- -
- 100%
- +
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
To my very own hero—always.
Happy anniversary, honey!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Coming Next Month
Prologue
When the trouble first started
EXACTLYwhy had she fallen in love with this man again? Right now, Jillian Landry honestly couldn’t remember, which was saying something since this man was her husband of seven years. Before marriage she’d dated him for five years and, before that, tagged after him for the better part of her life. Ever since the day her older brother had returned from kindergarten to proclaim Michael Landry as his new best friend.
But at the moment…after being restrained in said husband’s dental chair, Jillian couldn’t remember what she’d ever seen in a man who’d obviously lost his mind between the time he’d locked up the clinic after the staff’s departure and his return trip.
“Michael, what are you doing?”
Flipping off the overhead fluorescent lights, he shot her a smile that dazzled in the suddenly dim room. “I’m creating a fantasy for you. You said you wanted a fantasy, remember?”
Oh, she remembered all right. The whole idea of fantasies had come up during a conversation at a recent Main Street Rehabilitation fund-raiser. She and Michael had been chatting with the Prestons during cocktail hour, when Amelia Preston—a society matron with enough money to discuss whatever was on her mind—began an interrogation about how to keep the romance alive in a marriage.
Jillian hadn’t been sure whether Amelia had been grilling guests for tidbits to spice up her own decades-old marriage or the dull pre-dinner party. Whatever the motivation, she’d succeeded in getting Jillian to consider the question in the car on the way home.
No denying that after seven years of marriage, there’d been some trade-off of excitement for predictability. Not necessarily a bad thing, she’d been quick to point out. Orgasms were better than ever because practice made perfect. After so much practice, Michael was a locksmith with all the right keys.
But she’d admitted to seeing the appeal of a little fantasy now and then to keep the romance alive.
Apparently now was then.
The best Michael could come up with was handcuffs?
“Are you open for something different tonight, Jilly?” Michael shrugged off his white lab coat to reveal the shirt and pants she’d just picked up from the cleaners yesterday.
“Dare I ask how different?”
He strode purposefully toward her, his smile promising a satisfying answer to her question. “How about you just stick around to find out?”
Stick around?
Testing the steel restraining her to his dental chair, the very one his last patient had vacated not a half hour earlier, Jillian had to wonder where he thought she could go.
She wouldn’t ask where he’d gotten the handcuffs. Michael cared for the smiles of over half the police force in their hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. And those spit-polished good old boys—most of whom were lifelong friends—would be smiling if they knew why Michael wanted restraints. Just the thought was enough to make her wince.
Or maybe the crick in her neck was to blame.
Or her numb arm and tingling fingers.
“How about you just relax and trust me to show you a good time?” Michael loomed over her, blue eyes glinting with sexy innuendo, and slipped his hands beneath her uniform smock.
His warm fingers caressed her skin with tantalizing slowness as he eased the hem up, up, up, until he bared her bra to his gaze.
With that smile still playing around his lips, he descended, his mouth making contact with her skin to trail moist kisses in the wake of his hands.
“That feels nice.”
“You just wait.” His words broke against her skin in breathy bursts then, in one skilled move, he popped open the fastener on her bra.
Her breasts tumbled free, nipples puckering at contact with the climate-controlled air. Michael was there instantly, dragging his warm tongue over one peak in an arousing stroke, easing his fingers around the other and weighing her in his warm palm.
Willing herself to relax, Jillian forced her focus onto her husband’s sexy ministrations and not the dull throb of her shoulder. She supposed there’d been no other place to attach the handcuffs besides the mechanism under the chair arm. She might have suggested something more user-friendly had Michael not taken her by surprise by cuffing her here in the first place.
Now, she didn’t want to say anything he might perceive as a lack of enthusiasm. He wanted to create a fantasy tonight, and as she’d been the one to pursue Amelia Preston’s conversation…
But Jillian couldn’t help wondering if Michael had taken action on that conversation because he’d noticed the trade-off between excitement and predictability, too.
Surely all the passion couldn’t have gone after only seven years of marriage?
Of course not.
Through sheer determination, Jillian forced all her focus onto the feel of Michael’s mouth on her, the caress of his warm hands, the promise of an orgasm that was bound to leave her gasping.
Arching her back slightly, she lifted her breasts in an eager posture and bullied her libido into a response.
And there it was…a life sign.
Awareness flickered deep inside, and she closed her eyes to shut out everything but the feel of Michael’s mouth, the swirl of his tongue, the slow pull of his lips.
He let his hands join the game, pinching her nipples as if recognizing he’d have to break out the heavy artillery to coax her body to life after such an exhausting day.
A few firm squeezes did the trick. Her insides melted, and desire pooled warmly between her thighs.
“Mmm.” She exhaled the sigh on a breath.
“Like that, do you?” Michael sounded very pleased with her response.
“You know I do.”
He squeezed again, this time earning a shiver. “I can think of a few other things you like, too.”
“Be still my heart.”
He chuckled. “Uh-uh, Jilly. There’s going to be nothing still about you by the time I’m through.”
To prove his point, he caught the elastic waistband of her pants and tugged them over her hips and down her legs. Then he reared back and raked a hungry gaze over her.
“As gorgeous as ever.” He dragged his fingertips lightly over her stomach, a teasing touch that made her tremble. Then he toyed with the edge of her cotton panties, easing his fingers inside just enough to make her sound breathless when she said, “I’m very glad you think so.”
“Oh, I do, my beautiful bride. I do.” To prove his point, he gazed down pointedly at his crotch, drawing her attention to the promising bulge there.
“If I had free hands, I’d undress you, too.”
“Allow me.”
She thought he might free her, but he began a careful striptease instead. So, lying in his dental chair, nearly naked and definitely aroused, she watched him peel away clothes that showed the effects of the long day to reveal all the tantalizing secrets below.
He was just thirty-two, two years older than she was, and she could still see the boy she’d fallen in love with inside this more mature version. He’d been the high-school football star. The handsome homecoming king. The proud fraternity president. A devastatingly romantic groom.
Jillian still felt a tingle when she thought about all those yummy memories, still admired his strong features, the glossy black hair that contrasted so sharply with his blue eyes.
Michael.
She’d been involved with him for most of her life. She supposed it was only natural that their relationship ebbed and flowed. They’d weather this lull just as they’d weathered tough years during college and dental school and a financially difficult start to his practice.
Of course they would.
1
Several weeks later
THE WHINING of the high-speed drill hadn’t faded to silence before Michael Landry heard his wife say, “I’m leaving now.”
Glancing up from his patient, who reclined in the dental chair with his open mouth exposing a problem molar, Michael found Jillian standing in the doorway. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her, looking all brisk and businesslike in her colorful smock and white pants.
She wore the same uniform as his staff, although she’d applied her business degree toward managing his office ever since he’d set up his practice after dental school. Several years might have passed since they’d bought this old building in downtown Natchez, but Jillian looked the same as the sparkling-eyed young girl he’d fallen in love with so long ago.
She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Strawberry-blond hair waved around her face, and she had warm brown eyes that could melt with pleasure or twinkle with laughter. She could still catch him off guard with her smile.
“You remember we have an interview with the caretakers from New Orleans at the camp tonight,” she said.
“What time is it again?” He wasn’t about to admit he hadn’t remembered.
“Seven. If you lock up right after your last patient and leave with the staff, you should have plenty of time to get through traffic.”
“To Camp Cavelier?” Louis Bernard lifted his head from the headrest, almost nailing the equipment tray before Michael made a quick save. “You’ll make the camp by seven if you’re driving on the shoulder up State Road Twenty.”
“Not if he leaves with the staff,” Jillian said firmly. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wait for you?”
“You said you needed to look over their paperwork. Go ahead. I’ll be there.”
He could hear Charlotte snicker from behind her paper mask and shot his nurse a look he hoped would deter her from comment. He was already in enough hot water with Jillian about their latest investment venture.
But Charlotte O’Brien wasn’t in the habit of being deterred by him. This sixty-ish, pixie-ish dynamo had been a nurse since long before Michael had even thought about going into dentistry. She had a lot of know-how, and despite their years together, he still hadn’t decided why she worked for him. Some days he thought she was impressed with his skill and chair-side manner. Other days, he suspected she felt it was her duty to tell him what to do to keep his patients safe.
She didn’t even bother trying to hide her amusement now. “What your wife wants here is confirmation. Go on and tell her you’ll let us drag you out the door when we leave before she gets a gray hair.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong.” He slid his stool back and stood. “Jillian’s just doing what she always does—keeping my schedule straight so I can devote myself to my patients. Don’t know what I’d do without this woman.”
He caught her around the waist and waltzed her through the cramped space in the exam room. With a gasp, she melted into his arms the way she always did, as if her luscious body had been designed exclusively to fit close.
“Michael!”
“Yes, my beautiful bride?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Only about you, love of my life.”
“Oh, Michael.”
He whirled her to the sound of Charlotte’s chuckles and Louis’s deep-throated guffaws. Unable to resist, he dipped her over his arm for good measure, one of those dramatic, romantic gestures that never failed to make Jillian sigh those breathless sighs that caught him hard in the gut.
She melted over his arm in a liquid move and exhaled a gasping laugh. That had been the first thing to attract him to Jillian—her laughter. Unrestrained, glorious laughter. He couldn’t resist kissing the sound from her lips.
So, flipping up his paper mask, he did.
Her mouth yielded beneath his, her kiss so natural and welcoming that he felt that twist low in his gut. He resisted the urge to deepen their kiss and taste the sweet greeting he knew would be his.
That was the way it had always been between them—right. Ever since he’d stolen his first kiss on the high-school football field after a particularly tight win, he’d responded to Jillian in a way he had no other.
He still did. She was such a tidy armful with her hands wound around his neck to hang on, her warm breaths clashing with his in easy rhythm. She made him think about sex.
They only parted after attracting an audience. His two hygienists stood in the hall beyond the open doorway, their applause muffled by their sanitary gloves.
“Show’s over, folks.” He waved everyone back to work.
With laughing comments, his staff disbanded, and Jillian rolled her eyes, pecked him on the cheek and said, “Now back to work before you get totally off schedule.”
“Or my anesthetic wears off.” Louis shot a worried glance at the drill.
Michael got back to his own work before Louis’s anesthetic did indeed wear off. He pointedly ignored the amusement glinting in Charlotte’s eyes above the mask.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d earned this open conspiracy, but his wife and office staff had taken it upon themselves to point him through his days as if he couldn’t find his own way. If it made them all feel useful to play mother hens, then Michael tried not to complain.
He could think of a lot worse things than a bunch of women caring about him.
Not to mention that Charlotte made the best damn fried chicken he’d ever tasted. He wouldn’t do anything to risk ticking her off and denying himself those little plastic baggies filled with crispy drumsticks.
Even their newest hygienist, Brandi, young as she was, had followed suit, to become his newest mother hen. And Michael chose to let these ladies do what made them happy. Most of the time keeping his ladies happy made him happy, too, but there were days when their hovering got annoying.
Like at the end of the long work day when he and the staff were leaving the office.
Michael patted his back pocket. “Damn, I forgot my wallet. Knowing my luck, I’ll get pulled over and not have my license.”
“Go on and get it.” Charlotte reached out to grab the door from him. “I’ll wait.”
Being mother-henned was one thing. Being made to feel incompetent was another entirely. “Thanks, but if you don’t get to Libby’s dance recital before the theater fills up, you’ll never get a decent seat.”
There was no argument there, but he could tell Charlotte didn’t want to leave until she saw him get inside his car.
“Jillian said to make sure you leave with us, Michael,” Dianne informed him.
“I only have to grab my wallet,” he informed his senior hygienist.
“You’ll only be a minute?” Charlotte frowned at him.
He frowned right back, and she obviously recognized that he was only half joking.
“See you tomorrow, ladies. I’m quite capable of grabbing my wallet and making it to my car without an escort.”
That the ladies didn’t look convinced annoyed him further.
“Enjoy the recital, Charlotte,” he prompted. “You two have a good night, as well.”
“G’night, Michael.”
Charlotte forced a smile and headed to her car.
Shaking his head, he wound his way through the space, flipping on lights as he went, finally reaching his private office at the rear of the building.
What made these women think he needed a babysitter?
Circling his desk, he retrieved his wallet from the drawer. He really didn’t have an answer to the question, but knew he’d simply have to weather the storm, which meant getting on the road. Glancing up at the wall clock, he found himself ten minutes ahead of schedule.
What had Charlotte been worried about?
Slipping his wallet inside his back pocket, Michael reached for his handheld recorder. He typically dictated his patients’ reports before leaving the office at the end of the day, while the information was still fresh in his head.
His medical transcriptionist came in for a few hours each morning. He could give her a few to start with in the morning, which would buy him time to dictate the rest. He glanced at the files stacked neatly on the edge of his desk. In ten minutes he could dictate at least two. With any luck, three….
JILLIAN WATCHED the old-model Lincoln Town Car wind down the long dirt drive toward the camp, kicking up clouds of dust into the twilight. The sun set in pastel strands over the Mississippi, and from her perch on the bluff, she let the quiet river soothe away her annoyance that Michael hadn’t shown up before the interview as she’d asked him to.
She’d decided to reserve judgment about why he wasn’t here. Jillian knew if an emergency had come up at the last minute he wouldn’t have hesitated to place a patient in his chair. Michael had the biggest heart of anyone she’d ever known, which was one of the things she loved best about him. He cared about what he did, so much so that she’d been forced to reevaluate their office system four times to figure out how to squeeze so many patients into one man’s schedule.
Jillian frowned. If an emergency had come up, Charlotte would have called.
She hoped he hadn’t had any trouble on the road or, God forbid, an accident. Just the thought was enough to erase the calming effects of the sunset and trap the breath in her chest.
But, Jillian reasoned, if Michael had had an accident, he’d have called. Or someone would have. They knew so many state troopers and emergency personnel around town that someone could have tracked her down if something horrible had happened.
But just in case, Jillian glanced inside her purse to make sure her cell phone was on. Yes, the phone was on and, yes, the battery was sufficiently charged. She resisted the urge to call him. The office phones rolled over to the answering service when the staff left. Even if his personal cell phone was on, which she knew it wouldn’t be, Jillian would only frustrate herself. Michael had said he would be here. She’d simply trust he had a good reason for not calling to say he was running late.
That was the last chance she got to dwell on Michael, anyway, because the old blue Lincoln pulled into the circle drive, following signs leading it straight to the office where she stood on the porch beneath a slightly sagging overhang.
This log cabin had been built by Camp Cavelier’s original owners and had seen every season since the camp had opened on this Mississippi bluff. She and Michael were the camp’s first owners who were not actually members of the founding family. It was a position that came with historic obligation and a lot of tradition, responsibilities Jillian intended to live up to.
But as she was learning firsthand since assuming the role, she needed help. Full-time help. And an up-close glimpse of the Lincoln coming to a stop in front of the stairs wasn’t inspiring much confidence. She smiled as the doors swung wide and the members of the Baptiste family from a bayou town south of New Orleans emerged.
These people were clearly related. Three shared glossy black hair; all shared dark eyes, elegantly refined features and deep gold skin. The distance of generations didn’t dim the beauty of these people. She had to force her gaze from the two young men and their sister to greet the elderly woman, who made Jillian hope to look so good at seventy-something.
Of course, this beautiful older woman also looked as if she’d just stepped off a Mardi Gras float, dressed as she was in a roomy skirt in Day-Glo orange and a shawl of a complementary yellow only slightly less radiant than the sun. To complete the ensemble, she’d woven matching ribbons through her hair, pulling the wildly curling gray locks back from her face.
“Mrs. Baptiste-Mercier, it’s a pleasure. I’m Jillian Landry. We spoke on the phone.” Smiling her most welcoming smile, she stepped off the last riser and extended her hand.
“Call me Widow Serafine.” The woman’s smooth round face split into deep creases as she smiled and she clasped Jillian’s with a strength that matched her size. “Every one else does. And you’re as pretty as I knew you’d be. I said to myself, ‘Serafine, any lady with that warm honey voice is surely Southern and one real beauty.’”
Her smoky gaze took Jillian’s measure in a frank glance, and there was something penetrating, almost fierce about the look. But her smile widened, leaving Jillian feeling sure about the compliment.
“Thank you.” She turned her attention to the three younger Baptistes, who clustered around Widow Serafine in pack-like fashion. “These are your…grandchildren?”
She hadn’t been entirely clear on the relationship from their one and only telephone conversation.
Widow Serafine shook her head. “Of a sort. My sister Virginie’s brood. Baptistes through and through, even if they haven’t accepted it yet.” She motioned to one, a roguishly attractive young man with a guarded expression. “Raphael’s the oldest. He’s twenty. Has a way with horses and cars. And his kin. He keeps them in line. Don’t know what I’d do without him, truth be told. This here’s Philip, the middle—Come on, boy, pay your respects to Mrs. Jillian.”
Mrs. Jillian?
Okay.
Philip sidled forward with the lanky grace of a boy who hadn’t quite grown into his body yet. He eyed her with an inscrutable expression, and she smiled in reply.
“Marie-Louise is the baby. She’s just graduated from high school, but she won’t turn eighteen until the end of the month. Hope that won’t be a problem.” She frowned. “I can sign any documents so she can work legal until then if need be. Wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble.”
Jillian wasn’t worried about trouble, or documents, which seemed to be jumping the gun when they hadn’t yet interviewed.
Lucky for her, she didn’t have to figure out how to diplomatically address this oversight because Widow Serafine herded her “sort-of” granddaughter to the front of the pack so Jillian got a good look.
“Marie-Louise will help me keep up the place,” Widow Serafine explained. “And cook. She’s a right Rachael Ray—talented, sensible and pretty as sin. Loves to work in the kitchen while she’s daydreaming about falling in love.” Widow Serafine winked. “Giving her brothers a run for their money keeping the young bucks away, I tell you.”
To confirm her statement, Raphael scowled. Philip nodded.
Marie-Louise just smiled, an easy smile that Jillian liked straight away. She was young, but such a beauty with that glossy black hair curling around her oval face and those almond-shaped eyes. Her sundress was simple and stylish, not suggestive like so many of the juniors’ fashions nowadays. Even so, it couldn’t hide a body that the young bucks would no doubt go ga-ga for.
“I’m pleased to meet you all,” Jillian said. “Shall we tour the place before it gets dark? I can tell you about the camp and what’s involved with the caretaking jobs.”
Before she moved off the bottom step or even opened her mouth to launch into a rehearsed spiel about how Camp Cavelier resided on fifty peaceful acres nestled between the Mississippi River and Lake Lily, Jillian found herself staring at the back of Widow Serafine’s head as she motioned to the car.
“Mrs. Jillian’s going to take us around. Let’s get those groceries settled in the fridge so we don’t attract every raccoon hungry enough to smell supper.”