“We will,” he promised. “But dinner first.”
Something in her face showed that was the right answer. She was already more relaxed than she’d been across the street. He realized she’d been nervous about seeing Megan and finding out if she was Isaac’s mom. He lifted a hand to her face. “How did you rule Megan out?”
“I asked another waitress which of her coworkers had been pregnant three or four months ago.”
“And?”
Harper lifted a shoulder. “None of them. She’s been there a year, and no one’s been pregnant.”
“Okay, then.”
She nodded with a smile. “Okay, then.”
“Hey! James!”
He looked toward the bar to see Gabe Trahan waving him over.
“Let’s have a drink.”
“It’s busy in here, too,” she said, looking around.
“I have VIP status in here,” he said. “And so do you.” He put a hand on her lower back and nudged her toward the bar.
“I do?” she asked, starting forward.
“You’re the reason we’re starting the erotic book club. The guys love you.”
She laughed. “That’s real?”
“Very real. Our first meeting is in a couple of weeks.”
“How’s it going?” Gabe asked, wiping the bar in front of two stools at the end.
“Great. This is Harper. Professor Broussard,” James told his friend, with a wink.
“Ah. Professor. So nice to meet you,” Gabe said, giving her one of the grins that was one of the reasons Trahan’s was incredibly popular with the female tourists.
Gabe and his brother, Logan, owned the bar and ran it with the help of a group of friends. They were well known for their amazing drinks, incredible food, and the Louisiana charm they exuded even in spite of both being happily married. Their wives knew they couldn’t help it. It was, after all, exactly what had landed each of those ladies in their husband’s bed the first time.
“You too,” Harper said. “Let me know if you need any discussion questions for the book club.”
“Oh, I think I’d love to hear your discussion questions,” Gabe told her.
“You would,” Harper told him. “But you’d like to hear my answers even more. Very insightful.”
Gabe laughed and reached for a business card. He scrawled his email on the back and slid it across the bar. “Email me. You’ll make me sound incredibly smart.”
Harper took the card and tucked it into the little handbag she’d been carrying. “And all it will cost you is a piece of brown butter pecan pie.”
“Done.”
“Every time I come in.”
Gabe laughed. “Done.”
Harper grinned at him, and James wanted to dip her back on her barstool and kiss the hell out of her. He didn’t know if she knew she was being flirtatious and fucking adorable, but she was, and he found the whole her-charming-his-friend move totally hot. For some reason. Maybe because he’d never imagined this scenario. He’d imagined plenty of scenarios of all kinds with Harper. Yeah, most of them involved her naked and on various pieces of his furniture. And hers. But a couple had involved them cooking dinner and taking the dog to the park. Normal things.
None had, however, involved her hanging out with his friends.
None had involved a baby.
And now both of those had happened before the cooking and dog park stuff, and it was… awesome.
“Okay, how about you back up and remember that you have a hot, amazing wife,” James told Gabe as he slid up onto the stool next to Harper and leaned in. “And how about you remember that you’re on a date with the hot guy from across the landing that you want to try showering with naked next time.”
Harper’s cheeks got pink even as she turned her head to grin at him. “I can’t forget that.”
“I won’t let you.” He said it with a gruff promise.
Her pupils were dilated, and she wet her lips, and yeah, he wanted to take her straight home.
Chuckling, Gabe made them two Pimm’s cups without asking what they wanted. “You eating?”
“Definitely. Seafood pot pie,” James said.
“Same,” Harper agreed.
“You got it.” Gabe moved off to put the order in and help more patrons farther down the bar.
Harper looked around, taking in the whole restaurant. “I love this place. It’s so authentic, and everyone seems so happy.”
“It’s always packed,” James told her. “Everyone who’s been here even once makes a point of coming back.”
She turned back to him. “So you grew up in New Orleans?”
He took a draw of his drink, the lemonade, liquor, and soda mixed perfectly. “Yep. All my life. Only child. Mom and Dad left after Katrina. But I’ve got aunts and uncles, cousins, a grandmother all still here.”
“Where did your mom and dad go?” Harper asked, sipping her drink.
He watched her eyes widen and her take another bigger drink before setting her glass down. He grinned. “Baton Rouge. Not far. But Mom had a lot of anxiety after the storm.”
“They lost their house?”
He nodded. “Lost almost everything. I think Dad would have stayed, but he was happy to go, too. My grandma that’s still here is his mom, and they tried to talk her into going with them, but she’s never leaving. She’s actually a little pissed at them for going. It was tough on a lot of families.”
Harper nodded. “I read all about it.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“We lived in Provence until I was about eight,” she said.
“France?” he asked.
She nodded. “My mother is French, my dad is American. We moved to Quebec when I was eight.”
“You moved down here on your own, then?” He wanted to know all about her, he realized. He wanted to know what her fifth birthday had been like, what subject she had liked best in high school, what her favorite song was. And he was going to learn it on the piano if he didn’t already know it.
“I did. We’ve traced some family lineage down here with the Cajun settlers, and I found that fascinating. So when the teaching position opened up, I decided to come find out more about this French heritage of mine.”
“Do you miss Canada?”
“It’s so much cooler there,” she said with a smile, picking up her drink again.
He laughed. “I’ll bet.”
“But yes. I miss my parents, of course. And home. But they’ve always been great about adventures and seeing the world, so they’re fully supportive, and they love coming to visit down here. The French culture here in Louisiana is so vibrant.”
“Tout a fait.” James smirked as he lifted his glass as she registered that he’d said, “It sure is” in French.
She looked at him quickly. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Tu connais le français?”
He set his glass down. Yes, he knew French. He nodded. “Oui.” He was fluent. “Je parle couramment.”
“How?” she asked.
“My grandmother. Speaks French most of the time.”
“Oh, it was your grandmother.”