Chantelle sat in her car and fiddled with her keys while staring at the door to her apartment. She'd loved the place when she first saw it, and the location was perfect, on Magazine Street in New Orleans. She'd liked her previous house, a rental in a nice Metairie subdivision, but after A. D. Romero had attacked Kayla in that house, Chantelle simply couldn't go back. Besides, the Magazine Street apartment was perfect. While she was the only tenant under fifty in the complex, she didn't mind. Though her neighbors would be deemed nosy by most, Chantelle welcomed their inquisitiveness. It allowed her to never feel totally alone.

Chantelle hated to be alone.

The quaint complex was near the Garden District, where old New Orleans was new again, and also near the homeless shelter where Jenee Vicknair volunteered. Chantelle helped out at the shelter every now and then; it was a way to not only honor her sister, who had died beside it, but also to visit with Jenee and keep up with the Vicknair family—and Tristan.

He'd been on her mind lately. Or rather, he'd pretty much dominated her thoughts for the past five months, ever since Dax's wedding, when she propositioned him to sleep with her, and he'd given her a night that she simply couldn't forget.

Tristan had held nothing back in their lovemaking. Unfortunately she hadn't been able to do the same. He'd touched her not only physically, but also emotionally, bringing her to tears—and scaring her enough that she'd left the next morning without so much as a proper goodbye.

That night he'd nearly conquered her fear of men. Nearly. She'd felt her body getting oh-so-close to letting go, but even with Tristan Vicknair, the only man she'd ever tr