Page 20 of New Orleans Rush

“And your mother?”

“Mom is more of a Facebook friend than an actual parent. She’s a free spirit and a band groupie. She travels and dances where the music takes her. Her arrest record involves public nudity.”

Having a dancing, hippie mother suited Beatrice Baker. That didn’t mean her childhood had been easy. “Being the only responsible one of the house is rough.”

She cocked her head. “Sounds like familiar territory for you.”

More familiar than he’d like. “I’m the oldest of five by four years. My father was great growing up, but he spent his nights performing. I was often stuck cooking dinner and making sure my brothers did their homework. My mother worked as a fortune-teller, preying on the desperate. Something she still does. They come to her for answers, and she swindles them out of cash.”

Beatrice wrinkled her nose. “My father did that to me.”

“He’s a fortune-teller?”

“No. But I was the desperate one he took advantage of. I always believed he’d change.”

Huxley couldn’t count how often he’d hoped his mother would magically transform. With his father’s death, he’d thought her maternal instincts would kick in. His youngest brothers had spiraled out of control and needed support. Fox and Axel had hit rough lows. As had he, but he’d been older. He hadn’t had the luxury of focusing on his own pain. Nadya Marlow had all but disappeared, leaving Huxley, unqualified and out of his depth, thrust into the role of guardian. It was no wonder Xander and Paxton had moved away without a trace.

His failure to keep the family together was Huxley’s cross to bear, and he was older now. He no longer wished for the impossible with his mother, but he despised the thought of Beatrice being let down by her parents, too.

He shifted forward, his knees touching hers under the small table. “How’d your father take advantage of you?”

She nestled closer as well. “It’s my own fault, really. I hate assuming the worst in people. I mean, if we all walked around thinking nefarious thoughts”—her eyes sparkled at the use of her preferred word, as though they weren’t discussing degenerate parents—“the world would be a pretty awful place.”

“It would, but what did he do?” He couldn’t let the subject go.

She didn’t sigh or frown. She wiped the pepper flower aside, ruining her impromptu art project. “I had to work too much during high school to get my diploma, but I finished it gradually afterward, taking night classes. I planned to attend the California Institute of Art and spent years saving for it. A month ago, my father came to me and claimed he was turning his life around. He said he was sober and had a chance at a steady job, but his employer required a credit check. He asked if he could co-sign on my bank account, just for the check. He promised we’d remove his name afterward.”

She didn’t say more, but she didn’t have to. That bastard had drained her account to gamble. It also clarified her harsh line when she’d said she never took bets.

“So you have nothing?” Anger edged his tone.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She gestured outside the open café doors. “It’s sunny. I’m in New Orleans, although I’ve barely seen any of it, and I’m about to order bacon and eggs for lunch. I’m also a zigzag girl.”

Her genuine happiness, in the face of such betrayal, shocked him. Granted, he’d seen her last weekend, face blotchy, tears flowing, anger guiding her shaky hand as she’d defaced his Mustang. But that wasn’t the woman facing him now, full of light, able to let go and move on.

He envied the ability, but it was her weather comment that pitted his gut. He glanced outside and only saw a partly cloudy sky. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Find joy in everything.”

She studied him a moment, then said, “I smile.”

She punctuated the comment with a dazzling grin, but he worried for her. Smiling was a quick fix, a mask to cover what lay beneath. Discovering hard truths you’d buried could be more damaging than facing them head-on.

Their waitress interrupted them. Beatrice fussed over the woman’s bottle-cap earrings, the two gossiping about the nearby French Market. But Huxley fisted his hands. Sweat dripped down the back of his T-shirt. As strapped as he was for cash, he couldn’t, in good conscience, allow Beatrice to work off her debt, ruined Mustang or not. Giving her money for food outweighed repairing his car.

She ordered bacon and eggs, sunny-side up. “And please don’t bring ketchup, unless…” She studied Huxley like he might have a contagious rash. “Do you use ketchup?”

“I enjoy it.”

“Can you live without it for this lunch?” He nodded, and her features relaxed. “Then we can share the table. It’s the worst condiment. The smell makes me gag.”

He filed that fact away and ordered his eggs. He asked for them partly cloudy, with a side of watermelon. The waitress side-eyed him.

The second she left, he faced Beatrice. “I’ll pay you. The theater’s in trouble, so I can’t afford much, but I’ll get you some cash. And if you haven’t seen much of New Orleans, we need to remedy that.”

She ignored his dismal attempt to ask her out and said, “The theater’s in trouble?”