Behind Iron Lace Read online

  Table of Contents

  Page

  Copyright

  Note from the Publisher

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the

  Also by Mercy Celeste

  Behind Iron Lace

  Mercy Celeste

  About The e-Book You Have Purchased:

  Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the South African Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated and is punishable by imprisonment and a fine.”

  Cover Artist: Reese Dante

  Editor: Jason Huffman

  Behind Iron Lace© Mercy Celeste

  ISBN #

  Attention Readers: This book uses US English.

  All rights reserved.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. The Licensed Art Material is being used for illustrative purposes only; any person depicted in the Licensed Art Material, is a model.

  PUBLISHER

  https://spsilverpublishing.com

  Note from the Publisher

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for your purchase of this title. The authors and staff of Silver Publishing hope you enjoy this read and that we will have a long and happy association together.

  Please remember that the only money authors make from writing comes from the sales of their books. If you like their work, spread the word and tell others about the books, but please refrain from sharing this book in any form.s depend on sales and sales only to support their families.

  If you see “free shares” offered or cut-rate sales on pirate sites of this title, you can report the offending entry to [email protected]

  Thank you for not pirating our titles.

  Lodewyk Deysel

  Publisher

  Silver Publishing

  http://www.spsilverpublishing.com

  Dedication

  Falyn Donaldson for tirelessly reading my work. Runere McClain for the Cajun language advice and listening to me whine. Marie Sexton for answering questions from a stranger. And Pati Thomas for being the bravest beta reader of them all.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Vans: VANS, Inc.

  Cinderella: Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  University of Oregon: State of Oregon

  Chapter One

  The offices of Y not ask Y! were like an oven. Strike that, the temperature in the offices of Y not ask Y! was unbearably close to sauna level, if said sauna just happened to be located in hell. What a day for the damned air conditioning unit to die. Wiping sweat from his forehead before it could drip into his eyes, Darcy Butler glanced up toward the ceiling fans almost in supplication. He prayed for a hint of cool air. Just a hint. One slight breeze, was it too much to ask?

  One hundred degrees in the shade, with a heat index of nearly one-ten, according to the radio. God, how did people live like this, he wondered, and not for the first time since moving to New Orleans last winter. It was too hot to do anything but lie naked in a tub of ice. Shit, it was only June, early June at that, still spring. Summer was still to come and, if spring was any indication, he was not going to survive to see the fall.

  “I absolutely can not do this today,” he said to the two people sitting across from his desk. He couldn’t focus on the budget or any other trivial little detail. Irritated, he tossed a pencil on his blotter and peeled his sodden shirt away from his body. “I’m afraid someone might die of heat exhaustion if we don’t get out of here.”

  “Why don’t we call it a day then, Dar? The repair crew can’t get here until tomorrow anyway.” His partner, Bailey, flashed him a suggestive smile that he studiously ignored. “I, for one, wouldn’t mind finding a nice cool pool to slip into.”

  He and Bailey went all the way back to freshman year at college when they were dreaming of setting the world on fire. Now it looked as if they would spontaneously combust before they ever got the chance. Or worse, melt clean away. “I will gladly settle for an air conditioned bar and a cold beer. Okay, yeah, send everyone home, we’re not going to get anything done today. Tomorrow either,” he paused for a moment, there was something he had to do today, he just couldn’t remember. Then that something dawned on him, “Oh crap, I have an appointment with a new graphic artist in an hour.”

  “What’s the name?” Bailey spun his phone around and, with a few deft finger jabs, she paged through his appointments. “Caleb Mitchell?” She raised a questioning brow, to which Darcy nodded and she shot off a text in seconds flat. “I told him to meet you at O’Doul’s down the street instead of here.”

  “Thanks, Bailey.” Darcy hated the damned phone, hated text messaging, hated technology. Sometimes he wondered how he’d ended up in a technology based field at all. Publisher of his very own e-magazine that, thanks largely to Bailey and Chester, her secretary, they’d somehow managed to go international, even in a tanking economy.

  Moving to New Orleans last Christmas had been a money-saver he reluctantly admitted, though he still wasn’t entirely happy about the move. The building was in the heart of the French Quarter and because of the damage to the lower floor, it had been a steal. With a little time and a little more money, Darcy had managed to find a talented group of contractors who made quick work of bringing the building back to life.

  During the winter and the gorgeous spring, Darcy had been quite happy with his new home, then June and this ridiculous heat wave hit. Now he just wanted to go back to Oregon and the tranquility of a mild heat-free summer. He tried not to panic whenever some well-meaning local assured him this was nothing, that he should wait until summer really got here in August. He wasn’t going to make it to August.

  “Aw, shucks, boss, twernt nuthin.” She laughed, not at him as much as because he was a hopeless technophobe. Darcy just took the teasing in stride, mostly because it was funny as hell. He’d long ago decided Bailey could have the gadgets all to herself. He’d stick with words and content, thank you very much.

  Glancing over to the man sitting beside her, Darcy caught Chester smirking. Chester seemed to smirk a great deal, Darcy thought briefly before wondering for the millionth or so time what sort of pseudo-symbiotic relationship the two of them had.

  His longtime best friend and sometimes lover, Bailey was
taller than him, taller than Chester too, nearly six-foot-one in her bare feet, and slender as the proverbial reed. She kept her straight hair short, in one of those weird Japanese comic book styles, very short in back with longish bangs framing her face. She dressed like a super model, preferring anything couture she could get for bottom basement prices off the internet. Today was no exception, except she was dressed for the weather while he wasn’t.

  Chester… did the man even have a last name? Chester was prime grade emo kid all grown up and graduated to hipster. He was so thin Darcy wondered if he actually ate at all. His hair stood in chopped spikes, the tips blond and whatever color he liked for the day, today they were turquoise to match his surfer tee. He was younger than either of them, maybe twenty-three at the most. He’d started out as an intern last fall and followed them down to be Bailey’s secretary.

  To Darcy, Chester was just a glorified gopher groupie and a major pain in his ass. However, Bailey loved him; swore she couldn’t get along without him. Darcy wasn’t quite so enamored. Sometimes when he was especially homesick, like now, his imagination liked to run amok. During these times, he imagined Chester was plotting his demise behind those huge emo eyes of his. The smirk he wore so often seemed to lend credence to the suspicion.

  Despite the heat and the sweat, Darcy shivered when Chester’s gaze cut through him, almost dismissively, to land on Bailey.

  “Okay, I guess that’s a day then, gang. Free the horde and lets all go find someplace cool before we stroke out.” He shook off the momentary miasma of paranoia and shooed them out of his office. Remembering something, he shouted, “Oh and don’t forget, bright and early Thursday morning, air conditioning willing, we are going to put up the galleys for next week’s mag. So be here with bells on.”

  “Okay boss,” Bailey stuck her head in through the doorway. Waving a quick little pinkie in the air, she disappeared. A couple of minutes later, Darcy heard a mass, almost hysterical, chorus of relieved cheers as the sweaty employees were told to take the party elsewhere.

  As minutes passed, Darcy went about closing his office down. He transferred data to his phone from his computer, the task taking him longer than it would Bailey, or anyone else in the office, for that matter. While he worked, the outer office began to grow quiet as people put their workstations to sleep and left for cooler atmospheres and an unscheduled vacation.

  “Hey, Dar, do you want me to come with you to O’Doul’s? Afterward we can go hang out somewhere.” Bailey, sans Chester, poked her head into his office, startling him. Her cornflower blue eyes looked hopeful but wary, turning almost morose when he shook his head no. “Aw, come on, Dar, you never have time to just hang out anymore.”

  “I’m just tired, Bai. It’s this heat, when the weather cools down…” He let the promise trail off. He couldn’t explain why to her. Hell, he didn’t know why he didn’t want to hang out anymore. That he just didn’t feel like it wasn’t enough of an excuse, at least not one she would let pass without wanting to dissect. And Darcy sure as hell didn’t want to be dissected right now.

  “Okay, Dar, we’re all going over to Megan’s place for drinks around her pool. If you change your mind, you know where to find us.” She masked her disappointment behind a smile, but he could hear it in her voice.

  “Sure, and hey, Bai, you know I love you, right?” He wanted to see her smile again, really smile, instead of the plastered on, social smile that seemed to be part of her uniform where he was concerned.

  “I love you too, Dar. I’ll see you Thursday.” She smiled wanly and in a flurry of loose flowing skirt, she was gone, leaving him alone to lock up.

  It was Chester. Of course, it was Chester; she called him Chess, which irritated him, much like the nickname Dar irritated him, just worse. Bailey and her preference for nicknames had always baffled him. Darcy knew one thing, Bailey only gave nicknames to people she had some use for. He couldn’t really call this thing between them love. He’d never really thought she loved him.

  Chester had come between them long before they’d left Oregon behind for the Big Easy. Darcy suspected as early as last September, when she dropped the last syllable of his name. Of course, he wasn’t going to blame anything on the appearance of a nickname, there were other indications they were sleeping together. She would take Chester’s call when they were together. Darcy lost track of the number of conversations in which Chester was the only topic. He was young, fresh, idealistic, not burdened down by his own mortality.

  Sex had become infrequent, but that was Darcy’s fault more than hers. He just didn’t like thinking there was a third person in bed with them. As a result, they’d drifted apart before the move; the last time he’d slept at her place was long before Christmas, and even then, not much happened. He shrugged it off. Blamed the magazine, blamed her for letting Chester come between them, for losing interest.

  Darcy didn’t delude himself, he knew it was him. He’d lost interest long before Chester came along. The friends with benefits relationship they’d shared since college didn’t excite him anymore. He wanted something else. But damned if he knew what that something else was.

  Shaking off the unwanted thoughts Darcy loped down the three flights of stairs and locked up. The very second he hit the street, heat engulfed him, heavy, damp heat that seemed to seep into his very bones. He inhaled deeply, hoping to clear his head, but the stench made him gag, the assorted odors of New Orleans had never grown on him. The river, the lake, the aging city, all combined to create an odd smell that he couldn’t get used to. Today was one of those days. The oppressive heat, the swamp-like humidity, the bum pissing in the alley. Shit, he wanted to go home.

  O’Doul’s Pub, just up the street, was a welcome relief from the heat. It was open, filled with light and music at all times of the day or night, and most importantly, the bar was blessed with a working air conditioner.

  “Hey, Ducky, you want the usual?” The bartender called to him the second he stepped inside, a smile on his face. The taunting nickname Darcy could live with. He was proud to be a Duck.

  “Anything, as long as it’s cold. God, it feels like heaven in here.”

  “I heard about your AC problems, damned copper thieves most likely got to it. They stripped mine clean last year. Not once, but twice. Cost me a fortune to replace, but what you gonna do? You gotta have it.” The bartender talked while he reached into a barrel filled with ice and pulled out a bottle of the imported beer Darcy loved, popped the top and handed it off to him.

  “Start a tab for me, will ya? I’m meeting someone, an artist for the magazine. I want to impress him. He’s gifted, just what we need to class up the joint.” Darcy found a booth with the best possible vantage point, beneath one of the industrial sized air vents, so he could watch the front window and get as much of the blasting air as he possibly could.

  “Sure thing, Ducky, you want some lunch or should I just call the paramedics now?” The bartender hitched his eyebrows, as he looked him up and down.

  “I look that bad, huh? I can’t get used to this heat,” he tried to make his voice light.

  “This ain’t hot, cher, not by a long shot. Just wait ‘til August, then we’ll talk about heat.” And there it was, the mocking grin, the familiar yet oh so hated litany that made Darcy physically fear the coming of August.

  “Yeah, yeah, so you keep telling me. Send me out a sandwich or something, but after I stop sweating.” He held the bottle in a salute and caved into the wonderfully cool leatherette booth with a sigh.

  Two beers later, Darcy felt human again. His button down shirt was rumpled, but it was at least dry now, he’d long ago done away with his tie and loosened his collar. Hell, he’d even rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. He felt like a slob, but he was cool and that was all that mattered.

  Caleb Mitchell’s file lay out on the table before him, outlining just the basics of his career. While he had no formal schooling, Caleb had spent his early life trotting around the globe, photographing war and unrest.
His paintings had been displayed in New York, London and Paris. Impressive. Why he wanted to freelance for Darcy’s little e-mag was beyond him, but he wasn’t about to turn up his nose at talent.

  He heard the rumble of an engine before the motorcycle pulled up outside and parked in front of the bar. The rider, dressed in faded blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt covered with an unbuttoned brown leather vest, pulled the helmet off and brushed his hair back from his face.

  Fascinated, Darcy watched him climb off the bike and saunter into the bar. He stopped to talk to the bartender and while Darcy watched, they both looked at him. The biker’s gaze seemed to caress him as he walked in his direction. He had an easy infectious smile, his gait long and rolling. Jesus, this was Caleb Mitchell?

  “You’re Darcy Butler?” He didn’t wait for Darcy to say a word; he just fell into the seat across from him, laying a pair of long, tan arms on the table. Smooth, muscular and adorned with silver chain bracelets of varying sizes that moved fluidly as he did. “I was expecting a woman… Sorry, that was rude.”

  “I get that a lot, the curse of a romance loving mother. She named me after her favorite heroes and didn’t seem to think I’d get my ass kicked for it. You must be Caleb Mitchell. It’s nice to meet you, Mr Mitchell. I must say, I’m a fan of your work.” Darcy didn’t know why he was babbling like an idiot. He hadn’t expected the man to look like a movie star version of a Hell’s Angel biker. Or that he’d have such piercing eyes. Green eyes. Damn. He cleared his throat.