Blood Ties in Chef Voleur (2 page)

“Mom, I’ll hold it if you’ll unwrap it,” Cara Lynn said, apparently unwilling to let go of the journal. Betty carefully lifted each corner of the delicate-looking cloth and let it fall over Cara Lynn’s hand. The slow reveal allowed the diamonds and rubies and sapphires and emeralds in the tiara to sparkle and shine to maximum effect.

Cara Lynn gasped, as did the entire room. Whether by accident or design, Betty had chosen the perfect place to reveal the tiara for the first time. They were standing under a huge crystal chandelier, which caught the reflections from the gems and turned them into thousands of multicolored sparks of light that danced across the walls and floor.

Cara Lynn turned the tiara so she could look at the large diamond in its center. The whispers and murmurs grew louder and louder until within a few seconds, the sound was deafening.

Jack himself was mesmerized, but not by the sparkly tiara, nor the journal under Cara Lynn’s arm. He was caught by the open, unfettered joy on his wife’s face.

“Oh,” she said, clutching the journal more tightly and looking from the tiara out over the crowd of people, 80 percent of whom were related to her. “I...can barely speak,” she said breathlessly, her gaze sweeping across the faces until she met Jack’s. The smile that shone on her face made him want to cry. “I’ve never been so happy as I am right now.”

Jack blinked and averted his gaze. It was like walking on hot coals to look into her eyes and hear her talking about her happiness. He turned away and found himself toe-to-toe with a tall, fit man in his late forties. Jack took a better look at him. His hair was dyed black, which made him look more like a cartoon than a real person, because nobody’s hair was that black naturally. His eyes were dark brown, and right now they were fixed on Jack.

“You’re Jack, Cara Lynn’s husband,” he said firmly, as if he was worried that Jack didn’t know. “And your last name is...?” He embellished his unfinished question with a flourishing gesture.

“Bush,” Jack responded, offering a small smile to counteract his flat response. Then with a wider smile he said, “Jack Bush.”

“Bush,” the man said thoughtfully.

“And you are?” Jack asked, resisting an almost overwhelming urge to run his finger along the inside of his collar. The way the man said his name made Jack second-guess his decision to take the name Bush. These people were as much—maybe more—old New Orleans as his family. Any one of them might know enough French to make the connection. Broussard was from a French word meaning
brush man
or
bushman
. At the time, he’d thought he was being clever. Now he wished he’d chosen Smith or Johnson.

He looked back at the man and waited for him to introduce himself. Finally, after shooting his cuffs and smoothing his school tie with a hand weighted down by a large Austrian crystal-studded ring, the black-haired man lifted his nose slightly. “Paul Guillame.”

The name sent a streak of adrenaline through Jack.
Paul Guillame
.
A cheating, lying skunk who helped Con’s wife frame me for murder,
Granddad had written about him.
Watch your back
. Jack kept his expression neutral and waited, but Guillame did not offer his hand, so Jack didn’t, either. “You’re related to the Delanceys?” he asked innocently.

Paul straightened and looked down his nose at him. “Senator Delancey’s wife was a Guillame,” he said. “The Guillames are a very old family here. But you, Jack Bush.” The man gestured around vaguely. “I hope you realize that you have committed a serious crime against the Delanceys and that they are even now preparing your punishment.”

Jack looked at him, stunned into silence.
Crime? Punishment?
What was the man talking about?

Guillame leaned forward. “Are you satisfied that the crime was worth whatever punishment will be meted out? Can your love for our pretty little youngest survive the wrath of the Delanceys?”

So that was it. His
crime
against the Delanceys was stealing their youngest. His paralyzed vocal chords loosened. “Sometimes something is so beautiful that it must be had, at any cost or any punishment.”

Again, as he’d hoped to do when they first came in, he tried to sound worldly, but he wasn’t sure if he’d pulled it off or if he’d just sounded silly.

Paul Guillame smiled. He reminded Jack of the Cheshire Cat in
Alice in Wonderland.
“Be aware, young Mr. Bush, our Cara Lynn has four brothers and four cousins. That’s eight descendants of Con Delancey. So anyone who hurts her faces death times eight.” Paul raised a hand with an impeccable manicure and pointed a finger at him. “Now, Monsieur Jacques, you add your sword to the pledge, which makes it death times nine.”

All the blood rushed from Jack’s head at Guillame’s use of the French pronunciation of his name. For a split second he felt as though he might pass out. But he kept himself composed and managed not to look around to see if anyone had noticed Paul calling him
Jacques
. He hoped his hand was not visibly shaking as he placed it over his heart. “I so pledge,
Monsieur
.” He sketched a little bow. When he raised his gaze to meet Guillame’s, the man’s black eyes were on the box again, but only for a brief instant, then he turned back to Jack.

“So, tell me Jack, where are you from anyway?”

As a Southerner, Jack understood the question. When asked
where are you from,
a Southerner knows the asker is not interested in where you live, or even where you grew up, He wants you to lay out your family’s history as far back as you know it.

Jack had prepared for this question and his brain was already queuing up the background he’d invented for himself. “My family originally came from—”

The room went dark. Pitch dark.

Startled, Jack took a second to orient himself. Screams and yells came from all around him. Someone tall bumped against him in the dark and almost knocked him off balance. He righted himself, reaching around him for something, anything, to grab in order to break his fall. His fingers brushed a sleeve. The sleeve was pulled away immediately, but Jack noticed that the person who’d bumped into him had been tall—at least as tall as he, and wearing a suit jacket or sports coat. The material that had brushed against his fingers was a thick, heavier fabric, the kind used to make men’s coats.

Then Jack heard a sound that penetrated all the other sounds around him. It was a shriek and a cry of pain.
Cara Lynn
.

At that instant the lights came back on. Jack, who was standing less than six feet from where Cara Lynn had been holding up the bejeweled tiara, saw her, crumpled on the floor in her satin gown, not moving.

“Cara!” he cried, just as someone, maybe Cara’s mother, screamed. “Oh, my God, Cara Lynn!” From another part of the room someone cried out, “The tiara! It’s gone!”

People were milling around everywhere. Jack saw the Delancey men moving in concert, as if they were all part of one company or battalion. In sync, they divided up. Some headed toward Cara Lynn and her mother. Some headed for the front doors. One of them—it looked like one of the twins—pulled out his cell phone, calling the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, no doubt.

When Jack got to Cara Lynn, two of her brothers were already there, bending over her, and a third Delancey was running toward them. He heard someone shout, “There he goes. Out the side door!” Jack leapt up onto a chair and spotted a man dressed in black, hurrying toward a pair of French doors on the side of the large hall. The man glanced backward, then threw open the doors and bolted. He was cradling something close to his chest like a football. Jack couldn’t tell what it was.

Around the doors, people were crying out and pointing, and Jack saw Delancey men pushing their way through the crowd, but the man in black obviously had a huge head start.

Jack’s muscles tensed and his tendons tightened, although intellectually, he knew that if the Delanceys—cops, military men and investigators—couldn’t catch the thief, he had no chance. But just at the instant when he was about to spring down off the chair and try to lend his help, he heard Cara Lynn’s voice.

“Jack?”

It was raspy and choked, but it was her. He turned back toward her. She had three of her big, capable Delancey protectors hovering over her, but she wasn’t paying any attention to them. She was looking straight at him. Horrified, he saw blood streaming down the side of her face and her expression was twisted in pain.

“Cara?” he whispered. Then his gaze rose to the table where the journal and the tiara had sat. All that remained was the square of old cloth. The bejeweled crown and the book were gone. Jack cared nothing—less than nothing—for the tiara. But that journal, if it really was Lilibelle Guillame’s last journal, could exonerate his grandfather from any wrongdoing, if his grandfather’s theory was true and Lilibelle was the one who’d killed Con Delancey.

Jack glanced in the direction of the French doors. Then he looked at his wife, whom he’d duped into marrying him so he could find
that journal
.

He took a deep breath.
The journal!
his brain screamed.
Get the journal
. But his head didn’t stand a chance against his stupid heart. Berating himself, he rushed to his bride’s side, bent down and used his thumb to wipe blood away from the small ridge just above her brow. Instantly, the three men turned on him.

“Don’t touch her,” one said.

Before Jack could react, the second one, who’d been talking on the phone, said, “We’ve got cars coming from everywhere. That guy won’t get far.”

“Right. Lucas took off after him. He’ll have him in handcuffs before the cruisers even get here,” the third one said.

Before he finished speaking, someone in the direction of the French doors shouted. “Look! He dropped the tiara! See it—”

“Nobody move!” a voice boomed. “Hey! Pipe down! Barton, get that crown! Everybody—Shut! Up!”

“Did you see anything?” one of the brothers asked Cara Lynn as another pressed a handkerchief to the cut on her forehead.

“Has anybody got any water?” the third man shouted.

To Jack, their voices sounded like a swarm of bees around his head. It occurred to him that this was what Cara Lynn had been talking about when she’d described how she’d spent her life being suffocated by her brothers. He wanted to swat them away and take care of her himself. She might be their sister, but she was his wife.

Then he noticed that one of the straps of her gown was broken. And sure enough, just as he’d predicted, without the strap, the entire left side of the dress was quickly headed south, toward a serious wardrobe malfunction. Jack shrugged out of his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. She looked up at him gratefully and pulled the lapels of the coat closed and stuck her arms into the sleeves.

Her brothers glared at him but didn’t say anything, so Jack stayed there with his arm around her.

By the time everybody was convinced that Cara Lynn was fine mentally, emotionally and physically, and no ambulance needed to be called, Lucas was back.

Everybody turned to look at him. Even Jack could read his expression like a children’s book. No luck.

“He disappeared,” Lucas said, a disgusted frown on his face.

“Oh, my God,” Paul said from behind Jack. “Did he really drop the tiara?”

Lucas leveled a grim glare at Paul. “We recovered the tiara, but he got the journal. Did any of you get a look at his face? Cara Lynn?”

Beside Jack, Cara Lynn shook her head.

Lucas pushed the fingers of one hand through his hair, then shouted at no one in particular. “How in hell did he get in and grab that stuff in the middle of a room full of cops?”

Chapter Two

It was after midnight by the time Jack and Cara Lynn got home.

“You’d think with so many Delancey cops there as witnesses, it shouldn’t have taken so long,” Cara Lynn said, looking in her compact mirror at the cut on her forehead.

“Really?” Jack said. “It’s only been three hours. My guess is if a thief had broken in and tried to steal a six or seven-figure piece of jewelry from any other house in this entire town, every single person there would have been hauled down to the police station, and many of them would still be there twenty-four hours later.”

“Well, that’s what they ought to do. It’s stupid that nobody caught that thief.” She gingerly touched the cut with her fingertip.

“I need to get you some antibiotic ointment and a strip bandage,” Jack said.

“I’ll do it. Damn, it still hurts.”

“Why don’t you get in bed and I’ll get you some water or something?”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” she said.

Jack got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, opened it and handed it to her. “Were you able to see anything? Could you tell anything about the thief?”

“See anything? I don’t know what room you were in,” she retorted, “but where I was it was black as pitch. Like I told the detective, I felt a hand on me, then I was pushed down and I hit my shoulder and head on the marble table. The next thing I knew everybody was hovering over me.” She shivered.

“I think you need to go to bed,” he said. “Don’t you have to finish getting ready for your new show down in New Orleans in the morning?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve still got one piece to finish. I should get up at five.”

Jack grabbed a bottle of water for himself. He twisted the top off and took a long swallow, then gazed at her as if he was thinking about what he was going to say. “What do you think that tiara is worth?”

Cara Lynn shrugged and winced. “Damn it, my shoulder is sore, too. The tiara? I don’t know. My grandmother said it was priceless, but she let me play Princess with it.”

Jack paused with the bottle halfway to his lips. “You’re kidding.”

“No. I played dress-up with some of her old clothes and the tiara. I remember it was heavy. She got mad if I dropped it.”

“I’ll bet she did.”

“I heard my parents and Uncle Michael talking about it once. They were saying half a million.”

Jack’s jaw tightened and the expression on his face was unreadable, but it bothered her. “That guy was small-time. I don’t get why he chanced stealing the tiara.”

“What do you mean? If he’d gotten out of there, he’d be rich for the rest of his life.”

He gave a half shrug. “How can anyone possibly sell something that famous?”

“He could remove the stones and sell them, right?”

“Those gigantic rubies and emeralds and diamonds have been photographed, measured, weighed. I’ll guarantee you, the insurance company has an exact description of each stone. Whoever steals that baby better enjoy playing dress-up, because they’re not going to get any money for it.”

Cara Lynn stared at him. “You know an awful lot about famous jewels,” she said. “Please tell me you’re not an international jewel thief.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’m not an international jewel thief. Every bit of that information can be found on the internet or in movies.
The Thomas Crown Affair,
for instance.”

She nodded, but a trace of unease began to stir under her breastbone. It was the same feeling that had been a part of her ever since she and Jack had gotten married. She loved him and she was sure he loved her, but occasionally, he’d send her a look or make a comment that worried her.

There was something wrong between them and she couldn’t figure out what it was. And every time she tried to talk to Jack about it, she ended up in his arms, making love.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to bed. You need to get as much sleep as possible. I’ll guarantee you’re going to be sore tomorrow, and you’ll probably have at least one bruise.” He headed toward the bedroom.

“Okay. I’m just going to get the coffee ready to turn on in the morning.”

Alone for the first time since the party had started, Cara Lynn stood in the middle of the kitchen floor while tears slid down her cheeks. She’d done her best not to cry in front of her brothers or Jack, but everything that had happened had built up in her until she could no longer hold back.

From the instant she’d managed to clear her head after hitting it against the marble table, she’d called for Jack. When the lights came back on, she’d spotted him standing on a chair, looking over the crowd toward the French doors, in the direction the thief had run.

As soon as he’d heard her call, he’d turned around. He’d looked horrified at the blood on her face, but before he’d rushed to her side, he’d glanced back toward the French doors one more time.

She’d sensed the struggle in him, and she’d found it odd. He wasn’t like her brothers. Two cops, a former special forces officer and an attorney. She’d expected them to jump into action and they had. It was their training.

But Jack was an architect—and her husband. Why had his first thought been to pursue the thief rather than rush to her side to be sure she was okay?

Glancing cautiously toward her bedroom, she listened. She didn’t hear anything. However, if Jack was true to form, he’d be back in the kitchen in a few minutes to get some more water before turning in.

She opened her clutch and looked inside. Then she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been afraid she’d imagined slipping the old envelope out from between the pages of the journal and sliding it into her clutch when the lights had gone out.

Touching the slightly yellowing paper, she wondered if anyone else had noticed its corner sticking out between two pages of the journal. She didn’t think so. When she’ d lifted the journal out of the box she’d instinctively covered the corner with her fingers.

She wasn’t sure why her first instinct had been to keep its existence secret. She just knew she felt compelled to do so.

Then the lights had gone out and someone jerked the journal out of her hand. She’d held onto the envelope and her clutch with all her strength as a pair of rough hands pushed her down. She’d stumbled, hit her head and almost passed out, but she hadn’t let go of the envelope. Just as she was slipping it into her clutch, the emergency generator had growled and the lights had come back on. She was pretty sure no one had seen her.

She should have given it to the police. She should have told her brothers. But for some reason, with the journal gone, she felt as though this letter was hers. Hers and nobody else’s. Not that she knew why she felt that way, or had any inkling of what was inside it.

She was looking at the back, with its sealed but crumbling flap. She turned it over and her heart gave a little leap. There was her name, written in the distinctive and utterly beautiful, yet almost impossible to decipher, lovely handwriting of her grandmother, Lilibelle Guillame.
For Cara Lynn.

Most likely it was a sweet and rambling message about the sentimental meaning of the tiara and her journal. No matter what it was, she wanted to keep it secret at least until she had time to read it thoroughly. Right now, there was no time to look at it without the chance of Jack coming in.

So she went into the pantry and pulled on a loose baseboard underneath the bottom shelf. She tucked the envelope into the hollow space behind it, where she kept two thousand dollars in small bills, her passport and the beautiful emerald necklace her mother had given her when she graduated from college. The necklace had belonged to Betty’s mother, who had been a diplomat’s wife and traveled all over Europe with her husband. Just as she was replacing the baseboard, she heard Jack’s bare feet coming down the hall.

Quickly, she got the baseboard into place, grabbed three bottles of water, then stepped out of the pantry into the kitchen.

Jack was opening the refrigerator, his bare toes sticking out from his dress pants. He’d removed his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt. It hung open, revealing a hint of his excellent abs.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Putting some more water in the fridge,” she said, wishing she’d grabbed something else. She’d restocked the water just that morning.

“Sparkling water? What for?” he asked, gesturing toward the top shelf of the fridge. “There are—” he stopped. “There were three regular and three sparkling waters in here this morning. Now there’s only two sparkling, counting this one.” He held up the one he’d just picked up. “I thought you were gone all day.”

“I was,” she said, putting the three bottles on the shelf. “I was in a hurry so I didn’t stop to get one. You must have drunk another one.”

“Nope.” He closed the door. “That’s odd.”

Cara Lynn thought about that morning. She’d rushed out so quickly she hadn’t grabbed her usual bottle of water. “Well, if you didn’t drink it and I didn’t drink it—”

“What? You think someone came in here and drank our water?” he asked, his mouth quirked slightly. “Who’s got keys?”

“Nobody, except the woman who cleans, and she had foot surgery three weeks ago.”

Jack twisted the top off the water and took a long drink. “Maybe she came by.”

“If she did, it was just for the water, because she certainly didn’t clean,” Cara Lynn said wryly.

“How can you tell?” Jack retorted.

She swatted at him and smiled. “Hilarious,” she said, “considering I picked up four empty bottles just like this from your side of the bed this morning. I’ve got a long day tomorrow and I
will
take some water with me.”

He didn’t comment, just headed back to the bedroom. She added two more bottles to the refrigerator, then followed him, going into their bathroom to undress. She shrugged out of Jack’s jacket, then dropped the single intact strap off her shoulder and let the dress fall to the floor, leaving her completely naked. She looked down at herself, blushing. She’d forgotten her little flirtation with her husband from before the party. He probably had, too.

Quickly, she reached for her blue silk nightgown and slipped it over her head. They were married, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d only known Jack for two months. She hadn’t quite gotten over her shyness yet.

“So, what did you think?” she asked Jack, peering around the bathroom door. He was in profile to her, unzipping his pants. His shirt was already off and the sight of his lean, tanned body made heat curl deep inside her, as it did every time she looked at him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. It was still hard for her to believe that they’d fallen in love at first sight. Actually, to be truthful, she wasn’t surprised that she’d fallen for him. What amazed her was that he’d fallen in love with her so fast.

She wondered, as she had many times, had he felt the same startling ache in the middle of his chest that she had when they’d seen each other across the gallery floor where she was exhibiting her fiber-art pieces? Had he immediately felt desire like a tuning fork shimmering and humming inside him? Did he remember each and every second of that first glance, as she had? She would never forget how he’d met her gaze, his mouth curved in a secret smile she hadn’t seen since, then walked straight over to her and asked her to skip the show and go with him to get something to eat.

Even though she’d been a headliner at the gallery that night, she’d gone with him. Four weeks later, they were married.

“Jack?” she said again.

“Hmm?” He glanced at her sidelong, his dark brows shadowing his eyes. “What did I think about what?

“About all the Delanceys?”

“Oh. They’re pretty intense, especially about the baby of the family. Even Paul Guillame got a dig in to me. He told me that your brothers and cousins had pledged
death times eight
to anyone who dared to harm you.”

“Oh, you met Paul. Did he really say that? I can’t believe it.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, thinking about her distant cousin on her mother’s side. “He doesn’t seem that deep or that interested in anyone but himself.”

“Whoa. Ouch. Catty much?”

She felt her cheeks turn pink. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope. He might be shallow, but he’s right about your brothers—and cousins. I bent down to check on you and three big guys were all over me like it was their job to take care of you, not mine.”

Cara Lynn felt a warm glow start in her midsection. “You think it’s your job to take care of me?”

He looked up, his brows knitted, as if he hadn’t even thought about what he’d said. With a slight tilt of his head, he said, “I guess.”

Cara Lynn laughed. “I really like that. Not that I need taking care of.”

He smiled. “I know. You’re perfectly capable of handling yourself.”

“Please, tell my brothers that.”

“Why? What’s the problem with being doted on by your brothers?”

“Nothing, if all you get are the perks. But with four older brothers, I have to put up with the downside, too.”

“Right. Please, tell me the downside to being the favorite in a huge family of wealthy Louisianans.”

“Just like tonight. Nobody thinks I can take care of myself. They don’t even think I can think for myself. It’s like I’ve had five dads threatening boyfriends and checking what time I got home from dates my whole life. And if that’s not enough, two of my brothers and three of my cousins are cops. I can’t count how many times they’ve stopped my car on the road with blue lights blazing, just to be sure I’m all right and on my way home.”

Jack laughed. “Nobody’s threatened or stopped me.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re hardly a
boyfriend
. But I can tell you this. If we hadn’t eloped, we’d only be about a fourth of the way to the wedding by now.”

Jack’s grin faded and he looked at her closely. “Did you want a big wedding?” he asked.

“No,” she said immediately. “I mean, sure I did, when I was a little girl, I dreamed about the huge wedding with the most beautiful white dress in the world and my knight in shining armor waiting at the end of the aisle. But what I found out as I got older is that the press and everybody who either loved or hated my grandfather, consider the Delanceys as
Louisiana royalty
.” She pantomimed air quotes around the two words.