Jonquils for Jax: The Rousseaus #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 12) (2 page)

She huffed with annoyance, and when he looked up, she had her hands on her hips and a puss on her face. “
I’m
Jaxy.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that she wasn’t a dog, but thank the Lord he held back. “You’re name…is
Jaxy
?”

“No!” She inhaled a deep breath, then released it. “It’s Jacqueline. My friends call me Jax.”

In the past year or so, his ears had started making up for what his eyes had lost, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he heard a slight accent in the pronunciation of her full name. French. And like every other good Cajun boy, he could still pick it out with ease, no matter how many years it had been since he’d been home.

“So, who’s callin’ you Jaxy?”

“Just a—none of your business.”

“Fair ’nough,” he said, returning to his work.

He used a spade to dig another hole about three inches from the one he’d just filled, smoothing the inside with his gloved hand before standing up and rounding the bench where she was sitting. He leaned down, picked up another seedling from the crate, and walked back around her without saying a word.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said in a tight voice.

“I wasn’t askin’,” he said softly, pulling the small heap of soil over the lavender and brushing off its tough petals.

“My mother sat me next to him. At my brother’s wedding.”

Sister of the groom? He looked up. Well, that explained the accent. She was one of the Rousseaus from the ostentatiously named Le Chateau two doors down.

“
Félicitations
,” he offered reflexively, the word sounding rusty to his ears.

“
M-Merci
,” she answered, her voice surprised. After a moment she asked, “
Parlez-vous français
?”

“Not much anymore,” he said, picking up the spade and digging another small hole.

“You’re not French from France,” she said, a superior sniff in her tone.

“Got that right, Duchess,” he said, stepping around the bench again to take another lavender seedling. But this time he stopped in front of her, looking down and squinting to make her out as best he could. Dark hair. Long neck. Big tits. Small waist. Stupid shoes.

Duchesse Rousseau.

“Don’t you have a weddin’ to attend?” he asked.

“Jaaaaaa-xy! I never banged a Holl’wood c’lebrity. C’mon. Where t’fuck are you?”

She sucked in an audible breath, and Gardener snapped his head up to look into the blank of darkness. He couldn’t see anything, but he wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes.
Never did like it much when a grown man cursed at alady…even if sh
e
i
s
brassy, bossy, and uptight.

“Real winner you got there,” he said dryly, getting back to work.

“I don’t ‘
got
’ him. I told you, he’s
not
my boyfriend,” she said, standing up in a huff. She tottered for a moment before regaining her balance, and Gardener rolled his eyes.
Fashion over function. Ridiculous.

“Right,” he said, squatting down beside the herb bed. When he looked over his shoulder a moment later, she was still standing there, looking in the direction of the asshole who was beckoning her oh-so-sweetly. Shaking his head with annoyance, he stood up and wiped his gloved hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Want me to walk you back to your party?”

“Absolutely not,” she scoffed, looking away from him before clearing her throat and raising her chin. “I don’t even know you.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, feeling like an idiot for suggesting it and starting to wish she’d just go already and leave him the hell alone.

“Well,” she said, her voice uncertain. “I guess I’ll go now.”

He didn’t answer. He planted the next damned seedling and covered it with soil.

“It was nice…” He assumed she didn’t finish with “to meet you” because, one, it hadn’t been all that nice, and two, they hadn’t actually met.

“Good-bye,” she muttered.

He looked up to see her pick up her skirt and walk into the darkness, something pulling at his heart as her lithe body disappeared into the void. Should he go after her? Shadow her from a distance until he knew she was safe? He growled softly with irritation, standing up and looking around.

Blackness. Sheer blackness but for the shimmery light of the white flowers in a semicircle around him and a dim patio light, off to the far right, on the front porch of the small studio apartment where he was staying.

Even if he wanted to follow her, it wasn’t an option. He lived in a world of shadows, and though his eyes bothered him a lot less at night, he didn’t see any better.

Sighing, he turned back to his work. He still had ten more lavender seedlings to plant before mulching and watering the bed and cleaning up. Another hour of work at least.

“Jax! Where the
fuck
you hidin’?” The voice was a good bit closer now.

“
Merde
,” Gardener grumbled, the curse word coming easily, though he hadn’t uttered it in years. She was wandering around somewhere in the darkness on stilts, trying to avoid this drunken asshole. Dumb girl. Foolish girl. Girl about to get herself hurt. He stood up, his useless eyes scanning the night.

He couldn’t see a thing.

It was the sound of her scream that led him to her.

Jostling.

Like being in a wagon or on a hayride.

Jax opened her eyes and saw the moon racing across the sky, the stars a blur. Hot breath landed in rough pants across her cheek. Not a wagon. Someone’s arms. She was in someone’s arms and he was running.

“Where am—?”

Her words were like a gong crashing around in her skull, loud and angry. She gasped in surprise and winced, reaching up to touch her temple. Her fingers landed in something warm and sticky. When she drew back her hand and looked at her fingers in the darkness; they were shiny and black.

“Hold tight,” he rasped. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

There?
She risked a question, despite the pain, grimacing as the word left her mouth. “Where?”

“Gardener’s cottage.”

The gardener’s cottage. At Le Chateau? Or…no. At Haverford Park.
It’s a moonlight garden.
Right. The new gardener.

“You can…” She winced. “…put me down.”

“Not a chance, Duchess,” he said, though he slowed down a little. He still walked purposefully, however, his long legs eating the ground between them and the cottage.

She looked over his shoulder as they passed the glowing white garden where he’d been working. Right. He’d been working in the garden and she’d bumped into him. They’d talked for a few minutes. Then she’d left him to go back to the party, and—

Tripp.

Tripp had stopped her during her walk back across Westerly, holding her arm too hard to keep her from continuing. She’d told him to let go and he’d refused, pulling her against his body. As he tried to kiss her, she’d bitten his lip and he’d shoved her away roughly. She fell to the grass and hit her head on something hard. Then? Darkness.

“Was it a rock?” she asked, reaching for her temple again.

“Corner of the patio over at Westerly. Comin’ back to you now?”

“A…little.”

His voice was terse when he said, “If you hadn’t screamed, Lord only knows what might have happen—”

“I screamed?”

“Luckily,” he muttered.

Still holding her securely with one arm, he reached for the doorknob and opened it, stepping into a dim, cool room and leaving the door to the outside open. Gently, he lowered her to a couch, then stood over her, giant and disapproving in the light of a reading lamp that cast the room in a soft glow.

He took his gloves off, placing them on the coffee table between them, then shrugged out of his flannel shirt and draped it next to the gloves. Pulling one wrist over his head, he bent his arm and stretched it, grunting softly with pleasure as the joint cracked, and she suddenly realized exactly how far he’d had to carry her.

“Don’t move,” he muttered. “I need to check your head.”

From where she lay on the couch, Jax watched him turn away and step through a white-painted door at the far side of the room. When he flicked on the wall light, she could see a white toilet and sink. Clean and tidy.

It was the first time she’d had a chance to check him out in any sort of reliable light. With his back to her, she ogled him freely as he squatted down in front of the cabinets under the sink, his long legs compressing and his jeans slipping down a little to show a strip of his lower back between his waistband and T-shirt. Pronounced tan line. Mmm.

His dark-blond hair was a little too long and curled at the ends, covering the back of his neck and brushing the neckline of his T-shirt. It was thick and wavy and her fingers itched to know what it would feel like threaded between them.

She sighed, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling as she tried to figure out exactly where she was. There must be a studio apartment attached to the back of Felix Edwards’ garden cottage, she decided, closing her eyes. And Eleanora English had certainly outfitted it with a very comfortable couch…

A light smacking on her cheek made her eyes fly open. “No closin’ those emeralds, Duchess.”

He was kneeling on the floor beside her, his face close—
very
close, almost
too
close—as he inspected the wound on her temple. His eyes were dark brown, and his eyelashes, almost black, were long, straight, and unreasonably thick (or unfairly so, at least, for a man). His nose was long and patrician and his lips, light pink and slightly chapped, were flumed and full. She took a deep breath, and soil, lavender, and leather made for such an unexpectedly appealing combination of smells, she had to fight against closing her eyes again. Or sighing.

No more sighing
. She was sighing altogether too much around this man.

She flattened her hands on either side of her hips, intending to sit up, but he placed a rough, warm palm on her bare skin, under her throat, above the neckline of her dress, pressing down lightly on her chest as he shook his head. “Nope. You’re not leavin’ yet.”

Panic sluiced through her veins, immediate and shocking. His lips parted and his eyes darted to his hand, which he lifted like her skin was on fire. He leaned back from her, putting both of his hands up, palms out.

“No harm meant. Just…don’t sleep and don’t bolt up. You were unconscious for a few minutes there. I’m worried about a possible concussion. Breathe. Give yourself a minute, okay? I wouldn’t have saved you if my intention was to hurt you,
Jacqueline
.”

His voice was warm. Soft and gentle. And the way he said “Jacqueline” with his indecipherable accent—like a very, very rough and naughty version of how her Parisian-born family said it?—she sighed. Again.
Merde.
But she couldn’t help it.

I wouldn’t have saved you if my intention was to hurt you.

Part of her knew she shouldn’t trust him—knew that men could make you trust them only to take dirty pictures of you and post them all over the Internet, or charm you into putting your defenses down so you’d say something they could take out of context and use against you. But this man…well, she didn’t know why she trusted him, but she did. Something about him just felt safe. She looked into his dark-brown eyes, searching them for only a moment before nodding.

“I believe you.”

“Then let me tend to your head, huh?”

He reached for the reading lamp and refocused it on her forehead, squinting as he cleaned the cut with a soft cloth and warm water. She was so mesmerized by his face so close to hers, the smell of alcohol didn’t register immediately, but she winced with pain and cried out as he pressed the antiseptic to her temple.

“Ouch! Stop!”

“Hold still. I’m cleanin’ it.”

“It hurts!” she wailed.

“It’s better’n gettin’ an infection.”

“Says you! You’re not the one being tortured.”

“Tortured.” He chuckled softly, rolling his eyes. “Hardly, Duchess.”

Finally he smoothed a Band-Aid over the cut, taking a deep breath and sighing as he stared at his work, his face less than an inch from hers. As she watched him, his eyes slid from her injury to meet her gaze and her heart skipped a beat.

“What, um, what is this place?”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips as he leaned away from her. “Apartment attached to the back of the gardener’s cottage.”

Now that he’d drawn away, she missed having him so close.

“You’re…staying here?” she asked.

“For now.”

She cleared her throat. “Can I sit up now?”

“Go crazy,” he said, looking into her eyes for a moment before standing up. He leaned down and gathered the cloth, container of alcohol, and box of Band-Aids together before returning them to the bathroom.

Jax sat up slowly, lowering her feet to the floor and realizing that she only had one shoe on. “Where’s my other shoe?”

The gardener turned around in the bathroom doorway, crossing his arms over his massive chest as his nostrils flinched into a slight sneer. “With your…
friend
. I guess.”

With two older brothers, Jax was accustomed to swearing, but she’d never heard Jean-Christian or Étienne say “fuck” as darkly as this man had just uttered the word “friend.”

“He wanted a kiss,” she murmured.

“Guessin’ you didn’t have one to give?”

“I do, actually…I
do
have one to give,” she whispered, the words coming from nowhere she recognized as she held his eyes from across the room. “But not to him.”

The stranger’s eyes widened, then narrowed, his large body still as he searched her face. Suddenly, he dropped her gaze and sighed. “C’mon, Duchess, I’ll walk you back to Le Chateau.”

Jax’s cheeks flushed hot as a sound like a plane crashing reverberated through her aching head. Ugh. What the heck was she doing? Making passes at strange men—at strange
gardeners
, no less—wasn’t exactly commonplace for Jax. She wasn’t given to seduction, and she wasn’t very good at it. Obviously.

“No, thanks,” she said, embarrassed beyond belief. Thanking God that Kate English had chosen bridesmaids’ gowns that included deep pockets, she fished around in hers for her phone. “I’ll call my brother to come and get me.”

Without waiting for the man to say anything, she turned her back to him and dialed Jean-Christian’s cell. It rang six times before he answered.

“What?” His voice was breathy, as though he’d just run a mile or just finished—

“Jean-Christian?” she squeaked.

“This better be good, Jax,” he grated out. “I’m
with
someone.”

She cringed. “I’m at the gardener’s cottage at Haverford Park, just inside the gates. I need you to come and get me. I lost one of my shoes. And it’s dark.”

“Walk. It’s not even a quarter mile,
petite
sœur
.”

“I’m
barefoot
,” she insisted, her voice almost a whine. She didn’t care if she was breaking up her brother’s tryst. She’d had enough for tonight. She refused to let the gardener walk her home after rejecting her. It was way too humiliating. “Come and get me,
peigne-cul
.”

“
Moi
?
I’m
the asshole? Try again,” he muttered. He sighed long and hard before she heard him say to someone else, “Forgive me, but my idiot sister is stranded down the road and needs my help.” He paused, then said, “
Oui!
Of course! It was a slice of heaven,
chéri
. Write down your number. I’ll call you sometime soon.”

“No, he won’t,” said Jax under her breath.

“
Tu vas fermer ta putain de gueule
,” her brother growled into the phone. “I’ll be there in five. You owe me.”

She grinned. He’d essentially just told her to “shut the fuck up,” but at least he was coming for her. And rather quickly, at that, it occurred to her. Almost like he was…
escaping
. Hmm.

“Maybe
you
owe
me
,” she said saucily, hanging up and turning to look at the man who still stood across the room. “My brother’s coming.”

“I can walk you to the gate.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” she said, lifting her chin a little.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine.”

Jax stood up, placing her phone back into her pocket before meeting his steady gaze. Even though he’d rejected her offer of a kiss, he’d also saved her from harm, carried her from Westerly to Haverford Park, and bandaged up her cut. She touched the Band-Aid on her temple. “Thank you.”

He didn’t say the conventional and polite “You’re welcome.” Instead, he looked annoyed with her and said, “Maybe find some better company.”

“I told you, he’s not my boyfri—”

“Or enroll yourself in a self-defense class if you’re goin’ to hang out with rapists.”

Jax gulped. “Tripp Stanton is many things, but he’s
not
—”

He took a step forward, looking at her like she was crazy. “You’re goin’ to defend him now?”

“He was just drunk!”

“That’s no excuse! He had his hands on you! He knocked you to the ground and made you bleed! I should have punched his teeth out! I should have—” His eyes burned with rage for a long moment before he looked down, staring at the floor and fuming.

Jax’s eyes widened, but instead of stepping away from the gardener’s tirade, she stepped closer to him, speaking gently. “He just got drunk and made a mistake.”

His head snapped up, his eyes nailing hers. “You’re goin’ to get hurt.”

“What do you care?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, exhaling a long, deep breath before shaking his head. “Ex-cop. Force of habit…I guess.”

Ex-cop. Huh. Ex-cop.
Maybe
that’s
what she’d somehow sensed…and why she’d trusted him: he wasn’t a predator. He was a protector.

Jax ran her greedy eyes over his muscled arms and the well-defined ridges of his chest under his T-shirt. It made sense to her—the way he’d saved her, the way he’d carried her to safety and seen to her wound. He was the opposite of
everything
she’d come to fear.
An ex-cop.
She almost sighed.