Down & Dead In Dixie (Down & Dead, Inc. Series) Read online

“Truer words have never been spoken.” I looked over at him. He wasn’t smiling. Neither was I.

  “I have an apartment over the restaurant. You can stay there until you find a place.”

  “Very kind of you, but it wouldn’t be right . . .” Her new coworkers would get the wrong idea.

  “I won’t be there.” He dragged a hand through his clipped hair. “I started out in the apartment, but I don’t live there now. Once in a while I stay over, usually on Mardi Gras. People get crazy in the Quarter on Mardi Gras. You never know what to expect.”

  “If memory serves me, they party hard every chance they get.”

  “True.” He grinned. “Can you walk back to the restaurant?”

  I sent him a questioning look.

  “You’re limping,” he explained. “Did that happen during the mugging?”

  “Before,” I said, determined not to lie to him any more than I absolutely had to. Lying at all rankled, but sometimes a woman just had no choice. “The heel of my shoe got stuck in a crack in the sidewalk and I twisted it.” I stood up and paused a second to get my bearings. “Thank you for coming to look for me.”

  He looked down and dipped his chin. “You should be cursing me. I should have thought of the problems converting money with no identification before you left. I’m sorry, Lily.”

  “No.” I couldn’t let him beat himself up. “For pity’s sake. I’m not your responsibility. If anything, you’ve been my hero.”

  “You deserve a refund.” He shoved a hand in his pocket. “A hero would have thought about the check-cashing issue before you left Jameson Court.”

  I smiled and ticked items off on my finger. “Food. Job. Ally. Advance. Now a place to stay.” I shrugged. “Hero. Down to the bone.”

  He tugged at the collar tips on his white shirt. “Well, at least I’m useful.”

  Mark Jensen genuinely wasn’t comfortable accepting gratitude. Why? “Hero,” I stubbornly insisted. “Now, unless you want to carry me back to Jameson Court, we’d better move. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life. Not even after pulling double shifts for three weeks straight without a day off.”

  He offered his arm. “What kind of monster did you work for—three weeks of doubles without a break?”

  “He was great.” I shrugged. “Christmas was coming. I needed the money.”

  “That, I understand.”

  “I thought you had always been wealthy.” The words popped out of my mouth before I quality-control checked them through my brain. My face burned hot. “Stop. Ignore me. I had no business saying anything personal.”

  “It’s okay.” He patted my arm, reassuring me. “I am wealthy now. But I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “No, you didn’t.” He led me through the gate and down the sidewalk. “I’m a little defensive about it, I guess. I worked hard for everything, and I took some healthy risks. I got lucky, too.” He glanced over at me. “People just remember the luck.”

  And apparently they never let him forget it. “Unfortunate. And unfair.” My gaze drifted to the curb where a man got into a sleek black car then drove off. His red-dotted tail lights looked like a grimace. “My luck isn’t awful, but it’s not been exactly great, either. I’ve been relying heavily on the hard work side of things.” I smiled. I have no idea why. “Honestly, work’s not produced exactly stellar results, but I’ve made it, day to day. That’s not all bad.”

  “Lean on me,” he said, looping our arms. “Give your ankle a little rest.”

  “Thanks.” I leaned into him, grateful for the reprieve, and we crossed the narrow road then headed toward Chartres Street.

  “Well, starting now, your luck’s going to be good here. It’s New Orleans. Great things can happen to people here, and you’re overdue a break.”

  I felt my burdens lifting, the heavy weight sliding right off my shoulders. “I think it already has changed.” I smiled up at him. “It changed when I met you.”

  His eyes twinkled. “I’m glad, and I’ll try a little harder on the hero front. Refugees stick together.”

  Sweet and kind, but . . . “I don’t expect you to take on my burdens. I wouldn’t want that, and trust me, you don’t want them, either.” I chuckled because no one in their right mind would willingly change places with me at the moment. “But having an ally is a blessing.” The smell of roses filled my nose. A courtyard trellis. Late for roses. “I’ll try to be a blessing for you, too,” I said. “Thank you for taking an awful day and making it better.”

  He nodded a greeting to a couple passing us on the sidewalk. We walked in comfortable silence back to Jameson Court and then Mark led me around the building into an alley on the river side. At the foot of an outside staircase, he stopped. “Can you make it up the stairs?”

  I nodded.

  It took a little longer than I expected, and I was less graceful than I wished I could be especially with him watching, but between the two of us, leaning on him, I made it.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.” If I had to do it again, I’d have slept on the bottom step.

  On the top landing, he unlocked the door, reached inside and flipped on the light. “Here you go.” He stepped aside to let me in. “It’s not grand, but it beats the socks off a wrought-iron bench.”

  It was far nicer than my apartment in Biloxi. A quaint kitchen, living room with a brown leather sofa and plush tan pillows. A TV, too. And a bedroom decorated in oversize, heavy wood and masculine colors. “All this and a bath, too?” It had a shower and a tub. Bliss!

  He laughed. “I keep the fridge stocked. Help yourself to whatever you want.” He walked to the other end of the kitchen, to a door. “You can get down to the restaurant through here to get anything you can’t find and might need.”

  “I’m fine.” And uneasy. And overwhelmed. In all my life, no one had ever opened up themselves or their home to me like this. I felt a great deal—more than I wanted to feel—but I had no idea what to do with all those emotions. Could I trust them? What I really wanted to know was if I could trust him.

  Leaning against a doorjamb, I looked over at Mark. He stood just inside the outside door. “Why are you being so good to me?”

  “We’re allies. That’s what allies do.”

  I shot him a deadpan look. It had always cracked Jackson and made him tell me the truth.

  Mark worried at his lower lip with his teeth then shocked me with a toothy grin full of mischief. “Because I can.”

  It was all I could do not to laugh. “Cute, but I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” The deep timbre in his tone backed up his words. Another stern look laced with reprimand, and he sighed. “Okay, cute isn’t enough. I get it, Lily. You can nix the glare.”

  I waited.

  It took him a second to figure out how he wanted to say what he had to say. When he had, he continued. “The truth is, everyone in my life wants something from me. Money. Cars. Tickets to the Saints games—something. You wanted to work.” He shrugged. “I respect that.”

  Truth, but not all of it. “And?” There was more. I could see there was more in his eyes and oddly, though he’d told me enough, I wanted to know the rest.

  “And you looked dead on your feet, like you’d been dragged through the mill—which you had—and you needed a break, so . . .” Suddenly seeming shy, he let his words trail.

  “So you gave me a break because you could.”

  “Respect is a big thing with me.” He nodded. “So is genuine affection.”

  “Affection?” He’d lost me on that one.

  “Yeah. It was in your voice when you mentioned school and back-burnering your education to help your brother. I heard it again when you mentioned Craig Parker. I like Craig. He was a good friend to me after the storm.”

  He’d talked Mark through a lot of dark nights. That much I’d gotten from Jackson during the move to Dallas. I leaned against the kitchen counter. “You know
Craig’s an orphan, too, of course.”

  “Yes, he’s told me.” Mark let her see his sadness. “I’m still having trouble being orphaned. You’d think by now, especially at my age, I’d be used to it, or mature enough to accept it, but . . . I’m not.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Hate to break it to you, my friend, but you don’t get used to it. You just get better at coping with not being used to it.”

  He looked down into my upturned face. “Which is harder, do you think?” he asked. “Having and losing parents, or never having them?”

  “Hmm.” I slid onto a barstool at the breakfast bar and looked at a white-rope ceramic bowl. Made to hold fresh fruit, it stood empty. He really didn’t stay here. “I’ve experienced both. In one you know what you’re missing, and in the other you dream of what could have been, or what you hope would have been, and you also wonder if you’re the reason it never was. With my dad, I’ve always half-blamed myself for him not being a part of my life. Over and over, I’ve asked myself if I did something wrong. Course, he never knew me so I couldn’t have done anything right or wrong, but that’s logical, and there is absolutely nothing logical about emotions.”

  “You said your mom left you. Do you know why?”

  “Not a clue,” I confessed. “It gave me fits for years, I have to tell you.” It had. Every time Jackson had asked, it ripped up my heart and the shell around it got it a little bit harder. A mother’s love was supposed to be unconditional. If it wasn’t, then the fault had to be mine. And if my own mother couldn’t love me, then no one ever could. It was a simple, logical deduction I’d made early on and years of foster care had reinforced until it stuck. Nothing in my life since then had even tempted me to reconsider.

  I looked at the stove and then back to Mark. “It’s a mystery,” I confessed. “One day, she seemed fine—for her, that is—and the next day she went to park the car and never came back.” I paused, then said without apology, “All of which rolled together means, I can’t answer your question. Whether you know them or not, when you lose your parents, even if you never had them, it sucks.” I paused and then added, “But I think if you had parents and your family was close and then you lost them, that would have to be harder.”

  “Why?” He slid onto a barstool across the breakfast bar from me.

  I grabbed two sodas from the fridge and passed him one. “Because you’ve relied on them your whole life. There isn’t a wound or a triumph you’ve had that they’ve missed. They’ve been right there, helping you over the hard spots, celebrating the good things, holding onto you through all the worries . . . Losing all the support would have to be hardest.”

  “You never had any of that kind of support, have you?” He popped the top. The soda in the can fizzed. “Even when your mom was there, she wasn’t there, right?”

  Pride made me want to soften the truth, but I couldn’t do it. “No, she wasn’t. We—my brother and me—were always . . . inconvenient,” I said, finding an appropriate word. “Knowing it was hard on him. I tried to be there for him, but a sister, even one trying hard, isn’t a mom, you know?”

  “You were there. He wasn’t facing the world alone. That’s what mattered most to him, I’m sure.”

  I returned to my seat and sat down. “I’m sorry about your folks, and your sister and brother. It’s hard to lose people you love one at the time, but everyone at once . . .” My eyes stung and I blinked hard. “I can’t imagine.”

  His gaze drifted. “I felt guilty for the longest time. Sometimes, I still do.”

  “Because you lived and they didn’t?”

  He nodded. “Survivor’s guilt. They say it’s normal. I don’t know if it is or isn’t. I do know it also sucks.”

  “Forgiving yourself is always hardest.”

  “What?”

  I sipped from the can. The bubbles burst on my tongue and the cool drink eased my throat. “It’s easy to forgive people you love. It’s not so easy to forgive yourself.”

  “No, it’s not.” For some reason, his intense expression lightened. “You know, I like you, Lily. You talk straight. I don’t get a whole lot of straight talk.”

  “I’ve never had the luxury of indulging in fantasies. Not complaining, just stating facts. Reality tends to make you blunt.” I lifted a shoulder. “And I like you, too.”

  “Blunt is good. Bitter isn’t. But you don’t strike me as bitter. I’m curious about that. Actually, it fascinates me. I’d think you would have every reason to be bitter.”

  “I considered it. Many times, if I’m being honest. But I couldn’t afford that luxury, either.” When his brow shot up questioning, I added, “Too busy looking forward, trying to make a life for my brother and me. I had to choose.” I lifted my hands and weighed the options. “Bitterness.” Lowering one, I raised the other. “Looking forward. I chose to look forward.” I lowered both hands and ran a fingertip around the rim of the soda can. “I used to tell myself as soon as he was grown and on his own, I was going to have myself one serious ticked-off, pity party.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. Couldn’t afford that luxury, either.” I smiled. “Too busy trying to make a life for myself without him.”

  “Probably for the best.”

  “Definitely. I haven’t made time for pity or blame or even resentment. All of those things take too much energy. I just don’t have it to spare.”

  “Wise.” Mark pulled out his wallet. “After the storm, I wasn’t so wise. I had plenty of all of those things—bitterness, resentment, blame and anger.” He grunted. “Man, I was so angry it was like a poison inside me.”

  “You’d lost your family and home. In your situation, I’d expect all that and more.”

  “Oh, I had plenty of more. You name it, and I wallowed in it.” He shook himself. Clearly, his memories of that time were not good ones. “I was seriously self-destructive.”

  I swallowed a sip of my drink. “Ah, you took a trip to the abyss.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s what I call that place. The abyss.”

  “The abyss.” He sounded bewildered, still not tracking my meaning.

  “Yeah. Dark, depressing, destructive. So far down you can’t see up much less get there from where you are. It’s an awful place.” I propped an arm on the countertop. “I hate the abyss, and do my best to avoid it.” I brushed back my hair. “How’d you drag yourself out of it?”

  He smiled. “The hard way.”

  “Of course.” It hadn’t been an easy lesson. I’d bet on that. “How hard?”

  “I got drunk and drove my car into the Mardi Gras fountain out on Lake Ponchartrain.” Shame tinged his voice. “Craig wired Rachel the money to bail me out of jail.”

  The graceful hostess at Jameson Court. “Is Rachel your wife?” I shouldn’t ask, but he was so charming and open and I had no idea if he was married. I needed to know. Okay, I didn’t need to know, but I wanted to know. He touched me in ways I hadn’t been touched ever. I liked it, and him.

  “No, I’ve never married. Rachel’s married. She’s worked with me since I opened Jameson Court.”

  “You in love with her anyway?” I had no right to ask that, either. What was I thinking?

  “No. I’ve known her forever. She just married Chris a couple years ago.”

  I studied Mark, and my honed bull-detector swore he was telling the truth. “I guess after losing everybody, the idea of committing would stick in your craw.”

  “Honestly?”

  I nodded. “Always.”

  “It scares me right out of my skin. Not the committing. I commit to business deals and people around me every day. But—”

  “Loving someone is what rattles you.”

  “Yes.” He stiffened. “I don't ever want to hurt like that again.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?” He tilted his head. “I’d think you’d find me cowardly. In fact, I’m betting I’ve just blown a hole the size of the state through my hero image.”


  “Not by me.” I grunted. “Loving and being abandoned—willingly or not—hurts forever. I totally get it.” I dropped my chin into my cupped hand. The downside, of course, is you never feel connected or loved again, and that sucks about as much as losing people you love.”

  “Which is why we refugees have to stick together,” he said, effectively closing the subject, then opened another.

  We talked about everything, about nothing. About business and funny antidotes of restaurant events. We talked about life and death and about growing up. About people we’d dated or not dated, and why. “We sound like two sides of the same mirror,” I told him. “Not on the family stuff, but on our past loves.”

  “I fell really hard only once,” he said with a wry grin. “Jenny Singleton.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Six.” He chuckled.

  “I thought so.” I laughed with him. “Had to be serious puppy love to warrant a look that wistful.”

  “You mean it doesn’t happen to adults?” He lifted a hand. “No, don’t tell me. I need to heal enough to want to feel that way again. Knowing I might keeps me going.”

  That shocked me. “He who fears loving wants to be swept up in the chaos of puppy love?”

  He stilled. “No, not swept up in the risks, just in the chaos.” He rubbed at his neck. “Which makes me totally loony, doesn’t it?”

  “Actually, it makes you totally charming—and a little loony. But only a little.”

  We laughed and then talked some more. And we kept talking until I couldn’t mask a yawn.

  “I’m sorry. I knew you were dead on your feet, but I—I don’t get the chance to talk like this much. I was selfish, Lily.”

  I rested a hand on his forearm. “Not at all. Talking openly is as rare for me as it is for you. I enjoyed it.” I smiled, wondering where it all came from. Feelings I just didn’t discuss with other people. “I don’t think I’ve told anyone so much about myself and what I think in my whole life.”

  His eyes warmed with a delicious twinkle. “Then I’m a lucky man.”

  “Thank you.” Her smile widened. “I’m feeling pretty lucky myself.”

  “There’s something about you . . . I’m not sure what it is, but you make me want to . . . never mind. It sounds crazy.”