“Don’t worry,” Jackson assured her, his expression serious, although she swore she heard amusement in his voice. “He’s not interested in you at the moment. When he gets hungry he’ll come closer to the water’s edge. But you should know these guys are out here and what to look for so you stay safe. Bayous can be dangerous for a city girl.”
“Oh yeah?” she shot back. “Well, never fear. This city girl can handle ‘gators. Just try snatching a cab out from under me and you’ll see how tough I am.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I wouldn’t dare.”
They slipped into an easy stroll while making their way alongside the water, and Carla tried ignoring the warm tingles of pleasure darting through her blood. Beautiful summer day, hot guy by her side…not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
“Seriously, I’ll be okay,” she continued. “I might not know about creepy-crawlies, but I can take care of myself.”
“Living where you do, I don’t doubt it. No wildlife in that concrete jungle you call home, but I imagine there are still plenty of sharks around.”
“Definitely.” An unwelcome image of her boss, snarling like a rabid dog, popped into her mind. She smothered it. “And those sharks can be tough.” “But you still like big city living?”
“My family’s there. I like being able to see them.” “So you’re close?”
“Close?” She paused, considering the question. Her family could be frustrating, exasperating, challenging, but couldn’t that be said about most families? Her classic overachiever parents put the same expectations on their children as they did on themselves. It could be tough sometimes, but Carla knew her success thus far in life owed a lot to her parents’ love and encouragement. “We are, yeah,” she said. “I’m especially close to my brother, Carl. He’s my fraternal twin.”
“Your twin? So there are two of you?”
She nodded. “And two more on top of that; three brothers altogether. My twin, Carl, and then Mike and Adam, who everyone calls Butch. They’re all older than I am, although Carl only by a couple of minutes.”
“Any sisters?”
“No. I wish. It’d be nice to have another female in the house to ward off all the men.”
“Aside from your mother, you mean.”
She took a sip of her water. “Mmm-hmm. My mom can fend for herself just fine. She used to be a professional basketball player.”
Jackson raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No kidding?”
“Yeah. A good one, too. But then she broke her leg and it didn’t heal quite right, so there went her sports career.”
“Ça, c’est dommage. It must have been a real setback for her.”
Carla emphatically shook her head. “Not my mother. She immediately signed up for law school and started classes six months after her injury. Graduated a year later.”
“A year?”
“Yeah. She threw herself into it, taking on a massive class load and continuing right through summer. Now instead of being an athlete, she represents them.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
She managed a weak smile, but trying to follow in her mother’s high-flier footsteps could sometimes be a tough gig.
“What about your father?”
“He’s the CEO of an aviation company brokering the sales of private executive jets.”
“So your parents are pretty classic under-achievers, then?”
Carla glanced over, thinking for one second he was serious. But then she saw his eyes, sparkling as they teased her, and her stomach twisted into a gigantic knot. Just when she’d thought Jackson Rivard had not a funny bone to be found, his gentle teasing shredded all doubt.
And oh, that smile. He could light a city with it.
She smiled back at him, her insides melting. “My brothers are just as lazy and sluggish as my parents.” “Mais oui.” Jackson plucked a small stone from the ground and sent it flying to the water, skipping over the tranquil bayou before it sank. “I have no doubt. So let me guess. One of them for sure has to be an attorney.” “Check. That would be my oldest brother, Mike.” “As I suspected. Which would mean another of your brothers is a business executive, even a CEO maybe?”
“Butch is a Vice President of Marketing, so I suppose that’s close since he theoretically could work his way up to CEO if he wanted to.”
“What about Carl?”
The mere thought of her twin brought a smile to her lips, like thinking fondly of an old friend. “Carl’s the publisher of Downhill.”
“The ski magazine?”
“Yep.”
“Interesting. So he followed your mother in the sports world, at least peripherally.”
“He also skis. Not professionally, but he’s really good.” She took another sip of water. “Actually, my whole family, except for me, is athletically gifted. My dad’s a runner, Mike and Butch played football and wrestled, and Carl’s the skier.”
“But you?”
“Hopeless. I trip over my own feet. I have no knack for sports.”
“Not everyone does. But you’re a rising executive like the rest of your family.”
Carla shrugged. “Well, yeah, I guess I am.”
“Why the hesitation?” Jackson studied her closely. “I didn’t hesitate.”
“Sure you did.” His assertion, as if stating a fact, was tough to disagree with.
“Well, I…I guess I just don’t think of myself in the same way,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
“Because I—” Because I don’t really like my job. Wait, where had that come from? Why had she even thought it? She worked so hard on getting to the top. How could she think she didn’t like her job?
Her parents and brothers were proud of her.
Friends from grade school often spoke of how high and how far Carla had come in the years after school. Why would she have spent all that time and energy and effort on doing something she didn’t like?
She sat down on a fallen log, energy suddenly zapped. She was tired, that was all. Tired of the intense long hours, the pressure of getting promoted, succeeding in this assignment, and the dreams of Paris that sometimes seemed so very elusive. Combine all that with having to spend an entire month working with snakes, and no wonder she had doubts.
Brushing all troublesome thoughts aside, she smiled brightly at Jackson. “Because I just focus on the present,” she said, “and doing the best job I can right here, right now. I don’t want to dream all the time of the future and what might be out there for me. I’m different from my parents and brothers. That’s what I meant.”
He made no reply, but still held her gaze. From the expression on his face, having a difficult time believing her. Well, she thought, so be it. She wasn’t here to convince Jackson Rivard or anyone else of her plans for the future. She needed to get through this month and then be on her way to Paris. Any thoughts outside of that were pointless.
She finished the last of her water and stood up. “Better get back to the data room,” she said, ignoring the desperate tone of forced happiness she heard in her own voice.
She began walking away, moving several steps ahead of Jackson when his quiet voice stopped her.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”