Blood Red (10 page)

He hadn't been out on the road in eons. He hadn't driven this way since he'd returned to New Orleans, and he wasn't even sure right now why the temptation to do so had become so strong.

He knew he was in the right place, though.

But the house was long gone, and nothing had been built in its stead. There was only a tangle of growth covering the property.

He wondered idly who owned it now. Easy enough to find out, he imagined.

He stared at the property for a while, then walked along the sweeping drive. Some of the oaks and magnolias remained, as did the foundation. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine what it had been. Hear laughter.

It had been a great house, long ago.

He turned and headed back to his car. The past couldn't be changed, but the future loomed ahead, and he damn well meant to change it.

“A hurricane, please,” Deanna told their server. He was tall, ebony, and had a smile that could light up the world. He was also outrageously flirtatious, and they were being flirtatious in return.

“Hurricane,” he murmured.

Deanna hesitated, afraid she had done something that was now incorrect. “People still order hurricanes, right?” she asked weakly.

The waiter offered them his killer grin again. “Yes. Hey, it's just a drink, you know? We had one bar that never closed during the whole storm. When they ran out of beer, the owners went over and picked some up at the A&P, and left an I.O.U. Anyway, it wasn't really the hurricane that did us in, it was the flood waters. You go right ahead and order whatever you want.”

“Thanks,” Deanna said. “What a face,” she murmured, watching the waiter leave to get their drinks.

“Not bad buns, either,” Heidi said, laughing.

They could actually hear each other speak, Lauren noticed. Maybe a lot of people had stayed inside after all. But not them. They'd overeaten at K-Paul's, then chosen a place offering smooth jazz. In fact, Lauren thought she recognized one of the musicians, a huge African-American man. He was playing a saxophone, while she could have sworn that earlier in the day he had been playing a trombone.

“Hey, you're engaged,” Deanna reminded her.

“I know that. I'm still on the look-out for the two of you.”

“Heidi, please,” Lauren groaned.

“That's right. She's already earmarked for tall, dark and handsome cottage six,” Heidi teased.

Lauren refused to rise to the bait and instead listened to the smooth tones of the music, her gaze directed toward the band again. The big man she had seen earlier nodded, as if he recognized her, as well.

She lifted her beer to him.

He grinned, then started playing his sax again.

The bar was busy, but fairly large, and the acoustics were good. “Irene's—great place for dinner,” she heard, as someone next to her recommended it to someone else at.
It is
, she thought.

For a moment, it felt good just to be there.

“Deanna, he's gorgeous,” Heidi said, startling Lauren from her thoughts. She looked back to her two companions. Heidi was tilting her head dramatically, indicating the waiter. “You have to make a play for him.”

“Deanna is waiting for Jonas,” Lauren heard herself say, then wondered why.

Deanna flushed, obvious even in the dim light, and Lauren caught her breath.

Her friend
was
waiting for Jonas.

Heidi sighed dramatically. “What a waste of hot masculinity.”

“You go ahead and flirt with him, then,” Deanna said.

“Heidi, you have to let
us
choose who we want to flirt with,” Lauren insisted.

“I just want everyone to be as happy as I am. I want it for the whole world. Can you imagine? No mistrust, no war, because everyone would always be really happy, even the people running all the countries.”

Lauren stared across the table, and Deanna tilted her beer bottle and grinned. “I think she's had a few.”

“Think about it,” Heidi said stubbornly. “Laugh if you want gto. But let's face it, we have some world leaders out there who would definitely benefit from a better sex life.”

Lauren smiled, relaxed and ready to go with the flow after three beers.

“Here, here,” Deanna said dryly as the waiter swooped in with her hurricane. She managed a thank-you, but she wasn't even really looking at him. Her gaze was riveted on the bar.

Lauren quickly turned, trying to see what had captured Deanna's attention, and she saw him at last. Deanna's stranger.

She tensed immediately.

He was attractive. Tall, six-one or so, and lean. Just under or about thirty, with thick, dark, slightly wavy hair, one strand falling and forming a C on his forehead. He pushed it back, accepting a drink, thanking the bartender. Then he turned and saw Deanna.

He smiled. Nice smile.

Deanna stood. Hurricane in hand, she started toward the bar.

“What?” Heidi demanded.

Lauren, too, was on her feet. “It's him,” she explained.

“Him, who?”

“Deanna's…crush,” Lauren supplied. “Jonas.”

She followed Deanna with her eyes, but before her friend could reach Jonas, someone came between them. Like a brick wall, he was very definitely trying to prevent Jonas from rendezvousing with Deanna.

Had Mark been there all along, watching them?

Apparently so.

As she watched, Jonas reacted to whatever Mark was saying. A flicker of something like fear flashed in his eyes, and he shook his head. It looked like he was saying, “You don't understand,” but she couldn't be sure.

Mark set a hand on the other man's chest, and a touch of anger, then defiance, showed on Jonas's face. She decided the time had come to intervene and hurried over to her friend.

“What the hell is Mark doing?” Deanna demanded when Lauren reached her.

“Picking a fight, it looks like,” Lauren said. She looked back toward the table. Heidi had taken her own advice and was oblivious to on the tension on their side of the room; she was talking to their waiter, laughing, showing him her engagement ring.

To be fair to Heidi, very few of the patrons seemed to notice that anything was going on. The music had stopped, and the lead singer was talking about the history of jazz in New Orleans, and most people's focus was on him. She looked at the big man she'd seen twice today.

He had noticed what was going on and was closely watching the two men.

And speaking softly to someone on his cell phone.

She returned her gaze to the action right in front of her. Mark had a hand on Jonas's arm now, and his expression was tense as he used his other hand to indicate a hallway that led to the back.

“They're going to go outside and fight!” Deanna said, incredulous.

Could Deanna be right? Lauren wondered.
She
had noticed a narrow alley out back.

Jonas started in that direction. Mark followed. Deanna stared.

Lauren pushed past her, aggravated that Mark's protective attitude was getting out of hand.

She made her way to the hallway, past the restrooms and a delivery of beer, and out the back to a small courtyard with scattered tables, which was only half filled with people. The wrought iron gate from the courtyard to the alley was ajar.

Lauren raced forward, pushing through it and catching up to the two men.

“You don't know anything,” Jonas insisted to Mark, who had pushed the younger man up against a wall. “You don't know
anything
.”

“I intend to.”

“I'm not your enemy.”

“You're one of them.”

“Mark!” She ran up and put a hand on his shoulder. He stiffened, teeth grating, face taut with fury and tension as he turned to her.

“Get out of here, Lauren. Now.”

“I am not going to let you beat this man to a pulp,” she said.

“Excuse me,” Jonas interjected. “I'm not exactly a weakling,” he said with a touch of indignation.

Mark turned back to him, and Jonas started to take a swing at him, but Mark was too fast. He blocked the blow coming his way, then counter jabbed. Jonas took his fist in the jaw and sagged.

“Stop it!” Lauren shouted.

“He's asked for it,” Jonas insisted. Something in his eyes—in his entire demeanor—seemed to change.

He let out a hissing sound and flew toward Mark.

Lauren heard movement behind her. She swung around, expecting Deanna to go rushing past her into the fray.

But it wasn't Deanna.

It was the sax player.

“I've called the cops,” he snapped. “So take your beef out of here—now!”

He had a beer in his hand and threw it at the men. It looked to Lauren as if a haze appeared between her and the men, like a mist, or a fog, rising in the shadows. She heard a hiss of fury but couldn't tell where—or who—it came from.

She could hear sirens wailing. Bourbon was closed off to normal traffic at night, but the next thing she knew, cop cars were pulling up on the cross street, and two mounted officers rode into the alley, as well.

“Fight over there,” the sax player said, pointing.

“Where?” one of the mounted officers asked.

“Right there!” Lauren said impatiently, facing him fully, then turning back toward the spot where the two men had been.

But no one was there. Somehow, in the dimly lit alley, with nowhere for them to go, Mark and Jonas had managed to disappear.

She heard a car door open and close. Aplainclothes police officer, tall, graying at the temples, but with steel blue eyes and an attitude as powerful as his size, was striding into the alley.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” the big musician said.

“Big Jim, what's going on?”

“A fight—the kind that looked like it could have turned bloody,” Big Jim supplied.

“Between…?” the lieutenant asked.

“They were right there. This—Big Jim told them to stop and threw beer at them, and then they both…took off, I guess,” Lauren said.

The steel blue eyes settled on her. “And you are?”

“My name is Lauren Crow,” she said.

He looked around. “And you were egging on one of the participants?” he inquired.

“Of course not! I came out to tell Mark to leave the other guy alone.”

“And Mark is…your boyfriend?” the lieutenant asked.

“No! He's just someone we…we met. He's staying at our bed and breakfast,” Lauren explained quickly. Oh, God, what kind of a mess had the far too good-looking lunatic gotten her into?

The mounted patrolmen took off down the alley.

The lieutenant's partner got out of the car and stood silently in the background. As two more uniformed officers arrived from the second car, the lieutenant raised a hand. “I've got it, guys. Doesn't look like we've got a situation anymore anyway.”

“Sure. Night, Lieutenant Canady,” one of them called.

“Hey, Lieutenant, you're working late,” the second man said, respect in his voice.

“Yeah, well…anyway, I've got this. Thanks,” Canady told him.

“Yessir.” The pair spoke in unison and headed back to their car.

“Mark,” Canady said. “Mark…?”

“His name is Mark Davidson.”

“I see.”

He had a notebook out, but he wasn't writing. “And who was the other man?”

“I don't know him. He and a friend of mine have had a few conversations,” Lauren said. Oh, great. Now she was dragging Deanna into it. “She doesn't really know him, either.” She looked toward the wrought iron fence, the courtyard and the bar. Deanna was nowhere to be seen. “She's still inside, I guess. I thought he—Jonas—was going to start a fight, and…I guess I thought I could stop it.”

“Is that what happened, Big Jim?” Canady asked the sax player.

“Just the way I saw it,” Big Jim said.

She wanted to kiss him. She let out a sigh of relief and swore silently that she was going to have nothing more to do with Mark Davidson.

She heard the sound of hooves. The mounted officers were returning.

“If there were two guys about to tear each others' throats out, there's not a sign of them anywhere around here. Big Jim must have doused the fight right out of them,” one of them said.

“Thanks, Macinaw,” the lieutenant said.

“We'll be back out on Bourbon,” the mounted officer told him.

The lieutenant nodded and watched them ride toward the street.

Then he startled Lauren when he took a step toward her and indicated her throat. “That's an interesting cross you're wearing. Antique.”