Needing Nicole (The Cantrelle Family Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

“Good night, Nicole. And good night, Jack. I hope you two have a wonderful visit.” She smiled down at Aimee. “Good night, Aimee.”

“’Night, Aunt Mar’gret,” Aimee said.

“See you tomorrow,” Margaret said.

“’Morrow,” Aimee echoed, blowing Margaret a kiss.

Nicole took Aimee’s hand, and Jack followed them outside and down the path toward their cottage. Within minutes they were inside, and Nicole switched on several lamps. They were standing in a nice-sized living room that stretched across the front of the cottage.

“Take your things to your room,” Nicole told Aimee, and Aimee, with another bewitching smile directed at Jack, left the room.

“She likes you,” Nicole said.

“I like her, too.” He looked around. “This is a nice place.”

“It is, isn’t it? I love it. I’m really lucky to have found it.” She grimaced. “I pay much less than it’s worth, but when I tried to talk to Margaret and Caldwell about it once, they wouldn’t listen. They said they were particular about who they rented to. They said money isn’t everything.”

Jack studied the room: the polished wood floors; the faded Oriental carpet with its muted tones of rose and blue: the comfortable love seats on either side of the fireplace; the French provincial writing desk placed so whoever sat there could look out the big front window; the small mahogany drop-leaf table at the far end of the room with ladder-back chairs at either end.

He also saw the toys scattered about, the magazines on the floor, the overflowing knitting basket, the discarded plastic wrap from some kind of snack food that lay on the coffee table, and the brown leaves of the neglected Scheffelera plant that graced one corner of the room.

“I’m afraid I’m not the world’s best housekeeper,” Nicole said. She walked over to the coffee table and picked up the plastic wrap. “From my granola bar this morning,” she said, an apology in her voice.

“I hate houses that look as if no one had ever lived in them,” Jack said. “My mother’s house was so perfect I was always afraid to touch anything. I always vowed if I ever had a place of my own, I’d enjoy it.”

“Come on back to the kitchen,” Nicole said.

He followed her through the door at the far end of the room, which led directly into a large kitchen, a cheerful mix of yellow walls, yellow ruffled curtains, white countertops, dark wood cabinets, and a bright red tile floor. Jack smiled to himself. Nicole colors, he thought.

“If you’ll look in that cabinet—” she pointed to one of the kitchen cabinets, “—you’ll find a bottle of scotch and a bottle of vodka—I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got—and glasses are over there. There’s ice in the freezer. Fix yourself a drink and make yourself comfortable in the living room. I’m going to go change clothes.”

Jack found everything easily. After pouring himself a drink, he walked back to the living room. He gazed around again, wishing it were cool enough for a fire, but the evening was mild. He walked over to the mantel. There were several framed photographs gracing its polished wood. He walked over to study them. One of them was a large family-type formal portrait. He picked it up. There were a lot of people in it, and there was Nicole, in a red dress. She was holding a child who must be Aimee, although in the portrait she was only a baby.

He studied Nicole’s smiling face for a long moment, then put the picture down and wandered over to the front window. He sure wished he could meet the rest of the Cantrelles. He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that one of them had to know something about Elise Arnold.

* * *

After Nicole left Jack in the kitchen, she poked her head into Aimee’s room. “ What’cha doin’, sugar?”

“Gettin’ my shoes off.”

Nicole grinned. Aimee hated to wear shoes, and the first thing she did when she came home was take them off. “Why don’t you leave your shoes on tonight, since we have company?”

Aimee frowned.

“Oh, all right. Here, let me help you.” Nicole untied the laces on Aimee’s high tops. When Aimee’s feet were finally free of the shoes, she wiggled her toes happily. “Come to my room while I change clothes, okay?” Nicole said. “Then we’ll go out and see Jack.”

Aimee hopped off the bed and followed her. “Jack, Jack, Jack,” she chanted. “Is Jack a wabbit?” Obviously thrilled with her witticism, she started to giggle.

Nicole laughed. “You’re silly. Of course Jack’s not a rabbit. He’s a man. You know that.” Is he ever, she thought.

Aimee climbed up on Nicole’s unmade bed and continued to chant, “Jack Wabbit, Jack Wabbit,” while Nicole changed clothes.

Nicole gave her daughter a mock frown. “If you’re going to call him by that silly name, at least say your
R.
” It’s rabbit, not wabbit.“

“Rabbit,” Aimee said, falling on her back and dissolving into a fresh spate of giggles.

Nicole shook her head, then changed quickly, putting on jeans and a favorite plaid shirt. She tucked the tails of the shirt in, then pulled on socks and slipped her feet into worn leather loafers. “Come on, sugar, let’s go.”

Holding Aimee’s hand, Nicole entered the living room. Jack stood, drink in hand, staring out the front window. He turned at their approach. He smiled, his eyes filled with undisguised approval as he took in Nicole’s appearance. Then his gaze dropped to Aimee.

“Jack Rabbit,” Aimee said.

Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. She decided you’re a rabbit. I can’t talk her out of it.”

Jack grinned. “Don’t try. I’ve been called lots worse.” His blue eyes twinkled. “I’ve been looking at all your pictures.” He pointed to the mantel. “Who
are
all these people, anyway?”

Nicole walked over to the mantel, and he followed. Aimee sat on the floor and pulled a picture book from under the stack of magazines lying by the coffee table.

Nicole picked up a small framed photograph. “This is my brother Norman and his wife, Alice. It was taken at their wedding.”

“Who are the kids?” Jack asked.

“The children are hers, from her first marriage.” At his interested look, she explained. “Alice’s first husband was a cop. He was killed, shot by a big-time drug dealer.” She sighed, remembering that terrible time. “Jimmy—her first husband—was my brother Neil’s partner. It was awful. Just awful.”

She picked up the second photo. “And this is my brother Neil, his wife, Laura, and their daughter, Celeste.”

She caressed the surface of the next framed photo. “This is Aimee on her first birthday.”

“I thought so.”

Then she picked up the family photograph they’d had taken two Christmases ago. “And here we all are. This is Mama... and Papa. And here’s Neil again... and Laura... and Celeste. And that’s Norman again, and Alice, and her two children. And this is Denise, my sister, and her husband, Jett, and their two children, Jeannine and Justin.”

“Wow, that’s quite a group,” Jack said.

“Soon to be more.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Both my sisters-in-law are expecting babies.”

He nodded. “It must be nice to have such a big family.”

“It is, but sometimes it has its drawbacks.”

“Such as?”

Nicole sighed. “Well, since I’m the youngest, my family has a tendency to hover just a bit too much to suit me. That’s one of the reasons I moved to New Orleans.”

“What were the other reasons?”

“Come out to the kitchen with me while I fix supper, and I’ll tell you. Aimee,
chere,
do you want to watch the rest of
Dumbo
while Mommy cooks supper?”

“Dumbo! Dumbo!”
Aimee clapped her hands and threw down her book. She grinned happily.

“I guess that means yes,” Nicole said and turned on the television set, then the VCR. After a few seconds, Walt Disney’s
Dumbo,
already in progress, appeared on the screen. Nicole motioned to Jack to follow her, and they left Aimee happily engrossed in the movie.

“Sit,” Nicole said, and Jack sat on a kitchen chair. She opened the pantry door and rummaged on the shelves, pulling out a large jar of prepared spaghetti sauce, a couple of cans of plain tomato sauce, a jar of olive oil and a package of spaghetti. “Remember, I’m not all that great a cook.”

“So tell me what the other reasons were for your moving to New Orleans. Where do the rest of your family live, anyway?” Jack leaned back, balancing the chair on its two rear legs.

“In Patinville, just west of Baton Rouge.” She opened the refrigerator and extracted a large onion. Then she took a package of ground meat from the freezer and shoved it into the microwave to thaw. “It’s a small town. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

“You’re right. I haven’t.”

Nicole pulled a large pot out of the cupboard and set it on the stove. She poured a bit of olive oil in the pot and turned the heat on under it. Then she opened the cupboard where she kept her spices and started pulling things off the shelf.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jack reminded her. “Say, do you need help?”

“No. I’m doing fine.” She took a deep breath. “If you must know, I came to New Orleans because everyone in Patinville knew about Aimee and the circumstances of her birth. I didn’t want her to feel as if she were different. I didn’t want people talking about her or making her feel bad.” She put her chin in the air and turned to face him. “You see, I wasn’t married to Aimee’s father.”

There was no censure in his expression as he absorbed her statement. Only a quiet acceptance.

In that moment, Nicole decided Jack Forrester could become very important to her. Probably too important.

What did she think he was going to do? Sneer and call her names? Obviously, this was a subject that Nicole was sensitive about. Jack chose his words carefully. “I’d hate to think people are so narrow-minded they’d be cruel to Aimee over something like that. Single mothers are not exactly uncommon, you know.”

“Maybe not, but they’re completely nonexistent in my family,” she said. She peeled the onion and began chopping it.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Her shoulders stiffened. “No.”

Jack wished he knew her well enough to get up and rub the tenseness out of her shoulders. He wished he had the right to comfort her. He wondered who the guy was who had hurt her so badly. Because it was obvious to Jack that Nicole was hurting. Jack decided whoever the guy was, he had to be a first-class jerk to let Nicole get away.

Nicole finished chopping the onions and scraped them into the pot. They hissed as they hit the hot olive oil. Immediately the kitchen filled with the aroma of frying onions. Jack watched her, enjoying the way her jeans clung to her nicely rounded rear as she moved about. Even though he’d never had any desire to settle down, he could see that some aspects of being married might be nice.

The microwave dinged, and she took the meat out. “What?” she said when she saw how he was looking at her.

He grinned. “I was just thinking how nice it is to sit here and watch you do all the work.”

“Chauvinist!” she said, but she grinned.

“So tell me about Patinville,” Jack said. He was genuinely curious about Nicole, but he also hoped something she might say would help him in his search for information about Elise.

“Oh, it’s a typical small town. One main street, one bank—no, that’s wrong—two banks, one pharmacy, one big grocery store, one high school.” She grinned at him over her shoulder as she worked at the stove. “The only thing it’s got a lot of are churches.”

“What do your brothers and father do?”

She stirred the frying onions with a wooden spoon, then lowered the heat and dumped in the various sauces. “They both work in the family business.” She added several spices to the mixture in the pot.

“Which is?”

“A roofing and home improvement company. My father started it years ago, and now Norman—he’s the younger of my brothers—runs the place and does all the administrative work, and Neil—he’s the older brother—is in charge of the crews.”

“Sounds like it’s successful.”

“It is.” She bent down, pulled another pot from a bottom cupboard and walked over to the sink, where she began filling it with water.

“What did you do when you lived in Patinville?”

“After I graduated from high school, I went to work for a local real estate agency as a receptionist. Then, for about six months, I worked at our company as the bookkeeper.” She turned off the water and carried the filled pot to the stove. She set it on a back burner and turned on the heat under it. “But when I realized I was pregnant with Aimee, my father arranged for me to go to Lafayette and stay with my Uncle Justin and Aunt Lisette until I had the baby.” She extracted an iron frying pan from the cupboard. Within minutes, the ground meat was cooking.

Jack sniffed. She might not be a great cook, but her concoctions were beginning to smell good. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten lunch.

“Do you like mushrooms?” she asked.

“I like anything that likes me.”

“Good.” Soon a couple of cans of sliced mushrooms had been added to the sauce.

Her voice turned softer. “Uncle Justin and Aunt Lisette are both such sweeties. They were wonderful to me.” She opened the refrigerator and knelt, then began pulling things out of the vegetable keeper. “They don’t have any children of their own, so they’ve always been very good to me and my sister and brothers.”

Yes. When Charles had told him so many stories about the Cajun people, one recurring theme was the closeness of their family life. Jack could see it was true. Cajun families were definitely tight. They took care of their own, and loyalties ran deep.

Nicole took all the vegetables to the sink, where she began washing them. As she cleaned them, she half turned so she could see Jack. “That’s enough about me. Tell me about your family. You have a twin sister—”

“Yes. Jenny. Jennifer Harriett Forrester Wharton. My mother’s name is Harriett. The former Daughters of the Confederacy debutante, Harriett Cornelia Jackson.” He grimaced. “My father’s name is Alan, so they named me Jackson Alan. My family’s big on family names.”

“What’re your parents like?”

Jack thought for a minute. “Well, mother’s president of the Women’s Forum. She’s a past president of the aforementioned Daughters of the Confederacy, and she’s a member of the board of directors of St. Phillip’s Hospital in Houston. She’s also a mover and a shaker with the arts council and the opera guild. She likes stuff like that.” She had always liked stuff like that, Jack thought. Much more than homemaking. And a whole lot more than children. Jack pushed the thought away. It was no longer important to him. He’d quickly learned to depend on himself and no one else. Except for Jenny, he had no real ties with his family.