DutyBoundARe (12 page)

Mrs. Babineaux joined them, sitting opposite her husband in another armchair. Mathieu took the other end of the couch, trying to decide which approach to take with the three.

“Would you care for a drink? Some coffee or tea?” Mrs. Babineaux offered.

“No thank you, ma’am. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’m just doing a little investigating for another department up north. It seems your other daughter, Lisette?” He watched the husband and wife glance at each other, shift in their chairs. Something about their middle child made them incredibly uncomfortable.

“Yes, Lisette is my sister. What has she done now?” Juliette asked when no one else spoke. The way she spoke, with an exasperated sigh and roll of her eyes made Mathieu dislike her instantly.

“Nothing. I was just wanting to see if you knew of her whereabouts.” He pulled out a notebook and jotted some general observations down.

“We haven’t spoken to Lisette in some months.” Mr. Babineaux propped his elbows up on the armrests and steepled his fingers.

“Are you aware of her relationship with a Seth Bishop?” He watched their expressions closely, noting the tensing around mouths, hands clenching armrests and nervous bouncing of feet.

“Seth is her ex-boyfriend. We met him a few times. Nice young man. He would have made her into a proper wife,” Mrs. Babineaux offered to fill the awkward moment.

“Could you tell me where to find him?” It was a long shot, he knew, but there was always the chance.

“No, we haven’t spoken to him since just after they split. What’s this about?” Mrs. Babineaux demanded.

“I can’t disclose the details, but there was an incident I’m looking into. I’m trying to find either Lisette or Seth.” Only partial truths. Just enough facts to back up his story, but if they went digging his ass was out to dry.

“Sir, our daughter is a disturbed young woman. Should you find her, we would appreciate this matter being handled with delicacy.” Mrs. Babineaux stared at him, as if willing him to read between the lines.

Lisette had said Seth told her parents about her BDSM lifestyle. Did they mean they didn’t want their neighbors to find out about their kinky daughter? Were they ashamed of her? Did they care more about the perception of others than her safety?

The Babineaux’s were not what he’d expected. He’d willed himself to believe Lisette was making up their animosity, or at least seeing the situation as worse than reality. Now, he wondered if she hadn’t been truthful enough.

If he had to guess, they weren’t afraid of Seth. They probably didn’t even care about him. Their concern was for the appearance of their family.

Mathieu asked a few more questions, but received nothing of use, only more heavily coded pleas for a circumspect approach. They all but spelled out that there was something wrong with Lisette, that she was at fault. He left the house ready to put his fist through the windshield of his car.

She didn’t need them. She had him. And he’d take care of her better than her own blood.

The phone sitting on the café table
began to buzz. Lisette stared at the screen, her heart beating in double time while everything except the name flashing in pixels faded from her awareness.

Lafayette.

They’d never been able to reconnect the day before, but there had been text messages. She’d assumed he was putting her off, but then why was he calling her now?

She picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey, sis, sorry about yesterday. My roommate had a whole list of shit he wanted to get done and of course I had to help. What a load of bull,” he groused.

“That’s okay.” She relaxed back into her chair. Was this really happening?

“I hope I didn’t call at a bad time.” His voice overlaid a background song of cars and voices.

“No. Where are you?”

He sighed heavily. “We have some clients in from out of town and they just had to stay on Bourbon, so I’m walking back to my car after dropping them off.” The idea of Lafayette being burdened by the party street was briefly amusing.

“Bourbon? I’m over on Royal.” She laughed at the absurdity of the moment. Her brother was maybe two or three blocks away. “There’s a little café I found.”

“You’re in New Orleans? Really? Which one? I’ll come join you for a bit.”

Her lungs stopped working. She shouldn’t have told him that. It wasn’t safe, not for her or anyone else to know she was here. This was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. What had she done?

“T—the Community Coffee House.”

“Oh, I know that place. Yellow inside, big windows?”

Too late now. She glanced at the wall of arched windows. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I’ll be there in a minute then.”

The line went dead. She stared at the phone for several moments. Her brother was really coming to see her?

Lisette glanced down at herself. Jeans and a Consent is Sexy tank-top weren’t exactly ideal. She slipped her green sweater on and buttoned it up until the words were hidden. The odds and ends spread out over the table she pushed into her backpack, until the surface was neat and tidy, with just her laptop and a cup of coffee.

She hadn’t seen Lafayette since she brought Seth home to meet the family. She’d hardly spoken to her brother that time. It was in the beginning, when she’d been so head over heels for Seth that she thought she could give up kink and be happy. She’d been so concerned that her parents like him. There wasn’t any reason to worry. The idea of marrying a service man—especially one as country boy as Seth—had appealed to them right from the start.

A bell rang as the coffee shop door swung inward. She held her breath and glanced up, but the black couple entering had no resemblance to her very white brother. She bit her lip and watched people pass by the windows.

What would her brother even look like?

A tall man in a suit with a long coat thrown over his arm strode past the first window. The afternoon light glinted in his spiky blond hair. Her lungs burned with the strain of her repeatedly not breathing.

The man stepped into the shop and paused.

Even across the long café she could tell it was him.

Lisette lifted her hand and waved. He grinned and nodded, striking off toward her.

What do I do?

Did she hug him? Say hi? Ask him if he wanted a drink?

Her palms started to sweat as he rounded a partition and headed down her lonely aisle of tables.

Oh, fuck it.

Lisette pushed to her feet and slipped between the tables into the aisle. Lafayette tossed his coat down onto the neighboring table and folded her into a big hug. She wrapped her arms around his waist and breathed a sigh of relief, squeezing him back. A sense of rightness seeped into her. Maybe she’d been wrong all along and family wasn’t something she could replace by choice.

“How is it you still haven’t grown an inch?” Only Lafayette could laugh as he spoke.

“Hey, you’re the one that never stopped growing.” She let him go reluctantly.

They studied each other for a moment. Lafayette had grown into a man when she wasn’t looking. He’d always been tall, but he seemed to have filled out. There was an inner light that shone through his eyes, and he never stopped smiling. Was this really the teen she’d left behind?

“Wow,” she said after a moment.

“I didn’t even know you were in New Orleans. Do Mom and Dad know?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “No, no one does. Please don’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have even told you.”

Lafayette frowned for a second. “Why not?”

Lisette sank into her seat and gestured to one of the free chairs. “It’s a long story.”

“I just wined and dined a group of Chinese businessmen for a whole day, which included a stop at a strip club with only the over-fifty dancers working. I think I’ve earned some leeway in what I do with the rest of my day. Tell me.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, all his focus on her.

What version of the truth did she tell him?

“How much did Mom and Dad tell you about my break up with Seth?” And how much did she want to tell him?

“Mom and Dad didn’t really tell me anything. Seth called and told me.”

Her veins felt as if they filled with ice, freezing her from the inside out.

Lafayette continued, unaware of her sudden panic. “Seth said you wanted him to do something to you he was morally opposed to, so you left him. I don’t really care one way or another if you’re with him or not. Clearly that’s Mom and Dad’s deal. It was just weird to me he called and tried to get me to be on his side. What are we? Middle school girls? You broke up. Grow some balls and move on, dude.”

He picked up her coffee cup and took a big gulp. That was the brother she knew. She couldn’t even find it in her to be annoyed at him.

He set the cup back down, his gaze sharper than before. “What happened to you? Was it Seth? Something else? I get having a round with Mom and Dad, I do it often enough, but you’ve never been this, I don’t know, distant before.”

“I don’t know if I should tell you.” She glanced away and it seemed as if the shadows crawled with her hidden demons, the things that stalked her dreams.

“Okay, you don’t have to. Look, I know I was an ass to you growing up, but if you need anything, I’m not Julie, or Mom and Dad. I’m Switzerland.”

“Right.” She laughed. “Switzerland does not shoot cheese puffs at everyone.”

“What a waste of food.” He shook his head.

They smiled at each other, and for the first time a sense of familiarity linked them together. Was this what maturity and a few years did for them?

The cheer fell away from him and a man stared back at her. “I’ve been worried about you. But I’m a shitty brother and never even called to check, even when I knew things had to be rough.”

She reached across the table and grasped his hand. “It’s okay. It’s not like I’ve made it easy on you.”

“What can you tell me? Are you working here? Visiting? What?”

“Well, I’m visiting, just for a bit. I’m kind of between jobs right now. It’s been a year of limbo for me, for sure.”

“Is this about Seth? Because I feel like since you guys split, it’s been different.”

“It has been different. The stuff he told Mom and Dad…” Her cheeks heated at the memory of her mother’s admonishments through the phone after Seth’s little impromptu visit post-break up.

“So you wanted to change it up in bed? I don’t see anything wrong with that. Not that I want to think of my sister doing anything in that
Shades of Grey
book. . .”

Lisette sputtered and laughed. He had no idea. None at all. “Stop, seriously, stop.”

“What? I’m just saying—”

“I don’t even want to hear it.” She put her hand over her mouth and laughed.

He grinned at her, but didn’t push it farther. “What are you up to today?”

“Checking some email, hanging out for a little while before I go back to where I’m staying.”

“Keeping it close to the vest still, hmm?”

“Yeah.”

“At least tell me if it’s something to do with your ex? Please?”

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

Lafayette blew out a breath and glanced away. “I knew there was something about that guy when we met him, but Mom and Dad loved him.”

“Mom and Dad loved the idea of him. They didn’t really know him.” But for the first time in her life, they’d told her they were proud of her. Psychologically, she knew their approval factored into her determination to stay with him for as long as she did.

“He did charm them. I’m glad he’s gone.” Lafayette’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and rolled his eyes. “I guess I’m still on a short leash. I need to get back across town. What are you doing tomorrow? Want to have lunch? Or should I not ask that question?”

Lisette knew he was kidding, but she still winced.

“Hey.” He took her hand in his and squeezed. “What’s this?” He pushed the sleeve of her sweater up a little, exposing the long scar and dimple marks.

“Nothing.” She pulled her arm out of his grasp and cradled it to her chest. Shame, fear and guilt mixed together in a toxic cocktail. She was a victim, but it was still her burden to carry.

“Lissy…” Lafayette’s face creased with lines of worry. She could see the questions swimming in his gaze. Seth? Is this why? Are you okay?

She took a deep breath and willed a smile on her face. “I’m okay now. Or at least I’m getting better.”

The deep lines didn’t ease, but he did sit back in his chair.

“I could do lunch tomorrow.” She pulled her sleeve back down and folded her hands in her lap.

“Great. Same place?”

“Sure.” She nodded.

Some of the tension eased from his face. “It’s good to see you again.”

She smiled and got to her feet, Lafayette following her lead and wrapped her in another tight hug. Meeting with her brother might not have been the most prudent thing to do when she was supposed to be in hiding, but she wouldn’t trade these moments for anything. She’d never had much of a relationship with her brother, but that was changing. She’d seen it happen in her clients, how they reconnected with their families and things were different. Better. Lisette had just never thought that would be her. The change might not include her sister or parents, but at least she had a brother again.

Mathieu opened the apartment door
and let Gator’s leash go. The pit bull scampered inside and took a sharp left, no doubt headed for the source of the delicious aroma. He stepped across the threshold and inhaled the scent of frying sausage.

“Hey, I was wondering where you two were,” Lisette called. “Yes, you’re a good boy. I can’t pet you right now, though.”

Mathieu hung his coat on a peg by the door and stepped into the narrow kitchen.

Gator sat at Lisette’s feet, the leash strung out behind him. Mathieu paused to take in the domestic picture—his dog, his kitchen and the woman who couldn’t be his. She needed to go back to Miami, far away from her family. But she was so damn beautiful—her smile lit even the darkest corners of his life—that he didn’t want her to go.

Meeting her family had rubbed him raw.

Lisette glanced at him and smiled. There was something different. It wasn’t the clothes; he’d seen about every outfit change she had in that backpack. Her hair was up in a messy knot and she didn’t have any make-up on.