Queen For A Night Read Free Page A

out for you comes high on his list of priorities. He wanted to murder that husband of yours before you were divorced.”
    “Yes, well, he wasn't the only one.” Her answer was meant to be glib and easy, but even she could hear the undertone of old anger. She reached for her wine, taking a quick sip.
    “What happened there? How did you get mixed up with such a lowlife?”
    He was speaking over his shoulder without looking at her. Caroline allowed her gaze to rest on his broad shoulders as she decided how to answer. Her marriage to Louis was none of his business; she couldn't think why he was interested. Maybe he wasn’t, not really. Maybe talking about it was something to fill the silence that hovered above the rumbling of the engines.
    “Just bad luck, I suppose,” she said finally. “Or maybe I saw what I wanted to in him instead of what was there.”
    “You didn't see the booze, the drugs? Can't say much for your eyesight.”
    She gave a short laugh. “That all came later, along with the gambling.”
    “It happens, I guess, when you bail off into marriage right out of high school.”
    “It seemed a good idea at the time, joining forces while we got our degrees. We had such plans for the good life afterward. Trouble was, we had different ideas about what that meant.”
    “Such as.”
    “Louis wanted to make it big so he could have a fancy car, the latest electronic gadgets, and restaurant meals every night. I thought we ought to save for a home and a family. He spent a couple hundred dollars a month on haircuts, while I saved zip-seal plastic bags and mended the holes in his socks. We embarrassed each other, really. It wasn't working even before he got into the other stuff. Afterward, I—just gave up.”
    “It takes intelligence to know when to quit, and guts to actually do it.”
    “I guess.” She studied the swirl of wine in her glass, unwilling to look at him and perhaps let him know how grateful she was for his understanding.
    It was a moment before he spoke again. “So now you want to be a Mardi Gras queen.”
    “Not really.”
    His glance was brief. “But you’re not refusing, either.”
    She shook back her hair as she considered the implied question. “It’s because Uncle Tony thought it was such a good idea, I suppose. And the opportunity was suddenly there when it never had been before.” There was a bit more to it than that, but it was difficult to explain.
    “You sure it’s not the fancy costume, the glitz and the spotlight, being the focus of all those sighs of envy?” He gave a short laugh. “Sort of like being a bride without the wedding night.”
    She choked on the wine she’d just swallowed and coughed to clear her throat. “Good grief, no!”
    “No? Not even a little bit?”
    “I don't think so, though I'll admit that when Murielle and I were kids, we were forever playing at being both brides and Mardi Gras queens.” She gazed into her wine as she gathered her thoughts. “It's just that—I think all young girls dream a little about wearing the jeweled crown and dragging the long train behind them, getting to tell everybody what to do and be above them all. It’s probably the female equivalent of boys playing King of the Mountain.”
    “But for every queen there has to be a king.”
    She gave a derisive snort. “Not when little girls play!”
    The glance he gave her over his shoulder held surprised consideration in its depths. She returned it for an instant before lifting a shoulder. “Anyway, most of them grow out of it.”
    “Some do, some don't,” he said, and swung the wheel hard left to avoid something in the water. A moment later, she spied a half-submerged log floating past as she looked out through the glass door.
    They were quiet while he found the sweet spot in the bayou’s channel again, and sent the boat on a steady course along it. Thinking about what he’d said, Caroline couldn’t help wondering if he’d had Murielle in mind. Her cousin had always