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       Chapter One

      While Gabriella Boudreaux filled a tray of chocolate eclairs with pastry cream in the kitchen of Chez Emile, she was fighting off panic. When the phone rang, she knew it was for her. With bad news.

      As one of the prep staff called her name, she put down the pastry bag she was holding, wiped her hands on her white apron and crossed the kitchen.

      The anxious voice on the other end of the line belonged to her mother.

      “Gabriella, you’ve got to come home.”

      “Mom, we’ve talked about this before. I’m in the middle of getting ready for the evening rush. I can’t drop everything and drive to Lafayette.”

      “You have to!”

      “What’s wrong?”

      “There’s a man stalking me.”

      Gabriella’s hand clamped on the receiver. Over the past few years, she watched and worried as she’d seen her mother’s mental state deteriorating. There had been too many instances when Gabriella had hurried home to take care of some emergency or another—only to have her mother ask why she was there.

      “I can’t leave right now,” she said. “I have to work.”

      “I need you.”

      The mom’s pleading tone almost undid her, but she managed to say, “Can you get Paula to help you out?”

      The voice on the other end of the line turned petulant. “I don’t want Paula.”

      “She’s your best friend. I’ll come home as soon as I can get away,” she answered, thinking that she’d have to spend the night in Lafayette, then rush back to New Orleans to start work again in the morning.

      When her mother started crying, Gabriella’s heart squeezed painfully. “Mom, I’m sorry. Truly. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

      “That will be too late.”

      She looked up and saw Emile Gautreaux watching her. A short, plump man with thinning gray hair, he had been a darling of the New Orleans restaurant scene for more than thirty years. When arthritis and his increasing bulk had curtailed his ability to function efficiently, he had hired several surrogates to populate his kitchen. Gabriella was the senior pastry chef.

      “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later,” she said into the phone.

      Her mother’s high-pitched voice still rang over the line as she replaced the receiver in the cradle. Dropping her hand, she took a moment to compose herself before looking up at the man who treated his professional staff like plantation hands.

      He was still eyeing her. “Something wrong, chère?” he asked in the deep bayou accent that his customers found so appealing.

      “No. Everything is fine.”

      “I hope there is not going to be a problem,” he replied with the edge in his voice that he only used with staff.

      “I’ll handle it.”

      “I hope so.” He gave a curt nod. When he strode over to the stove to taste the shrimp and andouille gumbo simmering in a large pot, she let out the breath she was holding.

      She wanted to make her mark in the food world, and despite Emile’s slave driver attitude, he’d provided her with a wonderful chance to showcase her work. She’d received some glowing reviews in the local papers, on food blogs and even one of the airline magazines, but she’d started to wonder if she could have a life and work for Gautreaux at the same time.

      She longed to tell him she had to take some personal time this afternoon, but it wouldn’t do her or Mom any good if she got fired and had to look for another job.

      She finished the eclairs on automatic pilot, cataloguing her own shortcomings as she worked.

      She’d never been the daughter her mother wanted, and Mom had never let her forget it. Which left her feeling more on edge than ever.

      Janie Rivers glided over. Janie was also working as a pastry chef at Chez Emile—under Gabriella’s direction—and Gabriella’s intuition told her that the other woman was looking for an opportunity to move up in the food chain.

      “Did you get a complaint about one of your desserts?”

      “No,” Gabriella snapped. Then softened her voice. “A problem at home.”

      “I’m so sorry.”

      Yeah, I’ll bet, Gabriella thought, but there was no point in saying it aloud.

      “What can I do to help?” Janie asked.

      “I’ve finished the eclairs, the chocolate torte and the flourless chocolate cake. I’ve still got to do the lemon sponge, the cinnamon ice cream that goes with the torte and the peach crisp.”

      “I can do the ice cream.”

      Despite her previous thought about Janie’s career ambitions, Gabriella gave her a grateful smile. “I’ll owe you one.”

      “Oh, don’t worry about it. We all help each other out when we can.”

      When Janie reached out to touch Gabriella’s shoulder, she automatically took a step back, and the other woman dropped her hand.

      As long as she could remember, Gabriella hadn’t liked being touched. She couldn’t explain the aversion. She only knew that it usually made her nerves jangle.

      “Got to get started on the lemon sponge.” Quickly Gabriella went to the storage bin where the restaurant kept the flour, then brought out lemons, eggs and sugar.

      Ordering herself to focus on her work so she could finish up and get out of here, she began grating lemon peel.

      But she couldn’t shake the worry that something was different at home this time. Something bad was going to happen, and she was going to be too late.

      There was no way to explain the feeling. It might simply have come from guilt or from the abilities that she’d developed in her teens. It wasn’t anything that she could explain—or wanted to talk about,