Cry Wolf Read Free Page B

down, he said, “Y'all know what lawyers use for birth control, doncha?” He waited a beat, then his voice dropped a husky notch as he delivered the punch line. “Their personalities.”
    Laurel felt a flush of anger rise up her neck and creep up her cheeks as the crowd hooted and laughed. “I wouldn't make jokes if I were you, Mr. Boudreaux,” she said, trying to keep her voice at a pitch only he could hear. “Your hound managed to do a considerable amount of damage to my aunt's garden today.”
    Jack shot her a look of practiced innocence. “What hound?”
    “
Your
hound.”
    He shrugged eloquently. “I don't have a hound.”
    “Mr. Boudreaux—”
    “Call me Jack, angel,” he drawled as he leaned down toward her again, bracing his forearm on his thigh.
    They were nearly at eye level, and Laurel felt herself leaning toward him, as if he were drawing her toward him by some personal magnetic force. His gaze slid down to her mouth and lingered there, shockingly frank in its appraisal.
    “Mr. Boudreaux,” she said in exasperation. “Is there somewhere we can discuss this more privately?”
    He bobbed his eyebrows above dark, sparkling devil's eyes. “Is my place private enough for you?”
    “Mr. Boudreaux . . .”
    “Here's another trite line for you, angel,” Jack whispered, bending a little closer, holding her gaze with his as he lifted a finger and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “You're pretty when you're pissed off.”
    His voice was low and smoky, Cajun-spiced and tainted with the aroma of whiskey.
    Drawing in a slow, deep breath to steady herself, she tilted her chin up and tried again. “Mr. Boudreaux—”
    He shot her a look as he moved toward the microphone once again. “Lighten up, angel.
Laissez les bon temps rouler
.”
    The mike picked up his last sentence, and the crowd cheered. Jack gave a smoky laugh. “Are we havin' fun yet?”
    A chorus of hoots and hollers rose to the rafters. He fixed a long, hot look on the petite tigress glaring up at him from the edge of the stage and murmured, “This one's for you, angel.”
    His fingers stretched over the keys of the battered old piano, and he pounded out the opening notes of “Great Balls of Fire.” The crowd went wild. Before the first line was out of his mouth, there were fifty people on the dance floor. They twirled and bounced around Laurel like a scene from
American Bandstand
, doing the jitterbug as if it had never gone out of style. But her attention was riveted on the singer. Not so much by choice as by compulsion. She was caught in the beam of that intense, dark gaze, held captive by it, mesmerized. He leaned over the keyboard, his hands moving across it, his mouth nearly kissing the microphone as his smoky voice sang out the lyrics with enthusiasm, but all the time his eyes were locked on her. The experience was strangely seductive, strangely intimate. Wholly unnerving.
    She stared right back at him, refusing to be seduced or intimidated. Refusing to admit to either, at any rate. He grinned, as if amused by her spunk, and broke off the eye contact as he hit the bridge of the song and turned his full attention to the piano and the frantic pace of the music.
    He pounded out the notes, his fingers flying up and down the keyboard expertly. All the intensity he had leveled at her in his gaze was channeled into his playing. The shock of black hair bounced over his forehead, shining almost blue under the lights. Sweat gleamed on his skin, streamed down the side of his face. His faded blue chambray shirt stuck to him in dark, damp patches. The sleeves were rolled back, revealing strong forearms dusted with black hair, muscles bunching and flexing as he slammed out the boogie-woogie piece with a skill and wild physical energy rivaling that of Jerry Lee Lewis himself.
    Making music this way looked to be hard work physically and emotionally. As if he were in the throes of exorcism, the notes tore out of him, elemental, rough, sexy, almost