Midnight Soul (25 page)

“Babe—”

I spoke over him. “There was more to Josette
and my adventure than eluding my past. I’ve deduced that it’s
likely on an adventure you’re experiencing so many things, you can
think of nothing but what you’re experiencing.”

“You can’t escape your problems, sweetheart,
or your emotions,” he told me gently. “They got a way of not
letting go.”

He was undoubtedly right.

“Yes, but when other things are prevalent and
they are that for a good period of time, those emotions have a way
of fading away.”

“You got me there,” he muttered.

“In other words, I did know what I was doing,
Noc, and now I don’t. Now my options are limited. And although I’d
enjoy spending time with my brother, meeting my niece or nephew
when he or she arrives, something I did not know which I now have
to take into account, I think both of us can agree the time is ripe
for a variety of changes in my life. And I feel, the sooner I see
to them will be the better.”

“Come home with me.”

I froze in my seat, my eyes locked on
him.

Noc did not freeze.

He continued.

“Valentine says she’ll take care of it all.
And maybe we can give her some of the gold we got to bring us back
if you get homesick. I can take a vacation, experience more of this
world then. But now, or after your brother leaves, I won’t go with
Finnie and Frey and instead take you back to my world with me.”

I sat mute and immobile, unable to take my
eyes off him, but my mind was awhirl with hundreds of thoughts.

Maybe thousands.

But the one that repeatedly churned through
the others was Noc’s attractive voice saying the words,
Come
home with me
.

“Frey already asked her,” he carried on.
“It’s all set. You gotta get away, there’s no further away than
there, Frannie. And if you want an adventure to get your mind off
shit, that’ll be the biggest adventure you can have, there aren’t
any pirates and I’ll be there to keep you safe.”

I’ll be there to keep you safe.

By the goddess, he must stop.

“Noc—” I began in an effort to make him do
that.

He reached across the table between us,
caught my hand that was resting on the arm of my chair and laced
his fingers through mine.

He had very long fingers. Competent-looking.
Most appealing.

Bloody hell.

“Don’t decide on that right now either,” he
urged. “You got time to think about it. But, babe,” he smiled and
that was most appealing too. Always. “I’d love to show you my
world. And you won’t be alone there. You’ll have Valentine. And
Circe lives where we live too. She’s already gone back and from
what she’s said, she can use a few friends who know her like we’d
know her. You’ll have people. You’ll have resources. You’ll be
good. You’ll be safe.” His smile got wider. “And you’ll be in New
Orleans so you’ll have good music, great fucking food and every
opportunity to have a shit ton of fun.”

I finally managed to string a thought
together.

“I couldn’t ask you not to take your
adventure in order to give me mine.”

“I get vacation days, toss a couple gold
coins Valentine’s way, I’m back and I’ll get it.”

“Noc, that’s most kind but it’d be selfish of
me even to consider.”

“Happily give up my adventure for a different
one, that bein’ givin’ you yours.”

It appeared he was going to be difficult to
dissuade.

Worse, as I was able to string together
further thoughts, I was wondering why I would try.

I did manage to note, “There’s Josette to
consider. And my new maid, Irene.”

“Don’t know about this Irene, Frannie. Havin’
a lady’s maid isn’t something people have in my world, much less
having two. As for Josette, she’s your girl and I’d get you’d want
her with you. But she was willing to cross the Green Sea with you,
don’t think she’d back off from traveling to a parallel
universe.”

Troublingly, I suspected Josette would follow
me straight to hell if I guided her there. I treasured that loyalty
even if I didn’t know how I’d earned it.

A place with such fanciful things as
motorcycles and phones, if she was right there in the room with us,
she’d say yes for the both of us before I could utter another
noise.

“Frannie, it’s a good deal and you know it,”
Noc pressed. “Better than whatever you wanted to see on another
continent in this world. Hell, you eat a bite you’ll wonder why you
didn’t say yes before I finished making the offer when you have
pizza.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask.

But I asked.

“What’s pizza?”

“Tangy tomato sauce, smooth cheese, spicy
sausage, all baked on top of a doughy crust with crispy, chewy
edges. You got killer food here, Frannie, but the minute I get
home, I’m getting a slice, and if you’re with me, I’m getting you
one too. Extra cheese and pepperoni.”

I liked tangy sauce, smooth cheese and
sausage.

I also liked bread.

No, I
adored
bread.

Drat.

“I must think on this, Noc,” I told him, and
it was true.

What also was true was that there was no
reason
not
to take this alternate adventure, except I’d be
even further away from my brother.

Though, if Valentine was but a coin or two
away from bringing me home, I had many of those and I could be back
with him and his family faster and safer than I could return across
the Green Sea.

No, it was Noc that was the concern.

Noc and just how much I liked spending time
with him.

And just how wrong that was.

“More options,” he stated and my focus
sharpened on him. “I go do my thing with Finnie and Frey and the
rest, you go back with your brother. Few months, maybe after the
baby’s born and you know it’s all good with that, Valentine takes
us home. I get my gig here, you get your time with your family,
then we take our adventure.”

My.

Now
that
might be workable.

Months away from Noc would mean I could get
my head sorted about him, for surely it was his attention and
kindness all bundled in the alluring package that was him and
handed to me at a time when I was at my most vulnerable that was
muddling it.

I missed Antoine. I’d lost him forever.

Perhaps as a coping mechanism, my mind was
searching for an alternate, even if this was wrong and
disloyal.

That had to be it.

“Yeah?” Noc prompted.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’ll think on that option
too, Noc.”

A grin from him and a heartfelt, “Great,
baby.”

Looking pleased with himself, he gave my hand
a squeeze, let it go and turned to the fire, lifting his glass.

I did the same.

“Pizza. Phones. Bikes,” Noc’s voice came
again. “TV. Movies. Computers. Football.” I turned my head to him
just in time to see him do the same my way. “And you know I like
you when I promise to take you to the shoe department at
Nordstrom.”

“Do they have a nice selection of slippers?”
I queried.

His grin this time was different. It made my
breath catch and my nipples contract.

Worse, he did it leaning across the table
toward me and his voice was lower, deeper, like he was sharing a
delicious secret when he spoke next.

“Baby, just you wait and see.”

My
.

I gave myself a hearty inward shake and
pulled myself together.

“I do believe, Master Noc, that you’re taking
unfair advantage by applying not-so-subtle pressure for me to fall
in with your plans.”

He sat back, lifted his glass and warned,
“You don’t come to me after you have breakfast with your brother
tomorrow and tell me you’re in, get used to that over the next few
days, Frannie.”

Wonderful.

I looked from him in a patented Franka
Drakkar dismissive way and took another sip of my whiskey, only to
do this hearing Noc’s chuckle.

Gods.

“You’re gonna look good in spike heels,” Noc
remarked.

Spike heels?

Intriguing.

“Cease,” I demanded.

He ignored me.

“And a little black dress.”

“Cease,” I snapped.

“Wearin’ both at midnight sittin’ across from
me at Café du Monde after we did the town, kicked back listening to
live jazz, got drunk on Bourbon Street, eating a beignet caked with
powdered sugar and drinking coffee with chicory.”

Jazz? What was that?

And a beignet? I had no clue what that was
but anything caked with a substance called “powdered sugar” had to
be delicious, didn’t it?

I turned my head to glower at him.

“Noc. Cease!” I insisted.

“Shrimp étoufée.”

I loved prawns.

“Quiet.”

“Avenues lined with five hundred-year-old oak
trees and graceful antebellum mansions.”

I definitely loved mansions.

“Quiet!”

“Spicy-hot jambalaya.”

I’d had enough.

“Would you care to wear my whiskey?” I asked
mock sweetly.

“No, baby,” he muttered amusedly.

“Then kindly cease speaking.”

“Like a cat, curious, aren’t you, Frannie?”
he teased. “Gonna eat you up, you don’t come home with me.”

Come home with me
.

Blast!

I turned again to face the fire, announcing,
“I’m ignoring you now.”

“Give that five minutes, which is as long as
you can keep that shit up,” he accepted, doing so to my frustration
because I suspected he was right.

And he was right.

Though fortunately, when he pulled me back
into conversation, he did so not tempting me with strange words
that piqued my curiosity, but instead with thoughtful ones that
coaxed me to talk about how I felt about my brother’s behavior at
dinner and how we were both getting on otherwise since he’d
arrived.

Thus we spent a pleasant hour drinking
whiskey but not doing so becoming inebriated. Just enjoying
pleasant company.

But this time, when it was over, I didn’t
sweep from the room.

Noc walked me to the door to my bedchamber
and kissed my temple before he opened it and scooted me in with a
light hand on the small of my back.

And last, he gave me a soft smile that I
could swear held a promise I didn’t quite understand before he
closed the door behind me and I lost sight of him.

Strict Life Edict

Franka

The next morning, I walked into the
breakfast room to see only Brikkita there, finishing up her
crêpes.

She looked up at me, startled, as if she had
no idea I would be arriving at breakfast when Kristian and I had
made that plan the night before, something I would assume he’d
share with his wife.

“Good morning, Brikkita,” I greeted,
selecting a seat across from her at the oval table.

“Good morning, Franka,” she replied timidly,
the manner in which she always spoke to me, a manner I’d always
found irksome, but one I now understood was a manner I’d
earned.

Therefore, hearing it now, I was irked at
myself.

I’d barely sat and tossed the napkin at the
waiting place setting over my lap before a footman came forward to
pour my coffee.

I prepared it with cream and one sugar and
had taken a sip, regarding my sister-in-law, who kept her head
studiously bent to her plate as she fixedly scraped up the last of
her crêpes.

“Did you sleep well?” I asked.

She lifted her eyes to me for a scant second
before returning them to her plate and answered, “The palace has
comfortable beds.”

I decided that meant yes.

“And Timofei? Did he have a good night?” I
queried.

Her glance lasted longer before she put down
her fork and reached for her coffee cup, avoiding my eyes. “He was
restless. He’s not woken us like this repeatedly in the night since
he was first born. I hope the queen was right and he’ll grow out of
it.”

“I’m sure she is. She’s raised her own child,
as you know,” I replied, though the child she’d raised was not the
one currently abiding at the palace, but that was beside the
point.

“Of course,” Brikkita mumbled, taking a sip
of coffee, her eyes aimed away from me.

“Is Kristian arriving at breakfast soon?” I
pressed on.

“I hope so,” she said, and this, I was sure
had more than one meaning.

“Mm,” I murmured, having used all my
available discourse and finding myself in the uncomfortable
position of having no more, considering the fact I knew not what
interested her because I’d never bothered to find out.

The footman saved me, asking, “Would you like
me to tell Cook to prepare crêpes for you, milady, or do you wish
to attend the buffet?”

“The buffet, I think,” I decided. “But fresh
toast would be well received.”

The footman nodded, gave a slight bow with
one arm behind his back and retreated to a door that undoubtedly
led to stairs that went to the kitchen.

I took another sip of my coffee, exited my
chair, walked to the buffet and made my selections.

I was back at my seat, nibbling my food, the
footman having returned with my toast, and I was finding I was not
enjoying breakfast in the slightest. For having your sister-in-law
sit opposite you, alone together for the first time when I had no
ulterior motives but instead wished to find some avenue to start a
different sort of relationship, was exceptionally awkward.

It would not be surprising, but utterly
shocking when Brikkita piped up, and instead of me doing it, she
took up these same reins.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying…” she began
and my eyes went to hers.

She was casting a quick peek at the footman
and I waited as patiently as I could for her to continue.

Finally, she seemed to feel safe in turning
her attention to me but when she spoke again, her voice had
lowered.