Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (4 page)

Backing up, my heart
in my throat, the hair on the back of my neck rising, I stood there
just staring at it. I had to have lost my necklace. That had to be
it.

But when I turned it
over, there in one of the points was the heart he had engraved into
it the day he bought it.

“Samantha?”

I jerked upright
when I heard Evie Sutton’s voice just outside the kitchen. I
scooped everything back into the bag and pocketed it in my apron just
as she came through the door.

“There you
are.” She took one look at my face and rushed over, setting two
weathered, leather-bound books and an old piece of square-cut wood on
the table next to me. “
Cher
.
What’s wrong?” She took my arm, wrapping her free arm
around my waist. “Here, sit down.”

We sidestepped the
cake disaster as she helped me over to one of the chairs. I folded
down onto the seat.

“Must have
been the heat,” I said, fanning myself. She rushed over to the
sink and grabbed a glass, filling it with water. Hurrying back, she
put it in my hand.

“Drink all of
this.” She sat down next to me, her anxious eyes on my face.

“I’m all
right, sweetie.”

“I wouldn’t
want to lose my best customer,” she murmured and felt my
forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay? You were positively
white when I came in.”

“Yes, I’m
fine.” I finished off the water.

She narrowed her
eyes at me. “Usually people get flushed from the heat. You
looked like you’d seen a ghost.” I was touched by her
concern. “Should I call Doc Rust?”

My stomach jumped
and my heart jolted. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. “No.
I’m really okay. No doctor needed.”

We sat for a few
minutes while I worked on gathering my composure, in spite of frantic
thoughts still running through my head. “What brings you here?
The brunch isn’t until 10:30.”

“Oh, I wanted
to check to make sure everything was all set, and to bring by these
journals I found. I thought you would be interested in them.”
She rose and went over to the table and reached for the musty books
she’d set down, then she spied the shards. “Oh, no. The
transferware. I’m sorry about that.”

“Yes, my
clumsiness. I hope you have more.”

“I think I do,
in one of the boxes in the back. Come by and we’ll look.”
She came over to me and sat down again.

“I’m so
sorry about the cake. I’m going to have to substitute crème
brûlée. Are you okay with that?”

“Oh, that’s
a good choice. I’m sorry about the cake, too. It’s the
one with the raspberry?”

“Yes.”

“That is a
shame.” She pulled her eyes from the demolished cake and said,
“Anyway, I went to an estate sale the other day, and the owner
had an extensive library. I picked through all the books and found
some gems, including a couple of first editions.”

“That’s
great. What did you find?”

She waved her hand.
“
Frankenstein
,
Poe’s
Raven
,
Charlotte’s
Web,
and
Gone
with the Wind
.”

“No kidding?”

“Yes, I’m
over the moon, but I found these, too.”

“What are
they?”

“One is a
journal by AnnClaire, and the other is Imogene’s. Growing up in
Vermilion Bayou, I had a granny who knew a lot about voodoo, so I
find the stories about Imogene fascinating. Looks like her personal
voodoo handbook.”

Cold iced down my
spine. What were the odds? “I’ll take them.”

“I thought you
might.” She turned the wooden board around. “And, look,
this must be Imogene’s original sign. I thought you would want
that, too.”

The sign was
beautifully made, but the blue paint was weather-beaten, and the
lettering faded. “I do! It will look great on that pie safe you
found for me. Did you notice it’s now displayed at the
entrance? It’s so thoughtful of you to remember my fascination
with Imogene and find these for me. If you come by anything else,
please do let me know.”

She nodded.

“Everything is
all ready for the brunch. Except for the poor cake.”

Evie gave me a
sympathetic look. “Crème brûlée will be
fine. Your cooking is amazing, but if you ever tell Brax I said that,
I’ll deny it.”

I chuckled.

After she left, I
fingered the gris-gris bag. I didn’t have time to decipher what
it meant, since I had a limited knowledge of voodoo and no time to
look up anything. I had a brunch to prepare, and with many of my
regular and favorite customers attending, not to mention the exacting
Braxton Outlaw, it had to be superb.

***

The cake mess a
memory, I started on the two appetizers: Choice of Creole cream
cheese Evangeline, a traditional Creole breakfast starter—a
sugared Creole cream cheese with seasonal fruit—or shrimp
bisque. Entrees: Savory Crabmeat Cheesecake—lump crabmeat, Brie
and cream cheese, eggs, cream, fresh vegetables, herbs and spices and
served with a sherry-infused cream sauce—or Poached Eggs over
artichoke bottoms and creamed spinach with Hollandaise sauce. Then
there would be eggs and bacon for the little ones. Beverage would be
mimosa.

Beth came back into
the kitchen. “Sandy just arrived, and he’s getting stuff
ready behind the bar.”

Chase came through
the door with one of his coolers. For a moment I just stared at him,
caught off guard.
Why
was he here?
When it was evident I was surprised, he looked at Beth.

Beth smiled at him
warmly, and I felt a twinge. She was pretty and younger than Chase.
“Oh, I totally forgot to tell you,” she said. “We
were short on crab, so I called Chase for you last night.”

“Thanks, Beth,
that was very thoughtful. Could you go help Sandy get everything
ready? Once the crowd hits we’re going to be running full out.”

“Sure,”
she said, and, giving Chase another quick, hopeful smile, she left.

Chase set down the
cooler. His eyes had never left mine. His gaze was narrow, fierce,
piercing in its intensity, his brows drawn, his normally sensuous
mouth tight, framed by the smooth lines of his cheekbones above the
faint beard stubble along his strong jaw.

He came around the
butcher block table, close, but he didn’t touch me. “What
happened?”

“How do you
know something happened?”

“I don’t
know. You look…upset.”

“I dropped
your raspberry cake and in the process broke one of my favorite
plates.” It popped out of my mouth instead of blurting out I’d
seen a ghost and had found a strange voodoo bag which was now stashed
in my apron pocket.

His face softened.
An unsettling, heavy feeling unfolded in my chest, making me
restless. I got a dose of his musky, male scent, and my pulse went
haywire. Slipping my hands into my apron pockets, I tried to will
away the heaviness. I didn’t know why I felt so exposed, so
pressured to tell him about the Black woman and the bag my hand
brushed against. Especially the mystery of how my silver star
necklace got inside.

“Shoot, girl.
That’s a damn shame, but I didn’t realize you were making
me a raspberry cake,” he said, his voice earnest. “You
trying to make me fat and happy? Or do you have something for me to
do, and you’re buttering me up?”

“I’m a
cook…so, yes—fat and happy is good. I wouldn’t say
no to help with installing my bathrooms.” I said before I could
stop my stupid mouth. Stepping back, my insides jangling, getting
totally distracted from the conversation, I wanted to run my hand
down his arm to make some connection, and it shook me. I fought the
inclination to touch him. I refused to give in to these feelings,
although I knew Chase was a good man, the best. I never understood
why some smart, local woman hadn’t snapped him up already.

It had been two
years since I lost Jeff and Scott. Two years of loneliness and guilt
and grief. Yet I couldn’t shake the sense of betrayal I felt
for even thinking about getting involved with another man. The
anguish and terrible sense of loss had been completely disabling and
thoroughly overwhelming. How could I even consider another
relationship when losing Jeff, losing my child, had torn me apart? I
wasn’t sure I had the strength to handle it again.

But even while my
common sense told me not to get involved, my irrational heart was not
listening.

I wasn’t sure
where our…attraction was going to go. But the pressure
building in me would eventually need some kind of release, because I
was already feeling so unsettled and frustrated and needy. I stepped
back again, trying to put distance between us, so I could breathe.

He tensed, as if my
retreat was in reaction to what he’d said. He watched me with
an intent, steady look, as if assessing the situation. His voice was
quiet and low when he said, “I wouldn’t want you to
feel…uncomfortable, Samantha.” His eyes went over my
face.

“I don’t,”
I said hurriedly, softly. “I truly don’t.” I could
barely handle his concern. It was the reassuring look in his eyes. It
was too much. My knees went weak, and my breath jammed up in my
chest. It was all I could do to keep from folding into his arms. And
all those feelings I’d tried to hold at bay came rushing
through, sending a fountain of need surging up from my core. As if
trapped by his gaze, I stared back at him, unable to break away—not
really wanting to. I was so lost in his eyes, in the pulse-racing
weakness…

It was on the tip of
my tongue to tell him the truth. And the desire to tell him, to get
his take on this unsettling incident made me nervous. The pressure to
confide in him was almost unbearable. Maybe I wanted the reassurance
I wasn’t going bonkers.

The timer for my
oven chimed and I jumped. This would have to wait. “Chase, look
at us wasting time when we’re both very busy today. I’ve
got to get to cooking, and I’m sure you need to get home and
change.”

He nodded, his eyes
flashing. “River will skin me alive if I miss the christening
and the freaking fish fry afterwards. What is it you’re not
telling me?”

My heart suspended,
then thundered on with such ferocity I felt it might explode from the
sudden intensity of it. Not to mention the spooky connotations of
what had happened.

“Chase…I
can’t go into it now—”

“I can come
back later. After all this is over. It might be late.”

“That’s
all right. Please do come. I need to tell someone or I might go
crazy.”

I felt immediately
foolish, but couldn’t shake this unsettling feeling. Only now
there was no way to take it back. It had been reckless to say it,
words that took us from a friendly comfort zone to a
not-so-comfortable zone of intimacy.

And it had become
intimate. Because finally, after years of avoiding the truth about my
interest in Chase, I was going to confide in him and lean on him. It
was scary.

Where would we go? I
didn’t know, and that terrified me almost as much as seeing a
ghost who was part of a mystery that I desperately wanted help in
unraveling.

Wherever that led
us.

CHASE

The church was
packed, every available space in every pew taken. With the Outlaw and
Sutton clans and guests, the scales tipped at about forty people. I
hovered in the back, tugging on the collar of my white dress shirt,
feeling as if the tie was choking me. It had been a long, long time
since I put on a suit. River stood up and searched the crowd. When
she spied me, she motioned me forward vigorously.

I took a fortifying
breath and wended my way through the mass of people who’d
gathered for both the congregation service and my nephews’
christening.

When I approached
the front pew where my family was sitting, my uncle Win smiled at me
and stood so I could get into the already-crowded pew. His wife, my
aunt Evie, patted my shoulder, her smile just as welcoming. I ended
up wedged between my brother Jake—who didn’t even
acknowledge me—and my dad, who gave me a stiff nod.

Great. This was just
peachy. The universe really had it in for me. But all that dissipated
when River turned around, her arms full of one of her sons and said,
with joy vivid in her words, “I’m so glad you made it.”

Brax turned around,
too, with the other two triplets nestled comfortably within each arm.
His hands looked so big next to those tiny bodies. “Yeah, you
look vaguely familiar,” he said, with a sarcastic tone and
narrowed eyes. Typical Brax.

“Hush,”
I said. “Pay attention.” Verity’s father, Preacher
Fairchild had opened the service.

“Brothers and
sisters in Christ: Through the sacrament of baptism, we are initiated
into Christ’s holy church. We are incorporated into God’s
mighty acts of salvation, and given new birth through water and the
Spirit. All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price.
Who is presented for baptism?”

Those words struck a
chord, and made me wish I could start all over with my family, but so
much water had flooded under that bridge, I was afraid it had been
washed away. Jake seemed bent on not forgiving me for leaving him to
suffer in the role of the second—and often, in his eyes, the
lesser—son taking over. He hadn’t opened up to me…in
fact, hadn’t actually spoken to me…in years.

His stiff and
unrelenting shoulder as it pressed to mine was cold and resolute. My
dad, on the other side of me, stared straight ahead, not exactly
stiff, but more resigned…disappointed.

River and Braxton
rose. Together they said, “We present Beckett, Bane, and Brody
Outlaw for baptism.”

They approached the
preacher at the baptismal cistern, where River and Brax professed
their faith in response to the revver’s questions. Once the
Apostles’ Creed was recited, Boone and Verity, and Booker and
Aubree rose, and approached as well. Both couples were going to act
as godparents. Verity’s father poured water into the cistern
while the congregation stood up.