Free KILLING ME SOFTLY by Jenna Mills Page B

phone call from Nathan Lambert didn't help.
    "Then you must be listening to the wrong people again," he said, steering the cruiser off the main highway and onto a small country road.
    "Oh?" the celebrated importer/exporter asked. As kids, he and his brother had attended the same boarding school as the Robichauds. As adults, the whole state of Louisiana was barely big enough for both families. "You mean there's not a pretty little reporter down there digging up your secrets?"
    Edouard swerved around a fallen branch alongside the road. "You mean Renee?" He let his voice thicken with fondness on her name. "That sweet thing wouldn't hurt a fly."
    Nathan laughed. "Is that a fact?"
    "That it is."
    "Glad to hear it," Nathan said, and Edouard could almost see him in his St. Charles Avenue mansion, leaning back in his desk chair with a glass of brandy in his hands. "Sure would have been a shame if history had to repeat itself."
    Down the driveway, the Acadian style frame house came into view. "That's not going to happen."
    "I mean, if a second woman were to come sniffing around Cain—wouldn't be too good if something were to happen to her, too, would it? Wouldn't look too good for any of you."
    Edouard braked suddenly. "Stay away from my family, Lambert. We don't need your kind of help."
    "I mean, what if people started asking questions … wondering just what that reporter was getting close to—and who was running scared." Nathan hesitated. "Again."
    Nathan was enjoying this a little too much. Edouard lifted a hand to his chest and rubbed, reminded himself now was not the time to lose control.
    Never was the time.
    A man had to keep himself focused.
    "No one's going to be asking questions," he said, his voice low and forceful, "because nothing's going to happen to anyone."
    But sweet God have mercy—he didn't know why he hadn't realized it before. No matter who Renee Fox was or who she worked for, what her intent was, her very presence jeopardized them all.
    If someone wanted to launch a killing blow to his family—a political enemy of Etienne's or a nuisance with an ax to grind—Renee Fox presented the perfect weapon.
    "If that's what you want to believe," Nathan said mildly. "But you should know, regardless of how you got your nephew out of that last jam, this time rumor has it he's going to fry."
    The line went dead.
    Edouard yanked the earpiece from his face and let it fall to the seat, stared at the thin black cord lying on the seat next to a plate of cookies. He'd known all along the Fox woman's presence left them vulnerable. He just hadn't realize how vulnerable. Even if the killing blow didn't come from her, it would come from someone.
    Lambert was right. All someone had to do was off the reporter and make sure there was a body, and this time Cain would fry.
    Swearing softly, he reached for a cookie, ended up shoving the whole plate to the floorboard. Damn things had been arriving like clockwork every other Monday for the past several years. No one claimed to know where they came from. As sheriff, he didn't much like unsolved mysteries, but as a man, he rather found it flattering.
    And hell. He liked chocolate-chip cookies.
    Swearing under his breath, he yanked open the glovebox and pulled out a cigarette, jabbed in the lighter.
    Renee Fox didn't need to be run out of town.
    She needed to be protected.
    It was a damn strange irony.
    Refusing to let his hands shake, he grabbed the lighter and lit the cigarette, brought it to his mouth.
    But did not take a drag.
    He hadn't in over twelve years.
    On a low growl he threw the car door open and strode toward the house he'd built forts behind as a child. He found Millie standing on the wide porch. Her surprisingly long dark hair fell from the pony tail and blew in the cool breeze, reminding him of so many other times he'd stopped by to say hello and check in on things, just like Jesse had asked.
    Jesse . Hard to believe it had been a quarter of a century since he'd held his best