung from an iron rack over a center island. The granite counters were scrupulously clean and empty of everything but the ingredients for tonight’s supper.
    Shana Hayes had no patience with clutter.
    Holly looked at Tommy’s wife. Her smooth, café-au-lait complexion was unlined and her wide brown eyes sparkled with laughter. Her hair was cropped close to her head and thick gold hoop earrings dangled from her ears. Tall and slim, she wore a pale yellow blouse tucked neatly into the waistband of her black skirt. Her sandals clicked merrily on thelinoleum as she walked from the sink to the stove and back again.
    “As long as you’re sitting there,” she said with a quick look, “you can shell some peas for me.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, and pulled the colander full of plump fresh peas closer to her. “I met Parker James at the hotel today.”
    “Tommy told me.” Shana’s tone was noncommittal, and Holly couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
    “He did?”
    Shana nodded. “Said the two of you were looking mighty cozy.”
    “Oh.” Holly swallowed hard. Funny, but she felt like a teenager being interrogated by her mother. Not so strange, she supposed, since Shana was as close to a real mother as Holly had ever known. “Well.”
    “He wasn’t happy about it.”
    Holly laughed shortly. “ He’s the one who told me to go over and say hello.”
    “Yes,” Shana said quietly. “But he changed his mind right quick once he realized who the man was.”
    “So he wanted me to say hello, he just didn’t want me to enjoy myself.”
    “He’s a man, honey, they don’t often make much sense.”
    “But he really doesn’t have anything to worryabout. Honest.” Why would it bother Tommy that she’d had a drink with Parker? And if he had been so all-out concerned, why hadn’t he said something to her?
    “Uh-huh.”
    “There’s nothing to worry about,” Holly said, filling the strained silence quickly. “We just talked for a while, that’s all.”
    “Is that right?”
    Cocking her head to one side, she looked at the older woman. “Aren’t you the one who’s been telling me to get out? To mingle? To start dating again?”
    “Mingle, yes. Date, yes. But, honey, Parker James is the deep end of the pool. You sure you’re ready to jump in?”
    “I’m not in anybody’s pool just yet.”
    “Not how Tommy tells it.”
    Apparently, Tommy had had plenty to say.