Bourbon Street Blues Read Free

James, if you knew me a little better, you’d know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t interested.”
    He studied her eyes for a long minute or two, and then nodded. Taking hold of his still-cold beer bottle, he idly ran his thumb across the microbrewery label. He’d come into the bar to forget about what was bothering him for a while. To take his mind off the continuous machinations of his almost ex-wife and the demands of his family’s coffee business. Yet now he found himself wanting to talk about it.
    “I had a meeting with Chef Le Soeur,” he said, pausing to take a drink of his beer. “There’ve been some problems lately with my company’s coffee deliveries and the chef was threatening to cancel my contract with the hotel.”
    “That sounds bad.”
    He gave her a half smile. “Could have been,” he admitted, allowing himself to breathe a little deeper. “But I think I’ve talked him into giving us another chance.”
    “That’s good then,” Holly said. “So why the long face?”
    He laughed shortly. “You sure you want to hear all of this?”
    She gave a little shrug. “Rehearsal’s over and I have nowhere to be until tonight.”
    Why he was glad to hear that, he couldn’t have said. “All right, then. You know I’m in the middle of a divorce.”
    “All of New Orleans knows that.”
    “Right. Well,” he said softly, “in the settlement, I signed over my share of the import division of the family company to Frannie. But with the higher tariffs on importing, the money’s not good enough to suit her. She’s trying to say I’m sabotaging my own company to keep her from getting the money she was promised.”
    “Well, that doesn’t make sense,” Holly said, confused. “If you sabotage your own company, everyone loses.”
    He tipped his beer bottle at her in salute. “You realize that. Unfortunately, Frannie doesn’t. Now my coffee deliveries are being screwed up—delayed or just plain disappearing. For all I know, my soon-to-be ex is behind the problem in an attempt to get back at me.”
    “Seems like that’d be cutting off her nose to spite her own face, but okay.” She stirred her tea again, keeping her gaze on his. “So what do you do?”
    “Beats the hell out of me,” he admitted. “I had a big promotion lined up with the Marchand family—using James Coffees as the new house blend, but the chef’s so pissed off now, I’m going to have to work harder to make that happen.” He blew out a breath. “With the shipments getting screwed up lately, it’d probably be better all around if I back out of the family business entirely and let someone else run the deals. That way, Frannie can’t try to get at the company because of me.”
    When he stopped speaking, the silence seemed profound. Only then did he notice that Holly’s accompanist had stopped playing the piano and slipped out the side door, leaving him and Holly alone, but for Leo the barman.
    “So you’re just going to give up?”
    He frowned at her. “What?”
    “You know, surrender? Throw in the towel? Fly a white flag?”
    “I know what give up means,” he said tightly. “And I don’t see where I have much choice.”
    “There’s always a choice,” Holly told him with a shake of her head. “And it seems that right now, you’re choosing to let your ex-wife win.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Well, you’ve already decided that your promotion won’t work.”
    “I only said I’d have to work harder to swing it—”
    “And you seem ready to leave your family’s business because of her—”
    “If I do, she can’t—”
    “When I would think it’d be better to stand up and fight back.”
    “Is that right?” His hand tightened on the beer bottle. “And you’ve come to these deep and thoughtful conclusions after—what, three minutes? ”
    “I’m a big believer in going with your instincts.”

CHAPTER TWO
    I NSTINCTS .
    Granted, her instincts hadn’t always been great, but generally speaking, she’d done