Page 5 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)

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TWENTY-SIX BIANCA

TWENTY-SEVEN JACKSON

CREOLE OKRA GUMBO

TWENTY-EIGHT BIANCA

TWENTY-NINE BIANCA

THIRTY BIANCA

THIRTY-ONE JACKSON

THIRTY-TWO BIANCA

THIRTY-THREE JACKSON

BLOODY DIXIE

THIRTY-FOUR BIANCA

THIRTY-FIVE JACKSON

THIRTY-SIX BIANCA

THIRTY-SEVEN BIANCA

THIRTY-EIGHT JACKSON

SLAP, SLAP, KISS COCKTAIL

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ONE

BIANCA

The first time I laid eyes on the man known throughout the state of Louisiana as “the Beast,” I thought he couldn’t possibly be as bad as his reputation.

As it turned out, I was wrong.

He was worse.

Dressed all in black, standing a head taller than everyone else, his shoulders so broad they cast an ominous shadow over the polished wood floor, Jackson Boudreaux surveyed the bustling dining room of my restaurant with the expression of a king who’d stumbled upon a village of peasants infected with the plague.

His lip was curled. His eyes were narrowed. His nose was stuck so far up in the air, I wondered if he’d come in from the rain to avoid drowning.

“Hoo Lawd ! We got ourselves a loup-garou! Get the garlic!”

Standing beside me at the stove in the kitchen, my sous chef, Ambrosine, made the sign of the cross over her ample chest as she peered through the glass wall at the man in black. Eeny, as she was affectionately called by everyone who knew her, was a retired voodoo priestess with a collection of superstitions almost as elaborate as her African tribal-print caftans.

“Garlic is for vampires, not werewolves, Eeny,” I said, gazing past the tables of diners to the hostess stand at the front of the restaurant, where the man with the presence of thunderclouds stood glowering at the hostess, Pepper. The poor girl was visibly shrinking under the weight of his stare.

A flash of irritation made me frown.

It was the first, and mildest, of many such flashes I’d have tonight.

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