Luke (5 page)

“Panned it?”

“Called it flowery and unrealistic, said that it lacked psychological depth, that the plot was derivative and that the action scenes were without expertise from the viewpoint of an ex-military officer—which is what Muriel was before she left the
service to take up writing. That was just the beginning.”

“None of it was true?”

“By no means.”

“Good grief.”

“Exactly. Oh, April's style might seem a little lush if you're a Hemingway fan, but Papa Hemingway was about as macho as they come. That's fine since he wrote for a primarily male literary audience. However, his minimalist style would be all wrong for a romance novel. The books have a language of their own, one much more sensual and emotional, for the tastes of women.”

Luke grinned as he said, “I'll take your word for it.”

“Yes, well, you'll have to forgive me for getting on my hobby horse.”

“No problem.” He waited a second for the sake of politeness before he asked, “So, you think April was getting back at this Muriel by throwing her to the overeager author back there?”

“That's my guess.” Julianne lifted a rounded shoulder under the flowing fabric of her dress. “April's human. She has a temper and she strikes out when she's hurt. But she's never vindictive or petty, and she hasn't a mean bone in her body.”

“You do know her well,” he commented.

“As I said, we go back a long way together, have weathered a lot of changes in the romance industry. It counts.”

Abruptly, Luke had a flashing mental image of the name Julianne Cazenave as he'd seen it last on book covers in multiple pockets at New Orleans In
ternational Airport. He also remembered a television movie he'd sat through a couple of years back. Without preamble, he said, “You're famous, aren't you?”

Julianne chuckled. “Instantly recognizable, a household name, in fact. I can tell you're honored as all get-out.”

“Truthfully,” he said with a quizzical smile, “I think I am.”

She stared up at him a long moment, then she sighed. “Such a charmer, and it's all natural, too. I believe darling April may be in trouble.”

He studied her through his lashes as he tried to decide if she was putting him on. She returned his gaze without evasion. After a moment, he asked, “You really think so, do you?”

“It's possible. Depends on how much finesse you can muster.”

“Finesse,” he repeated, his voice flat.

“Don't push too hard. She can be led, but not shoved.” Julianne paused, then went on. “You and April were a real item at one time, weren't you?”

“She told you about that?”

“Among other things. So what happened to spoil it? I mean, from your point of view.”

“I let her down,” he said starkly, then wondered what it was about the writer beside him that prompted him to answer such a personal question. There was something, he didn't doubt. He didn't go around baring his soul to just anybody.

“There was an accident, I think. April thought you cared about her, but discovered differently
when you had a wreck and the girl with you was killed.”

“It wasn't the way it sounds.” The words had more force behind them than Luke intended.

“How was it?” Julianne asked quietly.

They had stopped outside another meeting room. The sign beside the door said that Julianne Cazenave would be giving a workshop inside. The time listed for the start had passed five minutes ago. This was not the place to go into details, then, even if he was so inclined.

“It was a mistake,” he said, “one I'll regret all my life. For a lot of reasons.”

Julianne nodded before glancing inside the room where her audience was waiting. Giving him her hand, she said with a slight smile, “I'd like to hear more. In case I don't get the chance today, won't you come see me next time you're in New Orleans?”

“My pleasure,” he said, and meant it.

The rest of the day passed quickly. There was a luncheon that he skipped for a burger in the hotel coffee shop. Afterward, he sat in on a session called How To Turn Up the Heat In Love Scenes. He was so intimidated by the lively discussion of exactly how to describe the male anatomy, however, that he left after ten minutes.

He roamed the halls looking for April, but she wasn't in any of the meeting rooms, nor was she in the lobby or lounge. A woman with an official-looking badge hung on her chest noticed his lost expression and informed him that she was in an executive meeting of some kind. He retreated to a seat
ing area near the door of the room where April's meeting was taking place.

He was soon joined by a bevy of talented females, writers who seemed as fun loving as they were savvy about their business. As he listened to their conversation, he learned quite a bit more about the writing life and picked up a few pointers for future conversations with April. However, he excused himself as he saw her finally emerge with Julianne Cazenave and four other women.

They were in the middle of a discussion about an impromptu group dinner at a restaurant in the Quarter later in the evening when he walked up behind them. He quickly included himself before April could find a way to stop him. When the decision of where to go stalled and someone asked his choice of food, he suggested Italian at Bacco's on Chartres Street. The suggestion was adopted forthwith.

Bacco's, named for the god of wine and merriment, was owned by Ralph Brennan, a member of New Orleans's premier restaurant family. It was known for its great Italian food with Creole-Cajun influence served with a judicious mixture of comfort and sophistication. The place was beginning to fill when they arrived, but Luke had called ahead to reserve a table in the back. They were greeted promptly, then led past the front dining room with its Italian earth tones that glowed in the mellow light from antique Venetian silk chandeliers, up stone steps to the bar backed by Gothic arches, and through to the patio dining room. The area was nicely atmospheric, with wide windows through which could be seen a pool surrounded by palm
trees and illuminated by flickering gaslights. Watching over them was a trompe l'oeil painting of a castle doorway topped by the watchful face of old Bacchus himself.

They ordered two bottles of wine, a white and a red, then selected calamari and cannelloni for appetizers. After that substantial beginning, the ladies seemed in no mood for anything heavy. Bypassing the more elite menu items, they settled for something they could all share, the house specialty of wood-fired pizzas topped with grilled shrimp and andouille, Louisiana crawfish tails and Calabrese hot salami.

By the time the wine made its second round, the romance authors were feeling no pain. They flirted with the waiter, traded suggestive innuendoes with the wine steward, and told bawdy jokes with gusto. Luke might have suspected them of testing him as the only man in the group, except that none of them seemed in the least self-conscious. He thought, rather, that as a group they had lost most of their inhibitions during the process of writing about love and physical attraction—or it might have been that they wrote about these things simply because they had so little embarrassment about them. Whichever it was, they had an open and natural appreciation for the dynamics of sex combined with unusual tolerance toward most subjects. It was a combination of attitudes he could get used to without much effort, he thought. He couldn't remember when he'd had more fun with a bunch of women.

April joined in, though she wasn't quite as boisterous. He was seated across from her in the center
of the long table, so had plenty of opportunity to hear whatever she said in her low, musical tones. He wondered briefly about her more intimate inhibitions, or lack of them, now. She'd once been a little shy, yet had responded to the right encouragement with a naturalness that it hurt him to remember.

As his thoughts drifted, he watched the candlelight gleam across the crown of her hair when she turned her head, noted the softness of her mouth in repose and the warmth that rose in her eyes for everyone except him. Slowly there grew inside him an errant need to be alone with her there in that semisecluded back dining room, just the two of them. It was so strong that he felt almost feverish with it.

Perhaps the table of women picked up on that mental defection. Shortly afterward, they turned on him.

“So, you're the hero of April's next book,” a cute little redhead with traces of white at her temples said. “How did you wind up with the role?”

“Lord, what a question,” another one said before he could answer. “I mean, look at him! Those shoulders, and the long legs, the dark hair, the bedroom eyes…”

“I know,” the first said with a sigh. “Even the white teeth in the tanned face.” She turned to April. “Where on earth did you find him?”

“I just looked around and there he was,” April answered dryly.

“Nobody like that is ever lying around when I need him.” That droll comment came from an at
tractive silver-haired woman with a smoke-roughened voice.

“I never said he was lying around,” April replied in laughing protest. “I just needed dark and devilish and there he was next door.”

“How convenient!” the redhead drawled.

“Wasn't it?” April acted as if she hadn't caught the sly insinuation.

Luke leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He thought of answering for himself, but decided not to risk it. Of course, he could put a stop to the teasing whenever he chose, but he wanted to see how far April would go.

“Does he fit the rest of the mold? Does he have all the qualities you usually put into your heroes?” Julianne sent a bland glance in his direction as she spoke.

“Most of them,” April allowed thoughtfully. “He's strong, obviously. He has intelligence, humor and charm. He moves with the typical athletic ease…”

The one with the smoky voice threw up her hands. “He's perfect, in fact.”

“Not quite.”

“Gad, April, what could he be missing?”

“Self-sacrifice, dedication to a cause,” she answered thoughtfully. “Oh, and one thing more.”

Luke felt his stomach muscles tighten in instinctive preparation for the blow he knew had to be coming. April would never say such things for any other reason except to set him up. The moment stretched, becoming so unendurable that it was a
relief when Julianne asked, “And what might that be?”

April met his gaze over the linen cloth. Her lips barely moved as she answered quietly, “He's missing the most important quality of all in a hero. He has no honor.”

The pain that sliced through Luke was so vicious that he set his teeth against it. He'd thought he had long ago given up caring about April Halstead's opinion of him. This wasn't a good time to find out that he'd been wrong.

At the same time, he saw what she was doing; she wanted to tick him off so he'd leave before the time came to go back to the hotel. Of course, that didn't prevent her from meaning every word she'd spoken.

“Well, now,” the redhead said on an uncertain laugh, “I think maybe I could do without something so measly for the sake of the rest.”

That comment was an apparent attempt to smooth over the slight to his male ego. It was nice of her, but Luke didn't much care to be an object of pity.

That April had no such inclination was proven as she spoke again. “I'm glad you think he fits the role. I was afraid he might be too sure of himself.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Luke exclaimed, annoyed into protest.

“For myself, I like a man who knows what he wants,” the redhead said with a quick glance in his direction.

“Luke certainly is that,” April answered with a cool smile. “What's more, he comes with a ready
made nickname, just like a character. I don't even have to make one up.”

He closed his eyes as she rolled the nickname off her tongue with gusto. He despised it, and she knew it. Still, he wouldn't let her get to him again. Running him off was going to be harder than she dreamed.

“Luke-of-the-Night,” Julianne translated as a couple of the women looked puzzled. Looking at April, she continued, “Is he, by any chance, going to appear in the book you're doing about that family out on the lake where you live? What was the title?”

“Not likely,” April said a shade louder than necessary to cut off her friend, then gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. Luke felt his need to learn more about that book solidify, but now was not the time to go into it.

“Nighttime Luke,” the gravely voiced one drawled in the small silence. “Now I wonder what he did to deserve such a moniker.”

“The question is more what he hasn't done,” April answered. “And the answer is, there isn't much.”

“Is it now?” he muttered, scowling. Julianne had said that April struck out at people when she was hurt. He couldn't help wondering if this was an example of it. Still, a person couldn't be hurt unless they cared, could they?

She ignored him as she smiled around the table. “Our Luke is a man of vast experience. Unlike poor old Freud, he knows exactly what women want.”

Luke tucked his arms tighter across his chest
since he was afraid he might strangle her otherwise. “And just how would you know that?”

“Common gossip,” she quipped, but the light from the table candle revealed a trace of trepidation in her eyes.

“And is that really how you see me?”

She tipped her head as if trying to bring him into focus. “Not exactly. To me you're a pirate taking what you want and sailing away with no concern for the poor females left in your wake.”

“I thought pirates sailed off with their helpless captives instead of away from them,” he objected before glancing around the table with what he hoped was a piratical grin.

“Not you. You're a river pirate, a regular Mike Fink who takes no prisoners.”