Chapter 7
7
Three months earlier
Saint was fighting hard to keep his eyes focused on the road with Zara seated beside him in the car. He knew her real name now. It wasn’t Angel but Zara. He’d finally gotten around to asking someone he figured would know. Saint also knew something else.
He took a quick look over at her and said, “You’re Vaughn’s sister.” It wasn’t a question but a statement, and he knew she took it as such.
“Yes, and as you probably know by now my name is Zara Miller.” She paused a moment and said, “And you’re Evans Toussaint. I understand Saint is what most people call you.”
“Yes, it is.”
“That night when you introduced yourself to me as Saint, I figured it was a name you’d made up. That’s why I told you my name was Angel.”
“I figured as much,” he said. Although the bayou was dark and there was little light on the streets, he knew his way since he’d lived here his entire life, until he left for college.
“Why didn’t you correct me on my assumption?” she asked.
“I tried to. If you recall, I suggested we share our real names. You didn’t want to do that,” he reminded her.
She did recall that at the time, she hadn’t. “You’re right, I didn’t. That night, sharing our real names wasn’t all that important. I honestly thought you were someone who’d attended the summer music festival in New Orleans that weekend in August. Someone I would never see again.”
“That was a logical assumption to make since a number of the stranded travelers were. I’d come to Catalina Cove that week to check on my parents. My father had had an accident the week before.”
“I hope he was okay,” she said.
He heard genuine concern in her voice. “He was fine and was just being an ornery patient to Mom. But then I guess he figured it was payback since she wasn’t the best patient to him months earlier when she’d cut her finger and had to get stitches.” He suppressed a laugh, then said, “They like to get on each other’s nerves every once in a while.”
“You’re amused by it?” she asked.
“Can’t help but be. My parents were high school sweethearts. I guess after over forty years of marriage it was bound to happen. But trust me, it doesn’t often. They love each other very much and are thicker than glue.”
When the interior of the car got quiet, she said, “That night when you were leaving Catalina Cove, I was arriving to visit Vaughn. However, due to the storm it wasn’t safe to make the hour drive from New Orleans.”
No wonder she’d given him a vague answer when he’d asked about her flight out of New Orleans. “Just so you know, Zara. I don’t regret that night.”
“Neither do I, Saint. And I was telling the truth when I said being with you enabled me to make a pathway forward.”
He recalled her saying that, but at the time she hadn’t gone into any details. Would she now? There was no harm in asking. “Will you tell me why you felt you needed one?”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she told him that it was none of his business. Instead, she said, “Four months before we met, I had broken up with my boyfriend.”
“The one you had dated exclusively for two years?”
“Yes. That’s the one.” She got quiet again and then added, “He was cheating on me.”
“He cheated on you?” he asked to make sure he’d heard her correctly. Saint couldn’t imagine any man in his right mind doing such a thing. Especially to her.
“Yes. I caught him.”
A frown settled in his features. “In the act?”
“Close enough. He and the woman had been seeing each other for around six months. I guess he started getting a guilty conscience and ended things with her. He purchased her a parting gift, a diamond tennis bracelet. Somehow, there was a mix-up with the order since he’d bought me something from that same jeweler before. In error, I got the gift instead. I knew the moment I thanked him for it, by the shocked look on his face, that it hadn’t been meant for me. I called him out on it, and he admitted everything.”
Saint shook his head. Not only had the guy cheated on her, but he had purchased the other woman a parting gift? An expensive parting gift at that. Finding out what an ass her boyfriend was had to have been hard for her.
“Maurice felt he should be forgiven since his affair with the woman meant nothing,” she then said. “He claimed she was someone he’d recently met, and it was just sex and no emotions were involved.” She chuckled scoffingly. “Like just the sex part wasn’t bad enough. He tried making me feel guilty by saying it happened during the time I was traveling extensively while checking on my boutiques, and we weren’t spending a lot of quality time together.”
She paused before continuing. “He felt I should give him credit for coming to his senses and ending things with her. He thought I was being unfair to him for throwing away two years of what he saw as a good relationship without trying to work things out between us.”
He needed to know, so he asked, “Did you take him back?”
“I almost did until I discovered through a mutual friend that his affair with the woman hadn’t been the first time. The two of them had been a couple in college and were known to hook up every so often over the years. Evidently, he’d had no problem continuing to do so after meeting me. When I confronted him about it, he admitted they had a history but said he was finally over her. I felt he should have told me the truth about them being involved other times before, and not make it seem like he hadn’t known her until the affair.”
After glimpsing out the window, she looked back at him and said, “At that point, working anything out wasn’t an option with me. He even thought he was being a nice guy by telling me I could keep the bracelet he’d purchased for the other woman. Can you believe that, Saint?”
He liked the sound of his name off her lips. He’d liked it that night and he liked hearing it now. “I would say that he had a lot of nerve.”
“Yes, he did. Once I knew I couldn’t trust him that was it for me. He was trying to wear me down, trying to get me to change my mind about getting back with him. I felt the need to get away and make decisions. Thanks to you, I did. That night with you I found a pathway forward like I told you. Now I am the consequential independent woman minus the rose-colored glasses.”
“What were you before?” he asked.
“A woman who believed in happy endings. One who also assumed she had to depend on a man for her happiness. Now I know there aren’t any happy endings, and I’ll never depend on a man for anything again. I’ve taken control of my life and will do whatever I want and whenever I want. I control my own destiny, make my own decisions and will only take advice if and when I ask for it.”
Saint was proud of her for making those decisions and from the sound of it, she was proud of herself as well. That night they’d spent together, he’d still been stinging from his breakup with Mia. Asking her to marry him twice and being rejected had prompted him to make a number of decisions himself.
Some things weren’t meant to be, and he could accept that marriage was not for him. That made him feel sad in a way because he knew how much his parents wanted him to one day marry to give them grandchildren.
“I don’t believe in happy endings, either,” he said. “So, I guess that’s something we have in common.”
“Yes, I guess we do.”
It only now occurred to him that although she’d wanted to leave the party she hadn’t said where she wanted to go. “Where am I taking you, Zara?”
They had left the bayou and this section of roadway wasn’t as dark. Peeking over at her, he could see her face in the moonlight. She was beautiful. He’d thought that the first time he’d seen her, and he thought so now.
“I should tell you to take me home, Saint.”
He loved her French accent. It was as deep as Vaughn’s. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” He wasn’t ready for them to part ways.
The shock of seeing her again had worn off. What hadn’t worn off was the chemistry that flowed between them so effortlessly. He hadn’t fully understood the intensity of it that night and honestly, he couldn’t understand it now.
That night in his hotel room was to have been one and done. It hadn’t. At least not for him. Whether she knew it or not, he hadn’t been involved with anyone since her because he’d been convinced no other woman would measure up. No other woman had stirred to life the degree of desire like she had.
As far as he was concerned, Zara was the epitome of feminine temptation. Even now in the confines of the car the sexual energy between them was all-consuming. He felt it and had a feeling she did, too. Sharing conversation with her had alleviated it some but not completely. Even now, a deep hunger for her was stirring to life in his midsection and he knew why. Memories of their night, together with seeing her again, had pleasurable sensations racing up his spine.
He came to a stop at a traffic light, and he knew the moment she’d turned in her seat toward him. When he looked over at her, he saw a fanciful look in her eyes. Just seeing that look made his nerves dance and his brain race.
“More than anything, I’d like to go dancing tonight. This was to be a quick trip for me just to attend Vaughn and Sierra’s celebration cookout. Tomorrow evening I’m flying out to return home.”
“Where is home for you?” he asked, realizing just how little he knew about her.
“Boston.”
“How long have you lived there?”
“Close to eight years. I never returned to the cove to live after leaving for college. I resided in Paris for a while when my parents moved there,” she said. “So, what about it, Saint? Will you take me dancing? There’s this nightclub in New Orleans that has the best music and dance floor. I try to go there whenever I come back to Catalina Cove.”
He didn’t have to think twice about his answer. “Yes, I’d love to take you dancing. If that place in New Orleans is where you want to go, then that’s where we’re going.”
Zara knew she should have told Saint to take her home. Instead, she’d asked him to take her dancing in New Orleans. That was an hour drive for them to share space in this car. Sexual energy was crackling between them. The hot, raw and carnal kind. That ball of fire that had burst into flames in the pit of her stomach when she’d seen him hadn’t gone out. It was still burning brightly.
So why was she playing with fire? Why was she listening to that voice inside her head reminding her that she hadn’t been in a man’s bed since his? The bigger question was why she was tempted to yield to the primitive force inside her. Namely, that sexual hunger that had begun raging the moment she’d seen him again.
Knowing silence between them was only increasing the heat, the need and the desire, she decided to generate conversation between them by asking him something that she wanted to know. “You said you don’t have any regrets about our night together. Why not?”
When the car came to a stop at a traffic light, he turned to face her. The look in the depths of his dark eyes sent more desire pulsating through her. His gaze returned to the road, as he began talking. “That night I told you that I had broken up with my ex-girlfriend almost a year before. Up until then I’d felt I had gotten over her and moved on. Spending time with you made me realize what I had been doing was breathing but not living.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“I was going through the motions of living but hadn’t fully been doing so. I had thrown myself into my work. Suddenly, that had become the only thing that mattered to me. Then there was the issue of my parents.”
She lifted a brow. “And?”
“And...like I told you that night, my ex-girlfriend and I had dated for over four years. She had become close to my parents, and I was close to hers. Naturally, both sets of parents assumed we would eventually marry. Needless to say, our breakup wasn’t easy on anyone. They couldn’t understand it and didn’t want to accept it. They got it in their heads that we just needed a little time apart to get our shit together. As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t anything to get together. The woman I loved didn’t want a future with me. I’d gotten that and wanted to move on.”
When he came to another traffic light, he looked over at her. “When time passed and I thought my folks were finally accepting what I was telling them, that’s when they began doing crazy stuff. Stuff they’d never done before.”
“Like what?”
“Earlier I mentioned the reason I had gone to Catalina Cove that night was due to my father’s accident. What I didn’t tell you was that he’d decided to join a parasailing team. He got injured while parasailing. Mom, on the other hand, decided to become a chef.”
She shrugged. “I don’t see where there’s a problem with your mom becoming a chef. That would mean more tasty meals for your dad, right? However, your dad joining a parasailing team...umm? How old is he?”
“He’ll turn sixty-four his next birthday. And as far as Mom becoming a chef and learning to cook a lot of different meals, might seem harmless until she almost lost a finger with one of those high-powered knives she’d ordered off the television.”
“Ouch.”
“Yes, and her accident occurred just six months before Dad’s.”
She recalled him saying his mother had almost cut her finger off and had to get stitches. “Your parents waited awhile to have you?”
“They married straight out of high school. They wanted kids right away, but it took them almost ten years of trying before they succeeded. I was their one and only.”
He got quiet for moment and said, “There were a few more minor accidents with them after that night we met, and I knew it would only be a matter of time when I would have to make decisions where they were concerned. When I broached the subject of them moving to Seattle, they—”
“Seattle?” she interrupted to ask. “You were living in Seattle before moving back here?”
“Yes. I played professional football there for a while, and after leaving the team I decided to stay there.”
“I recall picking up on your Northwestern accent that night we met.”
“Yes, you did. Anyway, when I suggested to my parents that they move to Seattle, they let me know that not under any circumstances would they leave Catalina Cove. For me, that meant at some point in time, I’d have to move back home.”
“The thought of that bothered you?”
“Let’s just say it wasn’t anything I had figured on. When we are kids, we think our parents are going to be around forever.”
She would have to agree with him. Neither she nor Vaughn had been surprised when their parents had decided to move to Paris. What she and Vaughn hadn’t counted on was two years after the move, they would be killed in a boating accident.
“When it seemed the older they got, the more mishaps they were getting into, I decided to move back home. I love my parents and owe them everything,” he said.
She digested his words before saying, “That night we met, you said you were not involved with anyone, Saint. Are you seriously involved with someone now?”
“No.”
“So, what’s your story? Why aren’t you?”