To My Senses The Nicci Beauvoir Series Book 1 by Alexandrea Weis Page A

schoolboy. “The guy in
the store told me about a good spot to find them.” He held one of
the long poles out to me.
    “ All right.” I took the
tall pole and frowned. “I refuse to clean anything we
catch.”
    “ Deal. I’ll clean. You
cook.”
    ***
    Worm hunting was not as
easy as David expected. He found a hefty tree branch and began
digging in several shady spots under some great oaks just off the
road. The afternoon sun was climbing in the sky and the temperature
was getting warmer. By the time David had dug his third hole, his
shirt was clinging to his torso. I could see every muscle
underneath the soaked fabric, straining with each powerful pull of
his arms.
    After about twenty minutes,
David had gathered what he felt were a sufficient number of worms
to make a good fishing expedition. To me, it looked as if he had
dug up half the worms in the city. He dropped them in his brush pot
and we wandered off to find a shady spot to fish the afternoon
away.
    We searched until David
decided that he had found the perfect spot, next to a towering oak
whose branches extended into a small lagoon. The water came right
up to the roots of the tree, which provided the perfect platform on
which to sit and dangle our poles over the water.
    David picked up the brush
pot and handed it to me. “I’m waiting.”
    I took the pot from him,
removed a worm, and began impaling the poor creature on the hook
without flinching. He watched my every move with
disbelief.
    “ I didn’t think you had it
in you,” he finally said.
    I dropped my hook into the
water. “What? You were expecting a show of repulsion and then a
feigned attempt to throw myself on your manhood to get you to bait
my hook?”
    He reached into the pot and
selected a worm. “I thought at least you would squirm a
little.”
    “ I didn’t realize this was
a test. Do you subject all the women you know to this?”
    “ No.” He put his line in
the water and sat down on the widest root of the tree. “I usually
buy them an expensive meal and ply them with booze. Conversation is
not the main objective.”
    I discovered a cozy spot on
a smaller root a few feet from David. “Any particular reason why I
got the worms and not the six course dinner at
Antoine’s?”
    “ Because, my dear Nicci, my
objective with you is conversation.”
    “ Well, conversation and
fishing don’t go together. If you haven’t heard, it scares the fish
away. So shh.” I raised my finger to my lips.
    He frowned and looked away into the
water.
    My cork would occasionally
bob, but every time I removed my hook from the water, the worm was
gone. David’s luck was not much better. He caught one small bass
and threw it back, claiming that not even the ducks would want it.
I sat and watched the tall man beside me as he peered out over the
water. He was not at all like my first impression of him. The
silent sophistication had been replaced by an intelligent humor
that would have repulsed, more than attracted the likes of Sammy
and her friends. His once well-manicured hands were now muddy from
digging worms. His always immaculately groomed brown hair was now
disheveled and sweaty from the afternoon heat. He looked more at
ease in the park with his shoes off and his feet dangling in the
water. The pretenses were gone and I was finally getting to know
the real man.
    “ How long have you been in
New Orleans?” I asked.
    “ A while.”
    He tried tempting a curious
duck swimming by. “Where did you live before you came
here?”
    “ Oh, all over. New York.
London. Amsterdam. Paris. I spent a few short months in Hawaii and
other big cities around this country.” He shrugged his wide
shoulders. “Living out of a suitcase is not all it’s cracked up to
be.”
    “ And in all these places
you found…a friend to help you out?”
    “ Is there a point to this?
Do you really want to hear this, Nicci?”
    “ No, David. Forget it.
Knowing who you were then would never change how I see you at this
very