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“I’ve got to go after Alicia,” he murmured, but his husky voice lacked passion for the task.
“Yes, you really should,” Cici agreed, curling a fingertip into his hair. Then another song started, and her body swayed against his. “One more dance?” she whispered as Jake turned and left the room, pulling Alicia with him.
“I’m sorry. I really do have to go to my date. I don’t know what came over me. I really meant to…to stop after one dance.”
“Me, too.”
He bowed before leaving Cici in search of Alicia, who should have been easy to locate in her stunning, backless gown. Since she’d just left, she couldn’t have had much of a head start.
But neither Alicia’s slender back nor Jake’s broad shoulders were anywhere to be seen.
Logan was standing at the front door about to ask the valet parkers if they’d seen his brother when his grandfather hobbled up, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Lost your date?”
“I was just about to ask the valet parkers if they’d seen her.”
“Alicia wasn’t feeling well, so Jake drove her home. She told me to tell you not to worry about her, that it was just a headache.”
“Thanks Grandpère.”
“Is everything all right?”
Before Logan could answer, an older woman cried, “I see our birthday boy! Time to open your presents!” Then a bevy of women spilled out onto the gallery, encircled him and led him away.
When Logan dialed Alicia’s cell phone, Alicia, who always picked up on the first ring, at least when he called her, didn’t answer.
She had caller ID. His instinct told him she was deliberately avoiding his call. Not that he could blame her. He hadn’t intended to dance with Cici more than once.
A mist was rising up from the swamp, its curling wisps threatening to envelop the grounds and soon the road with damp. If he was going after Alicia, and he was, he’d be smart to leave now before it was impossible to see. But suddenly, through the veils of mist, he thought he glimpsed a dim light come on in the top rooms of the garçonnière.
Had he driven Cici from the party, too, the party she’d been so excited about and had worked so hard on? Jolted from his original purpose, he took a step into the mist and then another toward the garçonnière.
He knew he really should go after Alicia and make sure she was all right, and he would, but first he’d tell Cici goodbye and encourage her to rejoin the party.
A waiter came up holding a tray of champagne flutes. Logan took two. Slugging them, he smiled before replacing the flutes on the man’s tray. Then, carefully, so that nobody saw him, he backed into the shadows and left the gallery.
Only when he was well away from the house and concealed by the mists, did he sprint across the thick lawn in the direction of the garçonnière. This time, when he reached the top of the stairs and was breathless from running, he knocked. When she didn’t answer immediately, instead of barging inside as before, he forced himself to pace the landing.
When she still didn’t answer, he beat his fist against the door again and yelled her name. “I know you’re in there!”
“Coming,” she said at last.
Still, it was several more minutes before she finally pushed her door open. Not that she even looked at him. Busy dressing, she bent her head and shrugged into a black T-shirt.
“Wonderful party,” he said.
She wore the black T-shirt and dark jeans, but because she’d only lit a single lamp and the garçonnière was full of shadows and her body was back lit, revealing her slender shape which seemed so sexy, he sucked in a breath.
“I’m sorry I made trouble between you and your date,” she said, turning away as she tucked the T-shirt into her jeans.
He inhaled sharply again. “That was my fault,” he said, feeling awkward around her.
When he jerked his eyes from her body, he saw her dress on the floor where she’d tossed it, the garment sparkling up at him as if with wicked glee.
Cici, her slim back to him now, was squatting on her haunches—well-shaped haunches encased in tight black denim, too. Leaning over, exposing more of her delectably rounded butt, she began to dig through the chaos of her shoes that spilled out of her closet into her bedroom.
Heat engulfed him, which was ridiculous. He was thirty-five, not some lust-driven teenager. Still, his heart began to slam in slow, painful strokes.
Ignoring him, she shoved bare toes into a jogging shoe and then began rummaging for its mate.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“I’m taking the pirogue out in the swamp.”
“At this time of night? Are you crazy?”
