The Setup (4 page)

Compliments, genuine compliments, were something a girl never tired of hearing, she decided. And his had a ring of sincerity. She wondered if that was a skill he’d acquired as a lawyer.

“The form didn’t mention that you had a silver tongue, Jefferson.”

She made his name sound like a melody, Jefferson thought. “No, but I do have twenty-twenty vision,” he countered. He didn’t add that the numbers had been recaptured only after he’d had the eye surgery he’d been putting off for so long. It wasn’t vanity that had prompted him, but rather a desire to be free of the headaches that wearing glasses for half his life had caused him.

Sylvie was silent for a moment as she reassessed the situation. And the man. At first glance, he seemed stuffy, but that could have been because he
was uncomfortable about this blind-date situation. Not everyone could move as freely as she could from person to person, situation to situation. And even she was beginning to find herself less flexible that way.

Maybe it was a sign of pending maturity, but she’d begun to question the purpose of her life even before she’d become pregnant with Daisy Rose. She knew she was a more subdued version of herself these days. She had a feeling that Jefferson Lambert might find that difficult to believe.

Sylvie glanced at the suitcase on the floor beside him. It couldn’t contain all that much, no matter how great a packer the man was. “Is that the only luggage you brought with you?”

Jefferson felt he’d packed everything he needed. He was a man who knew how to make do. “I don’t like having to stand around at the airport, waiting to see if someone finally decided that my suitcase should be sent down the luggage chute rather than on a separate trip to another state without me.”

He watched her mouth turn up in response to his words. It was like watching the sun rise, casting golden rays in all directions.

He felt caught up in a sunbeam.

“I like traveling light, too,” she told him as she slipped her arm through his. Turning to the desk clerk, she put her hand out. “Can I have the key card for the Jackson Suite, David?”

Aside from long, shapely legs, a neat trick for a petite woman, Sylvie Marchand also had long
fingers, Jefferson noted. He wondered if she played any kind of instrument. Fingers like that looked as if they could glide effortlessly along a keyboard.

Or a man’s skin.

The thought came out of nowhere. Banking it down, Jefferson attributed it to the fact he was in New Orleans. Thoughts like that belonged to a much younger man, a man who had the world before him.

“I’ll need you to sign in and also give me a credit card for an imprint,” David replied.

“Oh, sorry,” Jefferson murmured. The woman had gotten him completely disoriented, he thought, handing the clerk a credit card. The young man swiped it as Jefferson registered.

The desk clerk handed back the credit card, along with a key card to the room. As he accepted both, Jefferson found himself on the receiving end of a brilliant smile from Sylvie Marchand. He felt his knees weakening just a tad.

“C’mon.” She tugged gently on his arm. “I’ll show you to your room.”

“Um, how should I bill this, Miss Sylvie?” David called as they started to leave.

“The same as our regular rooms, David,” she tossed capriciously over her shoulder. “Our mistake, remember? Can’t have people saying we turn out our guests now, can we?”

“No, Miss Sylvie,” David murmured, retreating.

“Your eyes twinkle,” Jefferson observed as they made their way through the crowded lobby. There
was a grand spiral staircase just past the front desk, but Sylvie kept walking. “I didn’t think eyes could really do that.”

“This is New Orleans, Jefferson,” she drawled. “Everything is possible.” And then she winked. “Especially around Mardi Gras season.”

The doors to the elevator were just beginning to close when they reached it. Instead of standing back, the way he’d expected, she surprised him by pulling him along in her wake and wedging herself into the small space that was still available in the crowded car. He found himself standing almost closer to her than her clothes.

Sylvie rose on her toes, her body brushing against his. “You can breathe, Jefferson,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s okay.”

So he breathed. And felt every inch of her against him.

He figured this was what dying and going to heaven had to be like.

When the doors opened on the third floor, Sylvie shouldered her way out, her hand still wrapped around his. He had no choice but to follow, apologizing to the man whose knees he hit with his suitcase.

“Voila,” she announced after swiping the key card and opening the door. Sylvie stood back, allowing him to enter the suite first.

If he traveled at all, which was infrequently, Jefferson was accustomed to small, functional rooms that usually came with tiny kitchens. Away from
home, he liked to cook his own meals, avoiding the expense and noise of restaurants and the discomfort of eating alone while everyone around him had someone to carry on a conversation with. He was not prepared for the grandeur that met his eyes.

The room was huge. There were paintings, originals, on two of the walls, depicting an antebellum New Orleans. And on either side of the king-size, canopy bed was a window that afforded him a view of the courtyard.

He crossed to the window on the left and looked out, thinking of the snowy scene he’d left back home just hours ago. A feeling of peace and seclusion pervaded the entire area. The sun grazed the top of the pool, shimmering invitingly. He forgot that it was January.

The view was mesmerizing, and in a way, he was sorry that Emily couldn’t be here with him to enjoy it.

“Do you like it?” Sylvie asked.

“Like it?” he echoed incredulously. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I don’t know what to say.”

She laughed, thinking of their date tomorrow evening. “Then bring flash cards.”

Her speech might be slow, he thought, but her mind was quick. It obviously jumped around from topic to topic, losing him in the process. “Excuse me?”

“To our dinner party tomorrow night,” she reminded him. “It’s at seven. I’ll meet you in the lobby at six-thirty.”

He found himself nodding like some idiot who had been struck dumb. Finding his tongue, he asked, “Do you live in the hotel?”

“No.” She still cherished her independence, such as it was. “I live a few miles away, but I’ll meet you here,” she repeated.

Now, there was another indication that she wasn’t quite as care free as she’d once been, Sylvie thought. Not all that long ago, she’d have had no qualms about telling a man where she lived. But again, that was before she had Daisy Rose. She didn’t want her little girl’s life disturbed by anyone.

Even gentlemen callers, she thought, amused.

Sylvie glanced toward the old-fashioned clock on the mantel. It was getting late. She’d promised Maddy she would come by to help her set up for tomorrow. Sylvie moved toward the door.

“Until tomorrow night, then.”

Her words floated softly to him. And then she was gone.

Jefferson stood there for a moment, just staring at the closed door wondering if he had imagined the whole thing, including Sylvie Marchand.
Especially
Sylvie Marchand.

But then he shook his head. No, the woman was real. He hadn’t imagined her. His imagination had never been that creative.

Turning from the door, he went to phone Blake to let him know that he had arrived. Maybe in more ways than one.

J
EFFERSON NODDED
his thanks to the bartender—Leo, according to the name tag pinned to his navy blue vest—as the man placed the chunky glass of scotch and soda before him. The man’s face showed more than a little mileage, even in this light. He nodded and withdrew.

Blake and Jefferson had gotten the last two empty stools at the bar. Tucked away in the far corner of the hotel across from the retail shops, the dimly lit bar was doing brisk business tonight. Tomorrow was the Twelfth Night celebration, the official beginning of the Mardi Gras season, and tourists and natives alike were starting the partying early.

Soft blue lights played off the surface of his drink, and Jefferson raised the glass to his lips and took a healthy swallow. He could feel the bitter liquid burn its way through his chest down into his stomach. Only then did he turn toward Blake and say what had been burning with equal fervor in his brain.

“She’s too young for me.”

Sighing, Blake shook his head. The reason he’d pushed so hard to get Jefferson to come down here
for the reunion in the first place was to counteract this delusion of advancing age his friend seemed to be suffering. Forty-seven was the new thirty-seven, and the last time Blake had looked, thirty-seven was not considered old in anything but dog years.

He swirled the ice cubes in his glass, listening to them clink against one another. Tipping the glass back, he took a long swallow of the Southern Comfort he’d ordered.

“Jeffy, I’ve already said this more than once. It’s all in the mind.” To emphasize his point, he brushed his index finger against Jefferson’s temple. “The way you’re acting, Mother Teresa would be too young for you.”

Jefferson raised his eyes to Blake’s. “Mother Teresa’s dead.”

“My point exactly.” But that point, he could see, was not piercing the haze around his friend’s brain. He leaned in to Jefferson. Because of the din in the crowded room, he brought his lips close to his friend’s ear. “We only go around once in life, Jeff. You’ve got to loosen up, make the most of it.”

Resting his drink on the bar, Jefferson placed both hands around it, as if surrounding a thought and trying to contain it. “I already went around once in life, Blake. I got my law degree, married a beautiful woman and had a wonderful daughter with her.” His mouth curved as fond memories rushed back to him. Memories of Donna and falling in love for the first time. The only time. “The way I look at it, I’m way ahead of the average man.”

He didn’t mean to look at Blake when he said that, but there it was. Blake might be the one whose social book was bursting at the seams, with a different woman coming into play each month or so, like the changing faces of pinups on a calendar, but he’d had the richer life, Jefferson thought. He was the one who had experienced real love.

And, most importantly, he’d had a family. Blake had only ticket stubs from the various trips he’d gone on, the various clubs he’d visited, the various functions he’d attended. Things like that might have eaten up Blake’s time, but they didn’t create the kind of memories that Jefferson would have wanted for himself.

“You’re only forty-seven years old, for crying out loud, not a hundred and forty-seven.” For a moment, Blake’s attention seemed to be drawn away by the smile of a blonde, two stools over, who was wearing a very fitting, very small black dress, but then he brought his focus back to Jefferson. “It’s not time to lie down in the coffin yet.”

Jefferson noted the way Blake was eyeing the blonde. Trying to meet and strike up a conversation with a stranger held absolutely no appeal for him. “You act as if I don’t do anything but sit in a corner and stare at the walls. Most days, I’ve barely got two minutes to rub together.”

Blake made a disparaging sound as he dismissed Jefferson’s objection. “That’s work.”

“That’s purpose,” Jefferson countered. Besides, he liked his work. It was useful and necessary.
Industry would grind to a halt without corporate lawyers. The business world would dissolve in a sea of squabbles and heated arguments over rights and infringements.

Blake spread his hands, not in surrender but as if widening the playing field. “All I’m saying is, have a little fun before you can’t. You’re still a decent looking guy—”

Jefferson laughed, taking another sip of his drink. “Thanks.”

“Hey, we all can’t be studs like me.”

Jefferson had a feeling that Blake was speaking only half tongue in cheek. It didn’t bother him. When they were younger, it was Blake who had always attracted the girls. But then, Jefferson had been the one who’d gotten the only girl who counted.

“The point is,” Blake continued, “you came down here, we’re going to have a fantastic time at the reunion, and you’re going to have a terrific date tomorrow night with Sylvie.” He paused, as if preparing to drop a bombshell. “Her family owns this hotel, you know.”

As if that would make a difference to Jefferson. When he married Donna, he’d also taken on her school loan. Wealth, or lack of it, had never mattered to him.

Jefferson smiled, amused. “So now you’re turning me into a gigolo?”

Instead of denying it, Blake laughed. “Hey, it’s as easy to love a rich woman as a poor one.”

Jefferson’s chunky glass met the top of the bar abruptly. He stared at Blake in disbelief. Just what was it that his friend and daughter were plotting? “Love? Who said anything about love? Aren’t you getting way ahead of yourself here?”

Again, there were no denials, no backpedaling. The look on Blake’s face was enigmatic. “Just leave yourself open to the possibilities, Jeff. Sylvie sounds like she could really open up your eyes—not to mention your pores.”

Pores. As in the old wives’ tale that having sex cleared up your skin. That was definitely a lot more than he had signed on for. “My pores are just fine, Blake.”

“Oh?” Blake made no secret of scrutinizing his friend’s complexion as he asked, “When was the last time you were with a woman?”

Jefferson was aware that Leo was back in their area. The taciturn man appeared to be listening as he prepared two mai-tais, even though he never raised his eyes from the blender.

“I’m with women all the time,” Jefferson replied matter-of-factly.

But Blake shook his head. “I’m talking one-on-one, Jeff.”

“You’re talking too much,” Jefferson retorted. He made an impulsive decision. No, it was the right decision, he amended. Saying yes in the first place had been impulsive. “Look, I think I’m going to cancel. You and I can spend tomorrow night catching up, instead,” he suggested, then
grinned. “I figure the way you live, that should take about a week.”

Blake was having none of it. He wasn’t about to let his friend bail out. “I’ve always hated one-sided conversations. Besides, didn’t I tell you? I’m going to be busy tomorrow night.”

This was the first Jefferson had heard of it. Blake had promised to be available every day of his stay in New Orleans. That was part of the deal. “Oh?”

“Yeah, attending that performance art function at the gallery in the Warehouse District.”

“The one I’m attending,” Jefferson said, purely for clarification.

“Yes. I know the woman who’s running it. As a matter of fact—” his grin nearly split his dark, handsome face “—I’m dating the woman who’s running it.”

Jefferson could only shake his head. He had long since lost track of the number of women that Blake had dated. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Blake pretended not to hear. “And, as it turns out, Sylvie Marchand is one of her closest friends. So you see, Jefferson, you
have
to go or I’m going to have a miserable time.”

Jefferson set his empty glass on the counter. Leo materialized, seemingly out of nowhere, a fresh drink in his hand. It was a carbon copy of the last one, right down to the number of ice cubes. About to decline, Jefferson changed his mind and nodded. Leo slid the drink on to a napkin and ushered it into the space the first drink had occupied.

“Miss Sylvie’s good people,” he told Jefferson. “Treat her right.” The words almost sounded like a warning. The next moment, he’d moved to another part of the bar.

Slightly unnerved, Jefferson looked at Blake, trying to pick up the thread of their conversation before the bartender had made his comment. “I don’t see the connection.”

Blake obligingly spelled it out for him. “Maddy’s not going to be happy if her friend gets stood up. Especially since I was the one who made the arrangements in the first place.”

“You?” Jefferson’s dark eyebrows drew together in a disapproving line. “You set me up with that kid? Did you get a look at her before you did this?”

“She’s not a kid, she’s a woman. Gotta watch those terms, lawyer man.” Blake pretended to look around him. Jefferson noted that he made eye contact again with the blonde in the abbreviated black dress. “Around here, that kind of talk can get you castrated. Fast. Anyway, when Emily said she wanted to send in your application to an online dating service, I told her to hold on to her money. That I knew someone who did that sort of thing for a living. I persuaded her—”

“Her?”

“My friend who owns the matchmaking service, Gloria Conway,” Blake clarified. Jefferson was trying to get all his facts straight. Blake could only smile. You could take the man out of the law firm, but you couldn’t get the law firm out of the man.
“Anyway, I persuaded Gloria to let me take a look at the applications she had—”

But Jefferson wasn’t finished with that part of it yet. “Isn’t that unethical?”

A lawyer himself, Blake had never been the stickler for ethics that Jefferson was. The way he saw it, the two of them provided the yin and the yang of every situation, and balance was the key. “All’s fair in love and war, Jeffy, you know that.”

No, Jefferson thought, there was nothing fair about love or war. And tomorrow night, he was determined, was going to be neither. But this discussion they were having could go on all evening. He might consider himself the more able lawyer, but Blake was the pit bull when it came to winning. He’d been that way on the tennis court and in any kind of competition.

Taking a long sip of his drink, which was no longer fiery but oddly soothing, Jefferson surrendered. “Okay, I’m not going to have any peace until I go along with this.”

Victory always made Blake magnanimous. “You’re not going to regret it, Jeffy.”

He didn’t know about that, Jefferson thought. An uneasy feeling at the back of his neck told him he was walking into uncharted territory, a terrain with hidden sinkholes scattered throughout.

One wrong step and he would be in way over his head.

M
ADDY
O’N
EILL PUT DOWN
the end of the table that she was carrying and pushed a strand of short, black
hair out of her eyes. She stared at the woman on the other end of the table. “You met him?”

“By accident. He was checking in, I was on my way out. The front desk lost his reservation.” Sylvie shrugged, sending the shoulder of her blouse sliding down. “So I had David give him the Jackson Suite.” She looked at Maddy intently. “Are you going to carry your end, or is the table just going to levitate into place?”

With a sniff, Maddy picked up the table and resumed walking backward in small, measured steps. “You gave him the Jackson Suite?” she marveled. “You mean that delicious room that’s supposedly an exact replica of the one Andrew Jackson shared with his wife before she died?” Deciding that this was as good a place as any to set down the first of three long dining tables, she lowered her end again. “Okay,” she instructed with a nod.

Sylvie was all too happy to comply. “What do you mean, supposedly? I went through a lot of trouble to research that. It
is
an exact replica. Except for the paintings, of course. Those are mine.”

Maddy crossed to the rear exit to retrieve the next table. “Yours? As in from the hotel gallery?”

“As in from my own brush,” Sylvie corrected. When Maddy looked at her, she added, “I offered to help update some of the rooms—on a very limited budget—and wanted to add a personal touch.” Bracing herself, she picked up the end of the second table and they began walking back into the gallery. “I’m very proud of that room.”

“It’s a gorgeous room.” Maddy glanced over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t going to bump into the first table. “You’ve got a lot of talent, Sylvie, although I never pegged you for the research type.” Reaching their destination, she put down her end. “But then, I never pegged you for the mother type, either, and you seem to be doing a beautiful job in that department.”

Nothing made Sylvie prouder. Or happier. The satisfaction that came with being a mother had been a total surprise to her, like discovering one last, hidden present beneath the Christmas tree after all the torn wrapping paper had been cleared away.

“In a way, I think we’re raising each other,” she told Maddy. “Daisy Rose is raising me as much as I’m raising her.” Her thoughts drifted from the room, sifting through the wealth of memory fragments that made up her life with Daisy Rose.

They crossed the room together to bring in the last of the tables. “Ever hear from that loser father of hers?”

“No, and I’m grateful for that.” It was a lie. Sylvie had heard from him, or would have if she’d answered the phone. Shane had called her twice in the past two weeks, leaving messages that he wanted to talk to her. Out of the blue, after all this time. Well, he might want to talk to her, but she didn’t want to talk to him. Ever.

The two women worked silently until the final table was in place.

“Having Shane in Daisy Rose’s life would mean
nothing but trouble,” Sylvie said, frowning. “He’d probably hit her up for cash if he could.”

“Never knew what you saw in him.”

Maddy could be counted on for brutal honesty, and this time she was right. “From this vantage point, I’d have to agree with you. I guess you just had to be there.” She thought of the first time she’d seen the lead guitarist for Lynx. He’d blown her away. Shane Alexander seemed to become one with his instrument, with the music. “He was pretty hot stuff when he and the band were at the top.” Her smile was rueful. “I got him just as he was on his way down. He needed reaffirmation and I needed to be needed, I suppose.”