Family Secrets. Ruth Dale Jean
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been revealed only minutes earlier, to the delight of the family.
Sharlee hated envying anyone anything, but this time she couldn’t help herself. Just what she needed: an older sister who had it all, including the approval of the entire family, and an adorable little brother to carry on the Lyon name.
Her arm was inadvertently jostled, making her champagne splash over the rim of her glass. She turned to see who the guilty party was and found herself standing behind two courtly old gentlemen deep in conversation. Her grandfather and his brother, Charles, both in their eighties. She edged closer, her curiosity roused by the almost conspiratorial tone of their voices.
“So now the history of the Lyons is an open book,” Paul was saying cynically. “The truth, the whole truth...”
To which granduncle Charles replied, “I was there, brother dear. There are more secrets in this family than candles on that cake—and someday they’ll all be revealed.”
Sharlee frowned. What on earth were they talking about? What secrets? As far as she knew, all the other Lyons were models of decorum. Would that she could say the same about herself! But now Granduncle Charles was suggesting something altogether different, and she waited for Grandpère to refute him.
And waited.
And began to wonder. Could it be true? Secrets—perhaps Charles was talking about his own branch of the family tree.
He and his son, Alain, were not only active in Lyon Broadcasting but owned one of the most elegant French restaurants in New Orleans. She’d just eaten several cheese-and-shrimp-stuffed mushrooms from Chez Charles, reminding her of one of the few things she missed about New Orleans: the food. All of Charles’s descendents had moved dutifully into one or the other of the family businesses, and participated in such endeavors as this grand anniversary celebration.
Unlike Sharlee, who’d vowed early on to go her own way and had proceeded to do so, consequences be damned.
She had long since concluded that she was the only person in the family with a wild streak. In her teens she’d been the kid who got suspended from school for practical jokes, who got into curfew trouble with the cops, who sneaked out of the house to meet boys, who got caught drinking by the nuns. She was also the one who was arrested in campus demonstrations at college and who got into a humongous confrontation with her mother on her twenty-first birthday, which resulted in her decision to take a job in Colorado, instead of moving back home after graduation.
The result of all this rebellion was her parents’ refusal to release her trust fund on schedule. Their lack of faith actually hurt more than being deprived of the money—although money was nice, too, she recalled.
This waltz down memory lane was getting her nowhere. She had a plane to catch, people to avoid. Even so, the conversation between the two old men had sent her reporter’s instincts into high gear. Perhaps if she lingered for just a few more minutes, she might hear a few interesting, perhaps even scandalous, tidbits about the Lyons....
But then she saw Devin Oliver heading her way, a determined expression on his handsome face. Her heart stood still. He looked wonderful with his curly almost-black hair and his deep almost-black eyes.
She’d managed to avoid him on this trip as she’d pretty much avoided her parents and anyone else wearing a serious expression, but her luck might be running out.
The last thing she needed was a run-in with a former lover now on her father’s payroll. Turning quickly away, she ducked behind a cluster of celebrants and beat a hasty retreat, resolutely ignoring Dev’s voice behind her.
“Sharlee, wait! You can’t go on avoiding me forever.”
CHAPTER ONE
DEV OLIVER STOOD in the open front door of the Donna Buy Ya Café on the edge of the French Market in New Orleans’s Vieux Carré. It was another blistering hot August day. Across the street, a couple of little boys danced for tourist coins while the Balloon Man paused for a moment to watch and tap his toes. Farther down the block, a street musician pulled a saxophone from a ragged case, raised it to his lips and began to play.
New Orleans, Dev’s home, a city like no other in the world. He smiled and was about to go back inside—a thousand chores awaited—when a flash of movement made him hesitate. He watched a long shiny limousine glide to the curb. His first thought was, That’s a No Parking zone and you’re in big trouble if you stay there, mister.
His second thought was, I’m in no shape to be welcoming Lyons and neither is this place.
“Shit,” he said, looking down at the grubby T-shirt stuck to his torso by sweat, the dingy jeans and scruffy sneakers, all of which were the result of a morning spent trying to get the restaurant fit to open. He stepped inside. “We got company,” he said to the man behind the counter.
“Anyone we know?” Felix Brown had a gentle voice but the build of a football player. He was also a hell of a cook and Dev’s partner in this enterprise, assuming, of course, the Donna Buy Ya ever actually opened. For everything they fixed, something else went to hell; for every permit granted, two more hit snags. At this rate they’d be lucky to open by Mardi Gras.
Dev jerked his chin toward the white-haired grande dame alighting from the limo with the assistance of the uniformed chauffeur. “Iron Margaret herself,” he said. “You ever met her, Felix?”
“Me? Get outta here. Where would I meet Miz Lyon?”
“She likes to eat. Although I don’t know why she’d be visiting a shirttail relative like me.” He stepped outside onto the sidewalk. “Welcome to Donna Buy Ya, Tante Margaret.”
“Devin, dear.” She offered her powdered and perfumed cheek for his kiss. “I’ve missed your smiling face around WDIX.”
“Thanks.” He stepped aside and held the door for her. “I don’t think you’ve met my partner, Felix Brown. Felix, Margaret Lyon, the power behind the throne at WDIX-TV.”
Felix’s massive black paw enveloped hers. He stood more than a foot taller than Margaret, and she was not a petite woman.
“Glad to meet you,” he said. “Hungry? It’s Monday so I got the red beans and rice goin’, or I could whip you up a po’boy in nothin’ flat.” Felix just loved feeding people; it was his raison d’être.
Margaret smiled. “Thank you, no. I’ll come back and try the bill of fare when you’ve opened for business.”
Felix looked disappointed. “Nothin’ at all? How about somethin’ to drink?”
“Iced tea would be pleasant.”
“I gotcha covered.” He gave her a thumb’s-up.
She watched him trot toward the kitchen. “He seems nice,” she commented. “How did you meet him, Devin?”
“We went to school together.”
“Old friends tend to be the best.”
Dev pulled out one of the chairs that had come with the place—either old or antique, depending on your point of view. “To what do we owe this honor?”
She sat down, her movements ladylike and precise. “The honor is mine,” she countered, folding her hands neatly on the plastic tablecloth. “I’m the first member of the family to see the enterprise that’s taken you away from us.”
Dev felt a familiar stab of guilt. Until recently he’d worked for WDIX- TV as assistant to station manager André Lyon. It was a job he’d loved in an industry he still loved. But family politics—specifically the long-simmering feud between the two branches of the Lyon family—had finally made him too uncomfortable to remain.
He’d hesitated to leave, knowing his stepfather, Alain, would be furious. But when his mother died last January, Dev had felt free to do anything he wanted, and there wasn’t a damned thing Alain or anybody else could do about it.
So