Love In Plain Sight
Love In Plain Sight
Jeanie London
Former bounty hunter Marc DiLeo is not the guy Courtney Gerard wants helping her. But finding a kid who’s been missing for a long time takes priority over her personal preferences. And if anyone can locate the child, Marc can – even with his injury. So she’ll overlook his attitude.As they follow cold leads together, Courtney glimpses beneath his tough exterior to something surprising – caring, compassion… vulnerability. That softer side proves more irresistible than his good looks. An unexpected – and unexpectedly intense – attraction flares between them making her wonder why she never saw this before.Suddenly the man she was determined to avoid is the only man she wants close!
Right in front of her eyes…
Former bounty hunter Marc DiLeo is not the guy social worker Courtney Gerard wants helping her. But finding a kid who’s been missing for a long time takes priority over her personal preferences. And if anyone can locate the child, Marc can—even with his injury. So she’ll overlook his attitude.
As they follow cold leads together, Courtney glimpses beneath his tough exterior to something surprising—caring, compassion…vulnerability. That softer side proves more irresistible than his good looks. An unexpected—and unexpectedly intense—attraction flares between them, making her wonder why she never saw this before. Suddenly the man she was determined to avoid is the only man she wants close!
Marc came face-to-face with Courtney
She stood in the living room, visible through the doorway as he emerged from the steamy bathroom.
Suddenly everything about her was a dare.
From the glossy black hair that would feel like silk to the touch to the clear eyes she raked down the length of him.
He stood wrapped in a towel.
Her gaze traveled the length of him again. There was surprise all over her face, her eyes widening, her lips parting.
But she didn’t look away. She only stood there for a protracted moment, a deer stunned by headlights. And by the time she’d rallied, mumbling something unintelligible and turning away, it was too late.
Marc had seen everything.
This felt normal. A beautiful woman looking at him like he was a man. A woman looking at him with want in her eyes.
Yet she turned away....
Dear Reader,
Life is love. It’s our chronic aspiration and the source of our greatest strength. Love inspires us to courage and moves us past selfishness to kindness and generosity.
Araceli would do anything to have love in her life.
Courtney fought hard to bring love to her foster kids’ lives, but she kept love in the periphery of her own.
Marc had run far away from love and allowed it only an occasional visit. It wasn’t until adversity forced him to stop running that he came face-to-face with how much of himself he had lost along the way.
When love brings these three together, they realize what was right before their eyes all along—with love, they can conquer anything.
Ordinary Women. Extraordinary romance.
That’s what Harlequin Superromance is all about. I hope you enjoy Courtney and Marc’s story. I love hearing from readers, so please visit me at www.jeanielegendre.com (http://www.jeanielegendre.com).
Peace and blessings,
Jeanie London
Love In Plain Sight
Jeanie London
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeanie London writes romance because she believes in happily-ever-afters. Not the “love conquers all” kind, but the “we love each other, so we can conquer anything” kind. Jeanie is the winner of many prestigious writing awards, including multiple RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice and National Readers’ Choice Awards. She lives in sunny Florida with her own romance-hero husband, their beautiful daughters and a menagerie of strays.
To my beloved Pup.
You are a joy! You make life endlessly fascinating with your inspired interests, your enormous heart and your delightful friends! <3 YOU <3
Contents
Prologue (#ua672ce7b-4984-549a-9d6b-c760053ee250)
Chapter One (#u16a4de15-7faf-5602-b437-2547172309c1)
Chapter Two (#ub89aeb97-e534-5614-8074-fce05751aac8)
Chapter Three (#u061a2871-4567-5162-b3ed-0f7f1544040b)
Chapter Four (#uebeecaf9-464e-5fb2-86ac-2e95d2c05067)
Chapter Five (#u719cdb6f-ae51-5f8b-b249-ee0c4770e234)
Chapter Six (#uf1ccf0a2-1752-5fb2-8b4b-53ddb3b8ca9f)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
Before Hurricane Katrina
PAPA ALWAYS SAID love changed lives. I knew what he meant because love was all around me.
Every morning, Mama packed Papa’s lunch. Always the same sandwich, container of leftovers from dinner, fruit and fresh-baked pastry. She stacked them in his lunch bag in the order he would eat them through the day.
A fruit for the morning to keep him healthy.
Leftovers for lunch with the sandwich, too, if he worked really hard. Sometimes he saved half for later.
He ate the pastry with his con leche in the afternoon when he needed a sweet for strength.
In between each layer would be a neatly folded napkin with a love note. One for every meal.
Hecho con amor para ti.
Gracias por nuestra hermosa vida juntos.
The love notes changed every day—all but one that read Te quiero siempre.
Mama did love him always.
She loved all of us. We were her family.
When I was old enough for school, I opened my lunch bag to find my own love notes. Mama would draw little hearts that would make me proud to be the beautiful daughter she loved so much. Or funny faces to make me laugh, because Mama did not have the family talent for drawing.
I never used my love-note napkins but always tucked them into my pocket, a secret reminder of how much I was loved no matter what happened through the rest of the day.
Paolo wasn’t too little to notice. He didn’t say anything because of his speech trouble, but I knew. He was quick-eyed for a little one. Mama counted on those eyes.
“Paolo, where did Mama set her keys?” she would ask. “Paolo, did you see where Mama lay her scissors?”
My baby brother would run right to where she had left whatever was missing.
Paolo wanted his own love notes. I knew because he would stick his chubby hand in my pocket and sneak mine. I told Mama one day, and the very next morning, my baby brother burst from our bedroom as I was readying for school with a love note he’d found under his pillow.
My life was filled with that kind of love. Every night after dinner, my family gathered in the living room. Some nights, I practiced stitches on scraps of fabric while Mama altered clothes to earn money.
Higher hems for the short ladies and expanded seams for the ladies grown too fat for their zippers....
Papa would sit at his easel, telling stories from his day and drawing whatever he thought might sell on weekends when he sat in Jackson Square making caricatures for the tourists.
Weekend after weekend, through the Mardi Gras parades and the steamy days of summer, I would sit beside Papa at my own easel, smelling the Mississippi River, an apprentice practicing my sketches and learning from my beloved Papa.
I loved those weekends.
“You must read your subject to know how to please them,” Papa instructed. “Do not choose a feature they might feel shame for. Choose one that helps them laugh at themselves. Laughter is a gift, and if you please them, they’ll be generous with you. Americans are very generous. They appreciate talent and will reward you for using yours.”
I was eight when I drew my very first sketch.
My subject, an eccentric older lady who wore many big jewels, did laugh when she saw my finished product and gave me ten dollars. I felt such pride.
My second subject wasn’t so pleased. I got a dollar in quarters and not even one tiny smile.
Papa hugged me. “Can’t please everyone.”
But I worried. “Maybe I didn’t get the family talent.”
He scoffed, making a big sound that filled the steamy heat of that perfect summer. “You are learning to use your talent. Do you think to be as good as your papa without much practice?”
I could only shrug, feeling too much shame for words.
Taking my hand that held the graphite pencil, he lifted it to his lips for a kiss, his whiskers tickling my skin. “There. Now you have even more family talent. I share mine, for I have much to spare.”
That made me smile. A little.
“Love is the secret, Araceli. You must love this pencil,” he said, very serious. “And you must love your subject. But most of all, you must love your talent, for that is the only way you will learn to use it. You must try new things and make your talent sing inside you and flow out onto the paper.
“Remember this.” He smiled beneath his bushy mustache. “Love changes everything. It’s everywhere. You just have to look. Sometimes it hides, so you have to look hard. But open your eyes really big.” He shaped his fingers into circles and peered through them, looking silly. “It’s always there somewhere. I promise.”
CHAPTER ONE
Eight years after the hurricane
COURTNEY GERARD WENT on red alert when she glanced up to find her supervisor in the office doorway. She’d worked with Giselle since an internship in college. Courtney knew this look. Not good.
“What’s wrong, Giselle?”
Working for the Department of Children and Family Services could be emotionally demanding on the best of days. Children in difficult circumstances troubled caring people, and all the social workers in the New Orleans DCFS cared deeply about the kids they managed. Giselle’s expression promised this day wasn’t even close to the best.
“Are you okay?” Courtney tried again.
Giselle lifted a disbelieving gaze and stood rooted to the spot. Courtney was on her feet instantly, the impulse to do something preferable over the powerlessness of doing nothing. She’d barely circled the desk when Giselle gave her head a slight shake as if mentally rebooting.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.” Sinking into a chair, she clutched a file folder as if her life depended on it. “We have a problem.”
We could mean the social services department or just the two of them. Courtney didn’t ask. Giselle was shaken, and struggling hard to maintain her professionalism right now. That much was obvious.
Leaning against the desk, Courtney braced herself. “Whatever it is we can deal with it. Right?”
Giselle didn’t answer—another bad sign. She set the file between them, an innocuous folder with a case number and name in an upper corner that read Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz.
The case hadn’t been Courtney’s for long. Only since a drizzly, cold February morning earlier this year, when one of their social workers hadn’t made it to work when expected. A multiple-car accident on Interstate 10 had robbed them of one of their team, a woman with a huge laugh and kind heart.
“Has something happened?” Courtney asked. “Is Araceli all right?”
Giselle opened the file, rooted through the documents and slid out a photo. “Who is this?”
The image was the most recent of the girl in question, which Courtney herself had taken on their first visit together. She’d snapped photos of all the kids in the cases she’d taken over, uploaded digital copies to the server and printed hard-copy files. Standard procedure. “That’s Araceli.”
“You’ve actually spoken with her?”
Adrenaline made the hairs along Courtney’s arms stand on end. “What kind of question is that? Of course I’ve spoken with her. She’s been my case since Nanette.”
Since Nanette.
The euphemism for the tragedy that had impacted everyone in their close-knit department in so many ways beyond increased caseloads.
“Any red flags?” Giselle asked.
Courtney frowned. She interviewed all of her kids, checked in with each of them monthly. Giselle knew all social workers followed the same procedure, so unless she was implying that Courtney had stopped doing her job properly... “What sort of red flags? Abuse? Drugs? Gangs?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Did anything at all seem off to you? What were your impressions of the girl?”
Courtney scoured her memories, apprehension sabotaging her focus. “I have to work to engage her most of the time. She resents my intrusion in her life but has enough respect not to be overtly rebellious. She’s sixteen. You know how those last few years till majority can be for some kids.”
Giselle nodded. “When you get her talking, does she communicate well? How’s her English?”
Courtney considered the girl she was scheduled to visit again in just another week. “Accented but okay. I noted my first impressions in my report. Her guardians can be problematic.”
“How so?” Giselle latched on to that admission. “I need to know everything you can tell me.”
“The mother communicates in English better than the father, but he’s the one who likes to do the talking. He won’t allow me to talk to his wife and let her translate. A cultural thing, I think.” She shrugged, frustrated even thinking about how she could burn an entire afternoon going over every single thing once, twice, sometimes three times until satisfied she understood and had been understood.
“No hablo Español. Hablo muy poco de todos modos.”
Señor Perea didn’t seem to care that Courtney was the department go-to girl for all things French, including French-based Louisiana Creole and Cajun. Of course, there was a smattering of Spanish words in those dialects, so if he slowed down enough for her to catch the verbs, she could usually figure out the rest. “The situation was never optimal, Giselle. I’m not Nanette. She spoke Spanish fluently. You knew that when you assigned me this case.”
Giselle inhaled deeply, acknowledging imperfect reality in that one gesture. “But I knew I could trust you to put forth the effort to make sure these kids were properly cared for until I could get someone fluent in Spanish to replace you.”
What she didn’t say was that there were other social workers in the department who might be good and caring but who would also let the language barrier deter them.
Courtney was detail-oriented and thorough. Always. She would take the time to be clear, even if it meant derailing her schedule. Even if it meant she didn’t return to the office to start reports until after dark. Even if it meant she sacrificed a normal life to manage a caseload that had only grown in the years since the hurricane had leveled their entire agency.
They’d all been overworked before category-five winds had blown holes in the levees around Lake Pontchartrain, but since every record in every case they managed had been obliterated, they’d all been burdened additionally with rebuilding the system. A new system that wouldn’t utterly and completely fail during a catastrophic natural disaster.
They’d all made sacrifices, were still making sacrifices, but some managed to juggle the additional workload better than others. Courtney didn’t have a husband or kids awaiting her at home every day. “Will you tell me what has happened? You’re flipping me out with this interrogation.”
“You have to promise you won’t panic.” Giselle was the epitome of self-restraint, but everything about her begged Courtney to manage her reaction.
Giselle’s need in that moment seemed impossible to meet. The best she could do was face her supervisor and close friend, and nod, hoping she could keep the promise.
Giselle held up the photo. “This is not Araceli.”
It took Courtney a moment to wrap her brain around that. And in that one surreal instant, she took action again, reaching for the photo and inspecting it carefully, unable to absorb the overwhelming implications passively.
Same glossy dark hair. Same melting brown eyes. Same smooth caramel skin.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, Giselle, but I promise you this is Araceli. I’ve met with her every month since Nanette.”
Giselle pulled out another document with two photos stapled to the corner and set it on the desk between them. One eight-by-ten was a group shot of a classroom of young kids. Mr. LeGendre’s third grade, according to the neat font imprinted along the bottom above the students’ names. The other photo appeared to be the sort of proof used by photographic companies. There was a name and number beneath the face in that photo. The child was young like the ones in the group shot, maybe seven or eight, with a jagged smile where adult teeth were growing in.
Courtney scanned the group shot. She spotted Araceli’s name but couldn’t pick out the accompanying face from among the smiling kids. Reaching for the proof, she inspected the girl in that photo.
Gold skin. Glossy black hair. Melting dark eyes.
But a younger version of the uncommunicative girl Courtney met with every month?
A chill skittered through her, a physical sensation that made her breath catch hard. Grabbing the photo she’d taken herself, she placed them side by side, swung her gaze between them, made sense of the truth before her eyes.
There was something about the way the features came together that warned not even eight years could transform this child into the young woman who visibly reined in inconvenience each time they met.
Glancing up, Courtney saw her disbelief reflected in Giselle’s expression. “Are you sure? This can’t be possible.”
“Apparently Araceli’s file wound up on a compliance officer’s desk. Turns out he used to be in the classroom before he went into staffing. He looked at the Araceli in the file and questioned whether she was his third-grade student. The classroom photo was his, but he still wasn’t sure. He contacted the photography company on the off chance they had records since they’re not based locally. You’re looking at what he found.”
A rare piece of evidence left after the hurricane. Courtney stared at the proof again and latched on to the first thing she could in the midst of her racing thoughts. The most irrelevant. The least horrifying.
“Why was a compliance officer reviewing Araceli’s file? I should have been included.”
“No meetings were scheduled because of this situation. Araceli, or the girl we thought was her, got into a fight with a weapon during summer classes.”
The zero-tolerance policy changed the rules when a weapon was involved. “What weapon?”
Giselle scowled. “A chair. But given the way she used it... She has to be moved.”
“Okay.” Courtney rubbed her temples, willed her brain to reason. “Then where is Araceli, and who is this girl?”
“If we knew, we wouldn’t have a problem.”
That stopped Courtney cold. A powerful wave of vertigo rolled through her.
Two girls. One name.
A missing child.
Her heart pounded so hard each beat throbbed as reality narrowed down to the terrifying implications.
A missing child.
Details didn’t matter. The situation simply didn’t get any worse. Letting her eyes flutter shut, she blocked out Giselle’s expression, the hard-won professionalism that wasn’t concealing her panic.
Inhaling deeply, Courtney willed herself to think, to ask the questions that were critically important now that a child was missing.
“Has anyone spoken to the Pereas yet?” She forced the words past the tightness in her chest. “What about this girl?”
“The FBI will conduct the investigation.”
“Not the police?”
“We have nothing on Araceli but what’s in this file,” Giselle explained. “She crossed state lines during the hurricane evacuations. The investigation is out of police jurisdiction.”
The hurricane.
Another euphemism. There had been hurricanes before and since, but Katrina was the hurricane. Giselle didn’t have to say another word because again, her expression reflected the helplessness and horror of an event that had been far beyond the control of the people involved, an event that had challenged everything from their comfy worldview to standard business practice for this department.
All hard-copy documentation had been lost in the flooding. Out of the five thousand plus kids in foster care at the time, two thousand had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, then many shuffled again a month later because of Hurricane Rita.
Kids had wound up spread over nineteen states in that mess, and social workers such as Courtney, Giselle and Nanette had tracked them all down again. The aftershocks were still being felt to this day, along with memories of the litany of priorities that had dictated their lives as they functioned from evacuation shelters because offices and homes had been flooded, cell towers had been down, and the city had been under martial law.
First, we keep you alive....
Then we get you safe....
Then we work on your health and medications....
Then we figure out where you belong....
Recalling that long road back to a functioning system brought another realization, one that hit with familiar category-five velocity.
The hurricane had been eight years ago.
“Tell me we have some other documentation, Giselle,” she demanded. “Tell me we’re not operating on what Nanette pieced together after the hurricane.”
Giselle spread her hands in entreaty, motioned to the desk. She didn’t have to say another word because they were both thinking the same thing.
The only person who might shed some light on this situation had died on the side of the road, surrounded by strangers on a drizzly February morning.
“Her work was stellar.” Giselle assumed the crappy responsibility of verbalizing the doubt that would be cast on someone not able to defend herself. “I won’t believe this situation is a result of negligence. That goes against everything I know about her.”
“You’re right. Absolutely right.”
“The FBI will want conclusive proof, but we don’t have any. Nanette looks culpable. This department looks culpable.”
Which circled right back around to the we.
Giselle was responsible for this department and everything that took place within. Courtney was responsible for this case and everything that had taken place since Nanette.
A child was missing.
The only answer that mattered, the one that left her doing exactly what she’d been told not to do—panicking—was the very one she had no answer for.
What were their chances of finding Araceli alive?
“We had no way of tracking Araceli after the hurricane.” Giselle riffled through documents one by one. “We can’t prove Araceli’s the child on one document in this folder. We can’t prove we placed the real Araceli with the Perea family. We can’t prove she’s the Araceli in this Red Cross database.”
Her voice escalated. “We can’t prove she evacuated to the Superdome with her foster family, then got separated on the buses in Houston. We can’t prove she went to Atlanta after being evacuated during Hurricane Rita. We can’t prove she was the child we got an emergency injunction to remain out of state until the Pereas moved out of the FEMA trailer and back into their home. We have no idea who we’ve been shuffling around because the last known photo of Araceli is from third grade.”
The papers were now all over Courtney’s desk. Papers that proved nothing conclusively—except that Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz had gotten lost somewhere over the course of the past eight years.
Courtney walked to the window that provided no escape. She saw nothing but eight years stretching out like a lifetime, and all the horrifying things that could happen to a girl alone. The passage of time was marked only by the silence echoing as she mentally replayed every horror story she’d ever heard.
The young girl in Florida who’d been adopted by her longtime foster family and was tortured and starved to death instead of living happily ever after.
The twins who were kept in cages in the basement under the care of foster parents who’d been taking kids into their home for four decades.
The nearly three hundred kids who’d been placed with a sexual predator over the sixteen years it took social workers to figure out that many of these kids were being molested.
Negligence. Incompetence. Heartlessness.
Horror stories.
Most social workers weren’t the careless or inept monsters showcased in the media. The majority were the ones the general public never heard about. Social workers who maneuvered deftly through the obstacle course among laws and legalities and court decisions for kids they were responsible for protecting.
Most social workers cared more for needy kids than they did their own paychecks, because no one got compensated for all the work. Most didn’t mind the long hours, and usually found a way to squeeze in just one more kid when they were already burdened by a staggering caseload.
Given the crushing demands of the job, it wasn’t hard to see how mistakes could happen even to the most caring and competent social workers. They managed needy kids’ lives the way an air traffic controller oversaw airspace: the consequences of one oversight, one distraction, one error could result in the loss of human life.
The life of a child.
Courtney’s thoughts slowed enough to finally see the street through the window. DCFS offices were located in a utilitarian building on Iberville Street north of all the French Quarter action. From her second-floor window, she overlooked the stone wall of the cemetery, discolored and stained like the mausoleums within, many overgrown with weeds protruding from odd places.
Interstate 10 ran the length of the cemetery and all the way to Florida. The green directional signs were the only splash of color in a scene that had never looked so bleak, washed in gray skies that promised rain. Somehow it fit that she couldn’t look at the interstate without thinking of Nanette.
“What happens now?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “How do we find Araceli?”
Giselle could only spread her hands in entreaty. She had no clue, because how on earth did one go about tracking down a child who had potentially been missing for eight years?
How could they even hope to find her alive?
* * *
“DAMON’S COMING TO get me, right?” Marc DiLeo forced out the question through gritted teeth.
After all these months, he should have been used to asking. He wasn’t. He resented the hell out of it.
Especially something as simple as a ride when he owned a Jeep and a Harley.
His older brother, Nic, glanced away from the road as they were driving down Canal Street in Nic’s police cruiser. At least no one could see them through the heavily tinted glass.
Did anyone even care that he was being chauffeured to his therapy session because he couldn’t drive himself?
No. It only felt that way.
“Damon’s teaching a class,” Nic said. “Anthony will pick you up, and if he can’t get away, he’ll send one of the guys.”
Great. Now Marc’s ability to burden everyone reached beyond family into the periphery, to the guys who worked in his younger brother Anthony’s automotive garage.
This was his mother’s fault. She’d bullied him into leaving Colorado Springs for rehab. Not that Marc had put up much of a fight. He’d been in a medically induced coma when many of the decisions about his care had been made. After the haze of anesthesia and painkillers from four surgeries had worn off, all the decisions had been made.
That had been the time to reassert control over his life. Only he hadn’t had any fight in him.
So his mother had seized the opportunity to bring him home to New Orleans. And everyone paid the price because she was the only one of the bunch who didn’t drive.
“Tell Anthony not to bother,” Marc said. “I’ll take a cab.”
“Don’t start with me. Everyone wants to help.”
Help? This family would kill him with their help, which was why he had moved to Colorado Springs in the first place. “I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass an older brother could be. Good thing you’re the only one I have. If I changed my name, I’ll bet none of you could find me.”
Nic gave a disgusted snort. But he glanced at the road. He scowled harder when some idiot in a showy Bimmer sliced out of one lane and cut into the other, forcing the Yukon in front of him to brake, and by default him.
“You know, you’re a cop,” Marc said. “You could pull that guy over and give him a ticket.”
“You know, you’re a jerk. You could try saying thanks for everyone’s help and leave it there. No one has a problem getting you to and from your sessions.”
“Wrong.” Marc had a big problem.
Nic braked hard, and Marc instinctively grabbed the oh-shit handle to hang on as the cruiser swung toward the curb so fast the tires screeched. Marc’s cane hit the door with a clatter. The cop lights flashed with an accompanying whoop of a siren, scaring the hell out of some pedestrians who broke formation on the sidewalk and scattered.
Nic didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “Have all those painkillers rotted your brain? Do I need to throw your sorry ass in detox?”
Sorry ass was right. Marc couldn’t rebut that fact, but he wasn’t listening to Nic rant, either. Guess this was his stop. He reached for his cane and the door handle. The handle moved, but the passenger door didn’t open. Nic controlled the locks.
“Isn’t there some law against double-parking?” Marc said. “You’re a cop. You should set an example by observing the law.”
“I’m not a cop,” Nic growled. “I’m the chief of police, which means I get to do whatever the hell I want. And right now I want you to listen to me.”
Great. Marc’s day was crashing and burning and he hadn’t even gotten to physical therapy yet. Okay, to be fair he had practically begged for this confrontation. Nic’s patience had been simmering for weeks. He was the oldest brother, and used to stepping in to clean up everyone’s mess in this family. He’d been doing the job since their father had died, leaving their mother with a bunch of little kids who had needed caring for. The years since hadn’t done much except shorten Nic’s fuse.
Marc was usually exempt from the bullying because he was next in line to the throne, the only one who had been old enough to work and make a difference, which took some of the responsibility off Nic’s shoulders.
Not today. Today, Marc had pushed too far.
“I want to know what the hell is wrong with you,” Nic demanded. “I want to know why you’re such a miserable pain in the ass to everyone who is going out of their way to help you.”
“That answer should be obvious.” It was stretched out awkwardly before him, braced at the knee and ankle for support. His busted and surgically pieced together right leg that impeded him from doing just about everything from walking to sleeping because of the never-ending pain.
“That’s your leg, Marc. I’m talking about your shitty attitude.”
Marc didn’t bother replying. The shitty attitude and the answer would be the same. One minute he had been chasing a skip toward the Mexican border over rough terrain. The next he was ejected from his Jeep at ninety miles an hour.
At least the skip hadn’t bolted. The border patrols had had to cut him out of an SUV.
Now, four months later, the skip sat in jail awaiting trial, and Marc was an out-of-work bounty hunter who could barely stand to take a piss let alone drive, living with his mother in this city he’d put behind him long ago.
“You’re not usually so dense,” Marc said. “I didn’t realize becoming a father dulled the edges.”
Nic clutched the steering wheel, knuckles white, visibly restraining himself. Probably wanted to throw a punch. When all else failed, restrain the idiot pissing him off. Made him a helluva cop. Probably would have thrown a punch, too, if all his high-tech computer cop gear hadn’t blocked a decent shot.
“All right, Marc, you listen to me. And you listen good because I will not repeat myself. This is your one and only warning. Next time I will knock you down and keep you there while everyone you’ve been rude to takes a swing. You hear me?”
He expected an answer?
Nic exhaled hard, frustration radiating like heat off asphalt. “I get that it’s taking you a long time to heal. I get that your leg hurts and the therapy is only making the pain worse. But you’re alive, and you have a lot of people who care about you, even though you’re pushing everyone away. The next time you want to open your mouth, just remember that if anything more than a thank-you comes out, my fist will be going in.
“You’ve got Mom worried sick. No one will drop by the house because you’re so miserable to be around. You’ve even managed to piss off my daughter, who’s in love with everyone and everything in this family. Really, man, you’re making a hell of an impression on your niece. That make you proud?”
Pride would imply Marc cared. And Nic’s daughter, Violet, was an impressionable teenager who needed a good dose of reality. She’d lived most of her life without knowing her father or this crazy family. She might have been better off living the rest of her life without knowing them.
“Do you hear me, Marc? I’m not playing. Knock it off with your pity party before you alienate everyone and wind up alone with your busted leg.”
“What makes you think that’s not what I want?”
A valid question. But Marc miscalculated the protection of the cruiser’s computer gear because the next thing he knew, Nic’s fingers were tightening around his collar until he swallowed hard against the pressure.
Damned painkillers were slowing his reactions.
“Get. Over. It.” Nic spit out each word, the veins bulging in his temples.
Marc wouldn’t give his brother the satisfaction of a reaction. He would sit here and asphyxiate. No sweat. A corpse in the front seat of the police chief’s cruiser. Nic was the only one with a problem here.
He knew it, too. His gaze narrowed as he reined in his anger, emphasizing the point with another twist that nearly crushed Marc’s windpipe.
Finally, Nic eased his grip. “You get what I want?”
Under normal circumstance, Marc wouldn’t have taken this crap. But circumstances weren’t normal. He couldn’t throw off his brother. Couldn’t even argue because Nic was right. Marc was a miserable asshole. He knew it.
The drugs were making his brain rot because he didn’t care.
“Unlock this door before I put my fist through the window and you get blood all over your front seat.” He forced the words out through his raw throat.
He wasn’t playing, either. What was one more injury when he was a damned cripple already?
Nic must have recognized it, too, because he finally leaned back and warned, “Get a grip, Marc. Seriously. I get whatever the hell I want. I’m the chief of police in this town and your older brother. You’re screwed either way.”
That much was true.
CHAPTER TWO
Two weeks later
JUST DRIVING THROUGH New Orleans and parking in front of Mama DiLeo’s house made Courtney feel better. As if she were somehow in control of her life. As if she somehow had a say. She didn’t, but for one shining moment, she almost felt that way.
Late summer heat pounded at the windows even this early in the day, but she sat there, ensuring that her emotions wouldn’t leak around the edges. Not usually a problem, but with life upside-down, the self-control she took for granted was giving her fits.
Courtney had been placed on administrative leave from work while the FBI conducted the investigation on Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz—a situation that had gotten worse when the girl they’d presumed was Araceli had also gone missing within days of the classroom fight that revealed this mess.
Life had come to a screeching halt for Courtney. Days that had passed at a frenetic pace and ended with still so much to be done were suddenly empty. Hour after hour, from the time she opened her eyes until they shut of their own accord—who could sleep anymore?—were minutes ticking by with no purpose.
No more caring for kids. No more stabilizing, learning and managing their lives. Her keys to the department had been confiscated. She had been temporarily evicted from her office and told to wait for others to sort out the situation of the mixed-up and missing girls. She had been told there was nothing she could do but catch up on things at home.
But all the jobs Courtney had once intended to squeeze into long weekends had been forgotten—the flower bed around her new shed, wallpapering the tiny interior of her niece’s dollhouse, tiling the wall behind the sink in the kitchen. Somehow she had managed to be more productive during those weekends that passed in the blink of an eye than she did now with day after endless day free.
Two eternal weeks as the FBI launched an investigation with all the deliberation of a law enforcement agency that had no hope of finding Araceli alive. Courtney had been obedient, even patient, but as each day passed with a lot of wasted time and no discernible progress, she had grown frustrated and frightened.
After learning from Giselle that the FBI had been searching for the fake Araceli and hadn’t yet begun a search for the real one, Courtney could no longer wait for others to sort out the situation.
So here she was at Mama DiLeo’s house, two hours before Sunday dinner, armed with the beginnings of a plan.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Courtney opened the car door, finally ready. She had to knock only once before a lilting voice called, “Coming.”
The door swung wide, and Mama DiLeo was there, smiling as she recognized her guest. “Good to see you, honey. Come in.”
Courtney couldn’t quite manage a smile, but Mama smiled for both of them, a smile that made Courtney feel as if she mattered more than anyone in the world.
Mama DiLeo’s unique gift.
She always dressed to the nines, and had rocked a pixie cut for as long as Courtney had known her. While she didn’t stand much more than five feet two, including the heels, this widowed mother of six—five of whom were sons who reeked of testosterone—was a force to reckon with.
“Size doesn’t matter when you have superhero strength,” her oldest son, Nic, always said. “Mama has it in spades.”
Courtney had seen this woman stop arguments with a glare. She could break up a physical tussle between her sons with one sharp command.
Those superpowers and the smile were already smoothing the edges of Courtney’s mood.
“I’m really early,” she said. “But I wanted to talk with you before the house fills up.”
“Perfect. We have lots of catching up to do. I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
Since the bottom had fallen out of her world.
The house was unusually quiet today. During Sunday dinners, conversation swirled from the kitchen to the dining room to the family room down this hallway....
Everyone included. Everyone welcome.
The boundaries that constituted family were fluid with the DiLeos. There was always room for one more at the table. The front door was always open to anyone who needed a meal, a place to stay or some laughter. All that gracious hospitality was due to the enormous heart beating inside this one tiny woman. Mama DiLeo believed family was a function not defined by blood but by love.
Her heels tapped over the tile as she went to the stove and lifted the lid on a simmering pot, stirring the contents with a long-handled spoon. Steam rose, sending up a burst of garlic.
“Hope you’re hungry.” Mama set aside the spoon. “You’re my angel today. I could use help cutting these vegetables. My assistants are running late.”
“I should work since I forgot to bring anything. Not even flowers for your table.” Which only served to emphasize her deteriorating mental state. She never came to Sunday dinner without swinging by the bakery, the florist or the wine shop.
“The only thing you ever need to bring is yourself, honey.”
“That’s all you’re getting today, Mama. Good thing I know my way around a cutting board.”
With a smile, Mama went to the sink and washed her hands. “We need to make a pit stop before we get started. Grab that basket from the baker’s rack, will you please?”
Courtney did as requested and waited while Mama rooted through a drawer to locate a pair of clippers. Then Courtney followed her out the back door.
The scene from the porch was breathtaking. Mama was an inspired gardener, not in the traditional New Orleans sense of manicured lawns. She favored a more natural setting, with slate walkways lined with wildflowers, and benches beneath sprawling oak trees. Geraniums, hosta and butterfly bushes dotted the yard with splashes of color.
Courtney followed Mama to the herb garden, tried to absorb the peaceful setting to calm frayed nerves.
“So, what’s on your mind that you don’t want to discuss in front of everyone?” Mama asked as she knelt beside the garden to sort through a fragrant tangle of parsley and basil plants.
“I wanted to bounce something off you. I need some help, but I’m not sure I should ask for it. I trust you to advise me.”
Mama snipped some leaves and motioned Courtney to bring the basket closer. “What’s up?”
New Orleans might be the thirty-seventh-largest city in the nation, but Mama considered all the inhabitants related.
Family by blood. Family by love. Family by proximity. Family by work. Family by church. Family by krewe. A category for everyone she welcomed into her world. Courtney was one of the elite few with an official family connection. Sort of. Her brother Mac had married Mama’s unofficial daughter, Harley, who had become attached to the family at a young age.
There was no possible way Mama didn’t already know how life had blown up in Courtney’s face.
“I’d like to talk with Marc about my work situation, Mama. He tracks down people, and I need his opinion.”
Mama sank back on her haunches and glanced up. “That wasn’t what I was expecting. Not Nic?”
“We both work for state agencies, and I would never put him in a position of conflict.”
Mama frowned but conceded the point with a nod. “I already know why you don’t want to ask Harley and your brother.”
“All my family wants to help, of course, but everyone is so worried about Harley and Mac that I intentionally downplayed the situation so they wouldn’t start worrying about me, too.”
With Harley on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, the whole family was in an uproar already. Mac was wrapping up their cases at their investigative agency and keeping up with their daughter’s schedule, which was another full-time job. That had been the only positive to this situation—all the free time had allowed Courtney to help by chauffeuring her niece around.
“They won’t be happy when they find out.”
That was an understatement. “They’re going to kill me. But I’ll deal with them when I have to.”
Mama pulled a face, and for a long moment, she just knelt there, clippers dangling from idle hands, clearly waiting. “Marc, hmm?”
“I would never dream of bothering him right now, but there’s a lot riding on the outcome.”
Children’s lives.
Then there was Courtney’s career. Giselle’s reputation. Nanette’s legacy. Nanette above all provided a convenient scapegoat for the FBI. Her heartbroken family, still struggling with grief, faced a media storm that would trash a woman who couldn’t defend herself. Courtney didn’t know what had happened to Araceli, but she knew Nanette would not have been negligent.
Courtney would not stand by and watch people she cared for take the fall any more than she would take the fall herself. She would not stand by while the FBI took their sweet time covering their butts while there were children missing.
“That’s what I want your opinion about. I know how difficult Marc’s recovery has been. If you don’t think it’s a good idea to bring up work, I will not open my mouth.”
For a moment, they considered each other. Then Mama’s eyes fluttered shut, and she inhaled deeply. She remained that way so long that Courtney felt compelled to look away, as if she had distressed a woman who didn’t need any more of a burden than to worry about the son she had almost lost.
Courtney would be left to accept that she was back to square one, all alone with the responsibility for a child’s life, whether or not she was on administrative leave. Where Courtney was didn’t matter.
Where Araceli was did.
But none of this was Mama’s problem, and Courtney had no right to put this on her. While she trusted Mama to be honest with her opinion about Marc, Courtney also knew that saying no wasn’t so simple for a nurturing woman who cared about people as much as she did. Mama was already worried about Marc. Now she’d start worrying about Courtney, too.
As the seconds ticked by, undisturbed except by the bees buzzing from flower to flower and squirrels scampering overhead, Courtney convinced herself that this was the stupidest, most selfish idea she’d ever come up with. She was being totally unfair.
Mama slowly rose to her feet.
Courtney offered a hand. “I am so sorry. I know you’re worried about Marc, and the last thing I should do is give you something else to worry about. Please forget I said anything at all, and you have to promise me you won’t start worrying about me.”
Mama chuckled. Dropping sprigs of parsley into the basket, she lifted her gaze to Courtney’s, eyes alight with laughter.
“Why are you apologizing, honey?” she asked. “You’re an answer to a prayer.”
* * *
MARC WINCED AS he put his weight on his leg, the pain that screamed through him literally stealing his breath. Why had he bothered getting out of bed?
Stupid question. If he stayed in bed too long his leg would stiffen and he wouldn’t be able to walk all day.
Making his way down the stairs carefully, clumsily, he clung to the banister for support while trying not to drop his cane, his leg making each step dangerous. With his luck, he’d fall and land on his damned head, and Vince would finally convince their mother to turn the downstairs office into an invalid’s bedroom complete with hospital bed. Of course, if Marc had any real luck, the fall might kill him. He would have been okay with that, too.
By the time he made his way to the last step, he was forced to stop and give his leg a break. The house was quiet, which was a good thing because another hour and everyone and their brother would show up for dinner. He needed caffeine before he could decide whether to contend with a shower and civilized company, or be uncivilized and hide in his room.
Either one meant tackling the stairs again.
From the hallway, he saw his mother in front of the sink. She must have heard him because she turned. For a split second, her expression told him that watching him hurt. Even placing his body weight on one side didn’t do a thing to minimize the pain of the leg he nearly dragged along. Throw in the fact that he was still half-drugged, and he must look like hell.
She quickly masked her reaction with a smile. “Good morning, sunshine.” Grabbing a mug from the drain board, she headed toward the coffeepot. “We have company.”
“There’s a surprise,” he shot back, deadpan.
Moving into the kitchen, he found their guest standing over the table chopping vegetables on a cutting board.
She met his gaze with gray eyes so clear they were almost startling. Or maybe it was the onions she was chopping that made her eyes seem so bright. He could smell them from here.
“Hola, Mac’s sister.”
“Hi, Marc,” was all she said, her smile forced.
“You remember Courtney,” his mother prompted, narrowing her gaze so he knew she didn’t like his rudeness.
Courtney Gerard was more than one of his mother’s strays. Courtney had a family connection—not blood but close enough that he should have known her name.
He remembered a lot more than her name.
Courtney was Marc’s Bathsheba. The exact type of woman who managed to catch his eye whether he was interested in her or not. Everything about her was long, from her willowy body and shapely legs to the glossy hair that flowed in an inky wave down her back. He remembered her all right, and it annoyed the hell out of him every time he saw her.
Which was every time he came home.
His mother pressed a mug of coffee into his hands, and he thanked her, leaning against the archway. He wouldn’t give the ladies a show by sitting down. Not when he wasn’t staying. The stairs were looking a helluva lot better than this kitchen right now. Half draining the mug in one swallow, he savored the heat that seared his throat.
His mother arched an eyebrow but didn’t comment. She also didn’t return the coffeepot.
He held the mug out. “You’re an angel, love.”
She topped him off, and he sipped again to make more room. He had to drink his fill now because he couldn’t make it up the stairs with the mug.
“Would you like something to eat? Anthony brought doughnuts from Nicola’s before church. There are still a few left.”
“Doughnuts can’t possibly touch whatever it is you’re cooking over there. I’ll wait until dinner.”
That pleased her. All the sharp edges smoothed from her expression. All the disapproval gone as fast as it had shown up. Like a good Italian mama, feeding people always made her day.
She retrieved a colander hanging from the rack on the wall and brought it to the table, where Courtney cleared onions off the cutting board. “We’ve been chatting about Courtney’s work,” his mother said. “I’d like you to weigh in.”
Marc could smell the setup from a mile away. He could sense it before Courtney even opened her mouth, a full mouth with dusky pink lips that made him think of kissing. And sex.
This woman needed to go home.
Or he needed to get back to Colorado.
“Wish I could, but I’ve really got to shower. I’m off to a late start if you want me for dinner.”
His mother frowned, and in two quick steps, she was at the counter again, grabbing the coffeepot.
“Finish this up, so I can brew a fresh pot.” She cut him off at the pass, wedging herself between him and the doorway.
“Won’t take long, Marc. I promise.” Courtney’s voice was as crystal clear as her gaze, direct and to the point, yet still somehow smoky. Like sex. A voice that would sound good in the dark. “I’d like to get your input if you don’t mind.”
He did mind. She was suddenly twitchy, almost urgent. Then she opened that pretty mouth and launched into a sob story about missing kids and a federal investigation.
Marc wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but if he had been guessing, this train wreck of a situation wouldn’t have even made the list.
Marc was sure he’d once heard what she did for a living, because he remembered thinking she had the luxury of making herself feel good by trying to save the world. Great in theory, but he knew too many people who empowered themselves at the expense of others. He didn’t respect the motivation.
Or maybe he just didn’t like Courtney.
He damn sure didn’t like her brother or the way he had used his money to steal Anthony’s longtime girlfriend, Harley.
Or maybe Marc didn’t like how he noticed Courtney. She looked like everything he wanted, but she wasn’t anything he was interested in. He was honest enough to admit that to himself.
Whatever the reason, he had his own no-win situation to deal with right now.
“No matter how I spin it, the outlook is grim,” he said, hoping to put a swift end to this interrogation. “If this kid hasn’t surfaced in eight years, the chances of finding her alive are not good.”
“But you do think it is possible to track her down, Marc, so at least we’d know what happened to her?”
God, he shouldn’t feel anything, but that look on her face... She was desperate, and he couldn’t offer much hope. “No one vanishes into thin air, but with kids, there is the unforeseeable luck factor. Freaks and traffickers prey on them. Or some random wacko may have taken a liking to her, and she wound up a nut job’s thrill. The FBI will find your Jane Doe, just a matter of time, but no one may ever know what happened to your other girl.”
To Courtney’s credit, she took reality standing. No drama. No tears. No pleas for him to sugarcoat the truth. Just that lovely face growing brittle around the edges as she struggled to cling to a last bit of hope, no matter how unrealistic.
“Wish I had a better opinion. Good luck.” He tried to make his escape.
But by the time he’d set down the cup and gotten halfway to the door, he heard Courtney say, “Even so, Marc, I have to look. Please tell me where to start.”
The plea in her voice stopped him. “You start by figuring out when your real girl was last seen. Until you figure that out, you can’t unravel where she might have gone.”
“Okay.” Her clear gaze clung to him, so eager, but the frown forming on her smooth brow convinced him that she didn’t have any idea how to proceed.
He wasn’t surprised. “I can tell you where to look, but I can’t magically give you the instinct to know what to look for. I can’t help you. You’ll have to take my word.”
This time, he was out the door before she could stop him with another question.
CHAPTER THREE
IF MARC HAD not been starving, he would have stayed in his room until the house had emptied after dinner. Too many drugs, too many stairs and the effort of taking a shower had kicked his ass all over again.
He wasn’t in the mood for people and wanted to sleep off the drug hangover. Unfortunately, between the smells of his mother’s cooking and the noise level that told him how good the food was, he had no choice. He made a mental note to keep protein bars in his room for the duration of this visit so he could avoid family gatherings altogether.
Against his better judgment, he made his way downstairs again. The thumping of his cane must have announced his arrival because Damon said, “Guess who’s gracing us with his presence.”
Caffeine and a shower hadn’t taken the edge off. If Marc had been thinking clearly, he would have used his phone and a twenty to bribe his niece Violet into bringing a plate upstairs.
“To what do we owe this honor?” Damon asked.
There were a few laughs from around the table, but Marc ignored his brother, which was easy to do since the kitchen looked like Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday. He noticed Courtney immediately, seated beside his mother, quiet in the midst of all the noise, so beautiful. Sad, too, he decided. That was probably his fault. He should probably feel bad.
He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself when he still had to get to the counter, and make it to the table with a plate and silverware while maneuvering through the obstacle course of people crowding the food. Then he’d have to get to his seat.
The table was full. His mother was all about first come, first served, and hers was the only reserved seat—the corner closest to the stove. This was her throne to hear her tell it, so she could easily replenish serving bowls. While Marc had been growing up, that seat had been at his father’s right.
“My best girl and right-hand man,” Marc could remember his father saying. “My better half.”
Today, she was Marc’s savior. After taking one look at him, she started directing traffic.
“Scoot the twins toward Anthony,” she said. “Marc, sit next to Violet. She’ll make room.”
“Come here, Uncle Marc.” Violet patted the space on the bench beside her, a strategic corner placement so Marc would be able to stretch his leg out of everyone’s way.
By the time he dropped heavily onto the bench, food started making its way toward him. Marc turned his attention to filling his plate as the conversation resumed about the wedding. Nic was finally going to marry his high school sweetheart and the mother of his teenage daughter, Violet. This wedding was a long time in coming, and the family was thrilled.
Marc didn’t want any reminders of the upcoming nuptials, though. When he had agreed to be Nic’s best man, he had assumed accompanying his big brother to the altar wouldn’t be a problem. Now the thought of being on display to a church filled with guests annoyed him. He’d already tried to beg off, citing an inability to accomplish his best man duties, but Nic had flatly refused to accept his resignation.
Marc made quick work of dinner, glad when the conversation turned from the wedding to the Saints’ performance during preseason. Everyone had an opinion, and he listened, distracting himself from his awareness of Courtney, who ate next to nothing although she made a good show of pushing food around her plate.
He was probably responsible for her lack of appetite, too. His troublemaking mother must have thought so, because when the talk about the Saints lagged, she solicited opinions about whether or not he should help Courtney with her problem.
Marc should have seen it coming. He would have bet money Courtney hadn’t. Her expression froze along with the fork she held over the plate.
“Wait a second.” Anthony swallowed hard around a bite. “Am I hearing this right? Are you telling me Boba Fett DiLeo can’t track down a missing kid? Who is this kid—the Golden Child?”
Courtney blinked a few times, still surprised her shitty situation had become the entrée of table conversation.
Violet pulled a face. “I know Boba Fett, but who’s the Golden Child?”
“Vintage Eddie Murphy, niece girl,” Damon said. “Before you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.”
Nic scowled. Some things never changed, and he did not like reminders that he hadn’t been privy to the existence of his daughter until two years ago.
“I didn’t say can’t track down,” his mother explained matter-of-factly. “I said won’t.”
Marc should have known nothing with this family could ever be simple. Setting down his water glass, he settled back to watch the show. He would not prepare a defense. He refused to play this game.
“I don’t understand.” Anthony feigned confusion. “Why won’t you help out Courtney?”
Every gaze at the table was suddenly on Marc. As brother in the middle, Anthony was slick. He had learned long ago to maneuver between family factions. The top shelf contained the power brokers—his mother, Nic, Marc himself. More often than not, Anthony preferred to swing with them, but there were times he played devil’s advocate or peacemaker. He wielded humor and stupidity with equal skill, and usually managed to emerge from family disputes unscathed. Marc did not have the patience for his brother today. Any of them.
“I have helped. The lady asked for an opinion. I gave one.”
The lady still looked like a deer caught in headlights, but she recovered quickly, suddenly becoming very interested in the food she’d been pushing around on her plate.
“Courtney, you better hope your missing kid didn’t run away like this one—across continents.” Damon patted the top of Violet’s head, and she beamed at the mention of the antics that had led her to find the father she’d grown up without knowing.
Now she was the oldest grandchild and resident superstar, her status as shiny and new to the family made her special, and she was old enough not only to revel in her position but milk it for all it was worth.
“I’d have given Uncle Marc a run for his money,” she said saucily. “Can you say South America to Louisiana? There are lots of countries in between.”
Nic directed his scowl her way this time. “That’s because you don’t respect normal boundaries.”
“I don’t do continents,” Marc said.
“Really?” Violet wanted to know. “Why not?”
“I can’t legally bring anyone over the border,” Marc explained. “That’s half the fun of my work—luring criminals into the country, so I can catch him. Or her. There are lots of hers. None as pretty as you.”
That earned him a high-beam smile, and for a moment, Marc thought he might have redirected the conversation. No such luck.
“Then what’s up with this missing kid?” Anthony persisted. “Not in any real danger, I hope?”
All gazes swung Courtney’s way. She was caught and had no choice but to be sucked into this nonsense.
“It doesn’t look good,” she said simply. Then she made the mistake of pausing to draw breath.
His mother stepped into that breach and interjected her two cents about Marc’s refusal to help. By the time she was done, everyone was making noise about how he shouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t help track down a missing kid.
The only thing Marc could say for Courtney was that she clearly wasn’t in collusion with his family. And the frown on her pretty face suggested she didn’t much like being used as a reason to bully him. But she didn’t not like it enough to open her mouth and tell everyone to shut up. He found that disconnect between self-interest and outrage, a struggle so evident on her face, interesting for the woman who had involved his mother in the first place. Then again, Courtney had arrived early to speak with him privately. She hadn’t intended for him to be put on the spot. He gave her credit for that.
Which begged the question about why she was so solicitous. Did she feel sorry for him?
Marc shouldn’t care one way or the other. But there was something about the way she sat there, scowling at his mother, slanting horrified glances at him whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. Each time someone opened his mouth, she sank lower into her chair. She felt bad. That much Marc knew. And he didn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity, not even for the time it took to finish dinner. So he did exactly what he had refused to do—defend himself.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m with you. I don’t want to think about anything bad happening to this kid.”
“Then why won’t you help Aunt Courtney?” Violet asked.
“Because the situation isn’t so simple or else your father would be helping Aunt Courtney.” What was wrong with his family? A few dinner invitations made someone an honorary member?
Damon snorted with laughter. “I thought you were the dude who never met a skip you couldn’t track.”
“I track people who want to vanish. That’s a big difference from a little kid who all of a sudden went missing one day.”
“What if she didn’t just go missing? What if someone took her?” Anthony went the confused route this time. “Sounds like she disappeared a long time ago. How old was she, Courtney?”
“I can’t discuss details,” she said in an obvious attempt to redirect. “All I can say is the last accurate documentation we have on her was before the hurricane evacuations.”
Just mention of the hurricane brought a collective gasp and a reverent silence that lasted all of thirty seconds until Damon opened that mouth of his again.
“Can you imagine a kid in that mess?” he asked. “You know what this place was like during the hurricane.”
“No, I don’t,” Marc said. “I was based in Southern California, luring a corporate CEO from Beijing.” Trying to work in between watching news of the hurricane and attempting to contact anyone who could tell him whether or not his family had evacuated or if they’d been blown away by the storm, too.
“The place was a war zone,” Nic said. “Take my word.”
Obviously everyone did because there were a few murmurs of assent and some nodding heads.
“God, the thought of a kid unprotected in that...” Anthony’s words trailed off. Obviously becoming a parent had added newfound understanding.
“New Orleans, cher.” Damon glanced knowingly at Courtney. “Crime capital ten years straight. Kid could have met up with gangs, perverts. Hell, kid could have been trafficked.”
Courtney visibly paled until her black eyelashes stood out against skin that seemed cast in ivory.
“Sounds like someone’s police department isn’t doing their job.” Marc deflected the attention. Let someone else get rolled under the bus for a change. He didn’t even live here anymore.
“My police department is doing just fine,” Nic shot back. “No thanks to people who refuse to help. Like someone who shall remain nameless.”
“I’m not sure why you all are so determined to involve me in Courtney’s business. I gave my opinion. If this kid was trafficked, she’ll probably be dead by now.” He was the voice of reason. “Kids don’t last long under those conditions. Not when they’re turned into junkie whores.”
Anthony’s wife, Tess, dropped her silverware onto the plate with a clatter. “Gentlemen, do you mind? This is not what I call dinner conversation.” With one fluid move, she was on her feet scooping up a plate and helping her daughter from the bench. “Violet, would you give me a hand with Rocco?”
Violet popped up and grabbed plate, drink and kid before Marc’s sister-in-law had cleared the room.
Damon watched them go with a frown. “You can’t even help Courtney take a look, Marc? What else do you do all day?”
Once, Sensei Damon would have wound up on his ass for that question. That’s why he held tenth dan grades in five disciplines. An inability to control what came out of his mouth chronically had him in trouble with one or more of his brothers. He’d be dead if not for learning how to defend himself.
Now all Marc could do was motion to the leg stretched out and make excuses. “See this leg, champ? Taking about everything I have in me to get it up and running again.”
“We’re not talking ten-hour workdays here,” Anthony pointed out.
“How do you know how much work it takes to track anyone? They teach that in automotive repair school?”
That blow hit. He could see it all over Anthony’s face, and Marc was sorry about that. He liked Anthony. He really did. Out of all his brothers, Anthony was the one good-natured enough not to get on Marc’s nerves most of the time. But if Anthony, and everyone else for that matter, was determined to back him into a corner, they had better prepare for him to come out swinging.
“Can you say physical therapy?” Marc forced calm. “And when I’m not torturing my leg into submission or hobbling around with this cane, I’m supposed to be healing. Don’t any of you listen to Vince?” Time to roll the family doctor under the bus. Helping should be his choice, and he resented otherwise.
But resentment didn’t cloud his vision, and he clearly saw his mother elbow Courtney under the table. The move was merely a nudge, intentionally meant to go unnoticed. But Marc noticed everything. Attention to detail was his gift, exactly what made him such a good hunter.
He watched the play of emotions across Courtney’s face, waited to see how she would respond. She met his gaze across the distance, tried to look calm and collected when her discomfort was leaking around the edges in a big way. “Is it possible to explain how I should proceed, Marc? Point me in the right direction, so I know what I’m looking for.”
Is it possible?
Looked like Anthony wasn’t the only diplomat at the table. Courtney gave Marc an out even though she walked a tightrope among loyalty to his mother, desperation to track down her missing kid and looking herself in the mirror. She handled the pressure fairly well, considering she had already asked him this question.
When he replied, he addressed the whole table. “Frankly, I’m disturbed by the way all of you are trying to muscle Courtney and me into doing what you want. I shouldn’t have to defend my decision. I’m the one who would be doing the work, and since not a one of you knows what tracking someone involves, I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what I should be doing. And you definitely shouldn’t be manipulating Courtney.”
His mother scowled, but Marc’s rant had the desired effect—for all of ten seconds the entire kitchen went silent. Then, in that moment of breathless pause, the security alarmed beeped when the front door opened.
“Uncle Vince,” Violet squealed from the living room.
There was a muffled reply and laughter before footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Everyone was still staring at Marc when Vince appeared in the doorway, looking like a younger male version of everyone else around the table, only dressed as if he’d come straight from making rounds at the hospital in his jacket and tie.
“Hey, everyone.” He waved, oblivious to the scene he’d stepped into. “Hope you saved some food for me. I’m starving.”
His mother was already on her feet, closing the distance and giving her youngest son a hug. “You’ll never starve in your mama’s kitchen, cutie.”
Vince smiled dutifully when she pinched his cheek.
“Come on, let’s get you a plate.” She was already on her way to the counter. “Courtney, will you please make some room on the table? That’s right. Scoot the salad bowl back. Vince will fit next to you now that Marc has run off Tess.”
“Will do.” Courtney looked grateful to get out from beneath the spotlight.
His mother piled a plate with everything from the counter, then headed back to the table. “Come on and eat, Vince. You’ll need energy to talk some sense into your brother.”
Vince shrugged off his jacket and wedged in between Courtney and Anthony. “Which brother?”
“Marc.” There was a “Who else?” in there.
Marc could see where this was headed. He steadied himself on the table while maneuvering his leg.
His mother kicked off the debate as Marc tried to make his getaway. “Courtney needs help locating a missing child,” she said. “But Marc won’t help her because he says he should be healing, not working. As his doctor, what do you say?”
Vince technically wasn’t Marc’s doctor. Not that he hadn’t been dispensing medical advice since the accident. He had overseen every course of action, handled the medical decisions when Marc hadn’t been coherent enough to understand his choices and make decisions. Now Vince spooned grated cheese over his pasta and played Monkey in the Middle.
He could go either way on this. He was even-tempered and comfortable in his role as family baby. He wasn’t a pain in the ass like Damon or a bully like Nic or a backstabber like Anthony. He was a mama’s boy by default, and that would count. But it also counted that Marc had spent the past decade helping to finance that expensive medical education, keeping a roof above Vince’s head, a car under his ass and making the loan payments that couldn’t be deferred.
Vince must have been thinking the same thing. “Without you I would have never made it through school, so you’ll get perks as long as you want them because I appreciate everything you’ve done. Helping Courtney is just what the doctor orders.”
“Keep your perks to yourself, doc.” Marc shoved up from the table, leaning heavily on the cane. He was done.
Vince frowned. Their mother hovered behind him, patting his shoulder consolingly. She cut Damon dead with a sharp, “You better think twice before you open that mouth.”
Damon’s mouth snapped shut before he uttered a word, taking their mother’s advice for once.
This damned family. Marc was done with being at their mercy.
Levering his weight onto his cane, he stood. For one shining moment, he felt some semblance of control, empowered almost, as he stared down at everyone seated before him, waiting expectantly for his next move.
“Courtney,” he said, and met her surprised gaze. “You’ll provide a place to work and transportation.”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded.
“And pay my premium?”
She didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Marc wasn’t surprised. She came from money. Otherwise she would wait for the FBI like most law-abiding citizens. He chased people like her—the ones with enough money to think rules didn’t apply to them. They broke laws, and if they were stupid enough to get caught, they had the means to try to escape paying the price.
Those were the skips he brought to justice.
This case would be different, but given his present circumstances...
Marc motioned to the door. “Then you’re on. Let’s go.”
He began his trek across the kitchen. He headed down the hallway and didn’t stop until he got to the front door. He didn’t need anything. Not his wallet. Not money. Not a damned house key.
The spare was kept under the porch swing if he needed to get in when his mother wasn’t home. Courtney could drive him if he did. His cell phone and painkillers were in his pocket.
All he needed was out of this house.
* * *
“GO, GO, GO!” Mama said urgently under her breath.
Courtney stood and reached for her plate, unsure. “That was coercion. You all were merciless.”
“Just another day in the DiLeo house.” Vince shrugged and dug his fork into the pasta.
“Better hurry or Gimpy might get away.” Anthony gestured that she follow.
“Leave the plate,” Mama commanded. “Go.”
So Courtney could face the resentful man who’d been bullied into helping her? Why had this seemed like a good idea again?
Hurrying from the kitchen, she saw the door wide open and Marc making his way across the yard. From behind, he could have been any one of his brothers, any one of the broad-shouldered, tawny-haired Italian boys with the big laughs and bear-hug welcomes.
Except for the cane. And the attitude. And the fact that she actually liked all the other DiLeo brothers.
Marc must have heard her approach because he said, “Can you get to your car?”
“I’m parked on the street.”
“The Mini Cooper, right?” His tone made it clear he wouldn’t have expected anything else.
She quickly realized he would have trouble getting in and out of her small vehicle with a leg that didn’t bend easily. Covering the distance between them, she set her hand on his arm to stop him.
They needed to clear things up here and now.
“Marc,” she began, but when he glanced at her, the whiskey eyes all the DiLeo boys had inherited from their mother belonged to a stranger.
How had she not realized he was even taller than Anthony? She had misjudged the distance because suddenly she was too close, had to tip her head back to meet his stormy gaze.
The impulse to retreat a step hit hard, but Courtney stood her ground. “Listen, that didn’t go the way I expected in there. You don’t have to help me. Not unless you’re willing.”
“You don’t want to pay me?” he asked in that dark voice, throaty yet somehow smooth like molasses.
“No, that’s not it. It’s not the money.”
Something flickered deep in his gaze. She might not know this man well, but she knew his brothers. Every one quick-witted and a bit of a ballbreaker in his own way. Marc was making her uncomfortable and didn’t mind.
What was it about this man, the one and only DiLeo she didn’t absolutely adore?
“I don’t understand why you need to be rude, Marc. I know your family coerced you. I was there, remember? And if you remember correctly, I wanted your opinion. I never asked you to do anything.”
“I don’t come cheap.”
“It has nothing to do with your fee.”
“Your call, then. Pay me for my time and provide chauffeur services to everywhere I need to go, or let me get back to my busy day.”
The everywhere I need to go made red flags fly. Did he mean everywhere he needed to go to discover what had happened to Araceli or did he mean everywhere everywhere he needed to go?
Courtney didn’t ask. Ironically, she probably had less to do with her days than he did. And the only thing she cared about was finding Araceli.
“Getting you where you need to go is no problem,” she said. “I’ll make arrangements for a different vehicle if we need to do a lot of running around.”
“We’ll need to do a lot of running around.”
“No problem.” He was only trying to provoke her. She knew it, but she didn’t want him to think he could push her around. As she faced Marc’s somber expression, she suddenly felt as if her very life depended on standing up to this man.
So she stood there, gaze unwavering, though the effort cost. Her chest grew tight, making her breaths come in shallow bursts, but she refused to look away, refused to blink, even though her neck felt as if it might snap from keeping her head tilted.
“We’re good then.” He was the first to break. “You’ve hired yourself a bounty hunter. For what that’s worth nowadays.”
That said a lot about why Marc had resisted.
“Thank you.” She meant it.
He leaned heavily on his cane and repositioned himself in the springy grass, and Courtney suspected she hadn’t won that little battle of wills at all. Marc had probably only needed to move his injured leg so he didn’t topple over.
His physical limitations were all too evident as he made his way to the car and braced himself with a hand on the door frame to lower himself into the passenger seat. She held the door, watched the muscles bulge in his arm. His jaw tensed as if he fought the pain of bending his knee to wedge his big body into the compact compartment.
She opened her mouth to tell him to use the seat release, but he was already there. The seat jumped back with a metallic spring, and his expression eased.
She didn’t know what to say, so she circled the car, leaving him to pull the door shut himself. She had only meant to consult with this man, to be advised about how to proceed. Now she had her very own bounty hunter, broken though he was, and she had no clue about what came next.
He sat so close, his elbow propped on her console, his hand draped casually on a knee. Somehow he managed to fill up her spacious-for-a-compact-car interior, and she wasn’t sure what to say or do.
Drive...that much was a given.
Cranking the car, she slipped the shift into gear, feeling flustered and off-kilter. Driving away from the curb, Courtney was determined to find her center and regain control. “So what kind of place do you need to work? Let’s start there.”
“Standard office setup. Wi-Fi. Printer. Fax.”
Okay, great. “One office coming up.”
He didn’t reply, just stared ahead, so she drove along in silence, remembering what Mama had said about being an answer to a prayer. What had Mama wished for this son?
Courtney didn’t have a clue. Up until Marc’s protracted visit after his accident, she had seen him only a handful of times through the years. He was quiet, intense, brooding almost, and suddenly seemed to suck up more than his share of air.
CHAPTER FOUR
“HERE IT IS—Beatriz Ortero.” The librarian used the name I had gone by for years now. “I’ve been waiting for you to come in. I wanted to ask about your tutor. She hasn’t been in with you for a while.”
“Her schedule is nuts.” I didn’t sound too sure, even though I had known this question would come up sometime.
Not that I expected some random librarian to notice Debbie was gone. One of the neighbors maybe. Definitely one of the ladies at church if I had ever seen one. But I hadn’t run into any yet—thank God—and I hadn’t been back to our church since Debbie had gotten too sick to make it to services.
“She has conflict with an after-school program, so she makes me work online.” I sounded more certain this time, more casual. “She doesn’t want me to lose the habit of making a time and place to study. She calls it practicing for college.”
Had called it, anyway.
But the librarian was not interested, which made me wonder why she had noticed in the first place. Her gaze darted to the window as some kids passed the glass wall that separated this librarian from the others.
The queen on her throne.
No, that didn’t fit. This librarian in her bland-colored pants with her disapproving expression wasn’t regal as far as I was concerned. She was annoyed. That much I knew. Probably because the security guard hadn’t noticed the kids. He was too busy puffing up his chest at the pretty page who shelved books.
She finally turned back to me. “Will you please let your tutor know the paperwork needs to be renewed if you want to keep using the tutoring room?”
“Does she need to come in or do you want me to bring her the paperwork? She still has a few weeks left of the program.”
The librarian didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned over and searched through a desk drawer.
So I stood there and didn’t say anything, even when she glanced up as that same group of kids got noisy, jockeying to get through the teen room door.
The security guard still didn’t notice. When the librarian looked in his direction, her expression pinched, her angular features converging at an imaginary point in front of her face.
If I were to sketch her, I’d exaggerate her pointy features and add whiskers, turning her into the rat queen. Of course, she probably wouldn’t find anything to laugh about. But I would. And I had not had much laughter in me lately, so one smile might be worth getting stiffed a tip.
The image in my head smoothed away some of the worry. I just hoped this unhappy woman wouldn’t take out her unhappiness on me since I was around the same age as the noisy kids.
She withdrew the papers and handed them over. I smiled and said, “Thank you,” very politely, hoping to prove myself different than everyone else my age.
If I lost this tutoring room, I couldn’t get another. Not without an adult. I didn’t need a quiet place to study—my whole life was quiet without Debbie—but I would have trouble when I needed to present for one of my online classes. I needed some place to videotape, and I couldn’t invite anyone home. That would be breaking our most important rule.
Never ever let anyone know where we live.
Debbie had made me swear before she died never to break that rule. Not until I was eighteen. Not until I could make my own decisions, so I didn’t get caught in the legal system again.
Debbie trusted me to care for myself far more than she did the government, and had done everything possible to set up life so it would continue without her. She had bought four boxes of checks and had signed every single one so I could pay the rent and utility bill on time. She had set up auto-deposit on her trust fund, so it would continue to deposit monthly payments until someone figured out she had died.
“It’s not a lot,” she had said, “but it will be enough to cover the rent and that’s something.”
As always, Debbie had delivered even the most dismal news with a smile and jingly laughter. An angel. That’s how I always sketched her. With wings and a halo. My angel.
The memory made me ache. Even after all these months, the pain was still so big it stole my breath.
Most days I pretended Debbie was out on a church errand or running to the bank whenever her old uncle would surprise her with a check. Or that she’d been tired from the chemotherapy and had gone to bed before me. But little things, like this paper that needed a signature, got me every time. So I stood there waiting for the rat queen to find her keys, with my chest so tight I ached.
“Here we are.” She stood and led me from around her glass castle with quick steps.
The security guard straightened up as she passed, puffing his chest some more so the shiny buttons on his uniform glinted importantly, but the kids behind the windows of the teen room didn’t notice her. There was more laughter, still too loud, but she didn’t slow down until we reached the tutoring room.
After unlocking the door, she flipped on the light. I thanked her and unloaded my backpack. I only had the tutoring room for one hour and my presentation would take forty minutes. Every minute under, and I would be docked five points off my overall grade. My GPA was my most valuable asset, second only to my talent, so I wasn’t about to screw it up without good reason. I would never get scholarships otherwise. And I would need lots of scholarships to pay for the Art Institute of Chicago.
Setting the dry-erase markers on the whiteboard, I checked the time.
4:06.
The paperwork and key search had chewed into my hour. Sometimes the librarians would let me run over time if the room wasn’t booked. Not the rat queen. She would be waiting outside the door and counting the seconds until my hour was up.
Slipping out the door again, I walked around the back of the audiobook section to the quiet study room, hoping to avoid notice. This is where the smart kids were, the ones with more to do than check their social media. The only thing we all had in common was that we couldn’t afford our own technology. I had a tutoring room, so the rat queen should have known what kind of person I was.
A person with a plan.
A plan that was in big trouble when I looked around the quiet study room.
“Where’s Peter?” I hissed beneath my breath, careful not to disturb the adults who were seated at the various study carrels.
The last thing I needed was more trouble.
“Don’t know,” Faffi whispered from her seat nearest the printer. Beside her, Sylvia shrugged.
Faffi was another person with a plan. I called her the screaming liberal. She had political aspirations and already served as an intern on a local councilman’s campaign. She would love my presentation about immigration policies today. I argued both sides, but personally leaned left.
“Was he at school today?” I asked.
“I didn’t see him.” Sylvia’s plan wasn’t as specific as mine or Faffi’s, but it didn’t have to be. She wanted to be a doctor, which meant she had to rock her International Baccalaureate program to get scholarships to a good university. She was another one who would need lots and lots of scholarships to pay for school. Good thing she was brilliant.
“Are you talking about that kid on the skateboard?” Rohan tugged an earbud from his ear.
“Yeah, the one with the hair like that gay guy from American Idol.”
Rohan laughed, loud enough to make me glance around to see if we were annoying the room’s other occupants. Adults in a library liked nothing better than to narc on kids who weren’t obeying the quiet rule. Rohan didn’t seem to care. Maybe he didn’t have to because he had such a cool name. Who knew they watched The Lord of the Rings in Bangladesh? “I saw him on the public bus this morning, but he wasn’t at first lunch.”
“I didn’t see him, either,” Faffi told me.
I sighed. Nothing was ever going to be easy, was it? I had to record four people, so the virtual teacher knew I’d actually presented to an audience. Peter had agreed to sit in so long as I paid him in cigarettes.
Would the rat queen sit in if I offered her the three packs of Camels in my backpack? I’d bet money the security guard would. If I had any money to bet. I didn’t because I’d already spent what I had on three packs of Camels. Not to mention the time I’d wasted finding a convenience store to sell them to me without identification because I was underage.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll figure out something.”
I glanced at the clock on the way out. Six whole minutes to come up with a plan. Great. I got everyone quietly inside the tutoring room. Then I saw him.
He walked past the window, looking as noticeable as he had the first time I’d noticed him. Which was sort of strange really, since there wasn’t anything that noticeable about him.
Except for the guitar slung over his back, he might have been any student from the high school. A senior, definitely. I wasn’t surprised to find him here since we were only a few blocks away from where I’d first seen him.
He had been playing on the street corner across from the Western wear store where I usually set up my pitch. The lady who owned the store liked me. I was quiet compared to all the street musicians who played in the District, and I always chalked a brilliant design on her sidewalk space that made tourists slow down long enough to notice her store.
Whenever tourists sat for a caricature, they stared at her window displays. I always threw a cowboy hat or some boots and fringe into my sketches to get folks in the country mood.
We were a match made in heaven.
Maybe this guitar guy went to school, maybe not. But I remembered him. And his music. Not the usual country that every musician in town played. He stuck out in the streets the way I did with my art.
No, this guy’s music was more varied, some folksy, some rock, some alternative. Definitely original. He had a raspy voice that managed to be smooth and clear. I liked listening to him. Yeah, that was why I had noticed him.
I didn’t have time to think, so I acted.
He sidestepped the opening door with a quick move and a steadying hand on his guitar.
“Excuse me.” For some reason, I sounded breathless, as if I had run to catch him.
He turned and stared down at me with eyes as dark as his hair. There was something Hispanic in him. No question.
Those dark eyes got curious, and I realized he was waiting for me to say something.
“Do you have forty minutes I could borrow?” I blurted. “Like right now.”
A grin appeared as he stared at me, visibly deciding what to make of my random proposition.
“I have to tape a presentation for my online class, and I need four in my audience. Had a no-show.”
I hadn’t realized how cute he was, but it was impossible to ignore up close. He had these crazy high cheekbones and caramel skin. He was buff, too. The muscles in his thighs stretched his jeans like he was one of those cross-country runners who trained around the neighborhood.
“I’ll pay you ten bucks.” Same thing I paid everyone else. Except Faffi, who extracted payment whenever she needed me to do something for her. A budding politician. I would vote for her. “Or three packs of Camels.”
That grin turned into a full-out smile. He had a dimple. “I’ll take the Camels.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MARC HAD BEEN enjoying his escape for the first ten minutes of the ride. Courtney didn’t know what to make of him, had no clue what she’d signed on for. But she put on a good show. He respected that. Maybe because he sensed how uncertain she was, bouncing back and forth between appreciating his presence in her car but being worried about the way he’d gotten here.
Even he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t exactly been accommodating, and his guess was she considered him the family wild card. Anthony would never have given her a hard time.
But any enjoyment Marc felt about escaping the prison his life had become ended when Courtney steered her overpriced toy car out of his neighborhood and headed into hers. He shouldn’t be surprised that manicured lawns stretched back from the streets or that chain-link and weather-battered wooden fences yielded to expensive brickwork and ornate iron gates.
By the time she wheeled off a side street and pulled into a driveway, Marc remembered why he hadn’t thought much of this woman’s family. The Garden District mansion in front of him, all pitched eaves and wraparound gallery, looked like a house kids might tour on school field-trip day.
“So this is home.” Not a question, but a stupid comment he should have kept to himself. The irony of all the stairs must be wearing on his impulse control. Stairs leading to the front porch. Stairs inside leading to one, two, three floors. Unless that top floor was an attic? He could hope.
Courtney nodded, silky hair threading over her shoulders with the gesture, drawing his gaze once again to her slender neck and the delicate curve of her jaw. “Well, half of this is home anyway. House was split into two residences.”
“So you rent?” Okay, he wasn’t really interested, but his lack of impulse control had started this conversation. Couldn’t blame her for that.
“No, I own my side. Like a co-op.”
Mortgage on half a place this size must be a small fortune that she surely couldn’t be swinging on her social worker’s salary. He knew what real estate went for in New Orleans because Nic had been hunting for a place to move his family into after the wedding. Especially in this part of town. Cheaper to pay a mortgage in this economy, which was why Marc owned two properties himself.
“Who owns the other half?”
“Admiral Patton and his wife.”
No response was necessary, which was good since Marc didn’t have much to say. Not anything that would be considered a constructive start to their working relationship.
And he was here to work. Period.
He needed to remember that, because everything about Courtney distracted him, from the hair she wore loose to the feminine way she moved. The only thing that grounded him was her mouth. Every time she opened it, he remembered who she was.
He’d known the Gerard family had money. The name was attached to some heavy hitters, and he’d heard of them all while growing up in New Orleans, names belonging to the longtime district attorney, some politicians and other visible city power brokers. Civil service seemed to run in the family like a luxury most people couldn’t afford.
Courtney eased up on the brake, coasting the short distance to the garage, where she came to another stop. Slipping out the driver’s side, she stood watching him put on a show as he pulled himself out of the car. She made a few false starts, as if she wanted to offer help but had decided against it.
A good call on her part.
When the cane clattered to the driveway, she snatched it up and offered it to him, seemed relieved to do something to dodge the tense silence. His frustration and her guilt for subjecting him to her toy car weren’t a pretty combination. He didn’t feel inclined to reassure her by cracking a joke or making excuses for the pitiful display he made.
Once he was solidly on his feet, Marc met her frowning gaze, felt every inch as broken as he was.
“I have an idea,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she presented a show of her own, only she stole his breath as she ran lightly across the grass and up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. She unlocked the door, and the beeping of a security alarm startled the afternoon quiet.
Marc stood, propped on his cane, willing his pulse to slow. His heart throbbed so hard he could hear it. Unless that was just a trick of the quiet. He guessed this part of town was usually pretty calm. Maybe not along Rue St. Charles, but a few blocks back, where this place was. Another world, sheltered from the shrieks of sirens that riddled other neighborhoods. Or the exhaust-filled traffic that marked the business district and the French Quarter at all hours.
The beeping stopped and Courtney reappeared, resuming her attractive display with her fast, graceful movements and breathless smile. She dangled a key ring as she approached. “Your office.”
She surprised Marc by leading him along a flagstone path toward the rear of the property. He hadn’t paid attention to the building partially concealed in the shelter of trees. Had thought it was another detached garage at first. But on closer inspection, he realized it was too small to be a kitchen or the old slave quarters. Only one floor and no stairs.
“A guesthouse?” he asked.
“A cottage.” Courtney preceded him to the door. “It’s small. And no one has used it since a friend needed a place to stay through a divorce. We’ll need to air it out.”
“Your place or the admiral’s?”
“Mine.” She fitted the key into the lock while he clambered onto the porch. Thrusting the door wide, she grimaced. “I need to remember to open this place up occasionally.”
She stepped inside, then held the door for him.
“A house and a cottage? A lot of room around here for one person.”
“Wasn’t meant for just one.” She gave a shrug that was probably meant to be casual but didn’t manage the job.
Unless he missed his guess, there was a lot more to that statement. A relationship gone south? There was enough room around here for a few families. Did a woman who made a career of micromanaging other people’s kids even want a family? He didn’t have a clue about Courtney’s personal life, but Marc knew one thing—she had a story. His family probably knew every detail.
Courtney obviously didn’t want to discuss her personal life and sailed into the living room, saying, “Fortunately, the place never gets too hot because of all the shade.”
She took off again, heading straight to the windows that cornered two walls, and thrust aside long white sheers to reveal paned glass that overlooked the well-tended foliage and the back wall of the property.
Marc followed her only far enough to survey the place. Leaning against the wall, he appreciated this unexpected good fortune. No stairs. Not one.
She was right about the size. There was a living room, eat-in kitchen and two doors that most likely led to a bedroom and a bathroom. Under a thousand square feet by his estimation, but the open floor plan and floor-to-ceiling windows gave it a bigger feel. The living room was large enough to accommodate a furniture grouping around a television and an area with a corner desk that served as an office.
“Wi-Fi?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” She struggled with a stubborn window.
He didn’t offer to help. Once he might have saved a damsel in distress. Now all he could do was observe, appreciating the sight she presented, her efforts to budge a stubborn window drawing the blouse tight across her back. And he did enjoy the sight she made with her arms outstretched, the curve of her waist visible beneath the cascade of dark hair.
The drug hangover must have finally worn off because to Marc’s utter amazement, he felt a familiar throb as if his body wanted to prove that the rest of him wasn’t as damaged as his leg.
This particular urge hadn’t made an appearance since before the accident. He’d be an idiot to put too much stock in anything right now, but the simple fact that his reactions were still there reassured him.
“Jeez,” Courtney said as the window shot open, throwing her off balance in the process. The sheers fluttered and she righted herself with a steadying hand on the frame. “Needs oil or something. I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
Then she vanished into the bedroom.
Marc didn’t follow, didn’t want to risk connecting the sight of Courtney with a bed, so he hobbled over to the desk instead.
Modem. Laser printer. Fax-copier-scanner combo.
None of the equipment appeared to have seen much wear, but that didn’t surprise him. Why wouldn’t she outfit the office in a place she didn’t even open up for air? There was no computer, but that wasn’t a problem. If he’d been thinking when he’d left his mother’s, he would have brought his laptop.
He hadn’t been thinking about anything but getting the hell out before he killed someone. Starting with his mother.
Courtney reappeared. “How will this place work for you? I mean, after it airs out, of course.”
She’d only brought him here because he had made such a pathetic sight getting out of her car. But Marc wasn’t going to dwell on that. Nor would he look a gift horse in the mouth. “This place is good. I work better without distractions.”
“No distractions here. The admiral works around the yard, but he doesn’t usually come back here. I think he got out of the habit after selling the cottage to Harley.”
Just then a few pieces of a puzzle clicked into place. “This was Harley’s old house?”
“I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
“I knew about her house, just not that you’d bought it.”
Harley was the connection between his family and Courtney’s. His mother would have adopted Harley long ago if the State of Louisiana would have allowed it. They hadn’t, so Harley had contented herself with being an honorary family member, solidifying her place during years as Anthony’s girlfriend.
Until Mac Gerard had come on the scene with all his money. Now Harley brought her husband’s family home for Sunday dinner, too. Anthony didn’t seem to mind. Marc couldn’t begin to explain the situation, didn’t care enough to try.
But anyone who had known Harley had known when she purchased this place—her first home. And from that moment on, Marc’s visits had been punctuated with stories about whatever work she’d been doing. Any time he had asked, “How have you been, Harley?” he never heard about college achievements or career successes, but her accomplishments around this house.
“I sanded the floors to the grain before refinishing them,” she had told him proudly. “They gleam like new.
“I tackled plaster last month. Repaired the damage from some old broken pipe, and now I’m texturing the walls. By the time I’m through, no one will know there’d ever been a leak.”
Marc glanced around the room, at the bright white, finely textured walls, at the planked floor with the rich pine finish beneath the gleam of polyurethane. Both jobs done with care and attention to detail.
If anyone had deserved a home, that anyone had been Harley. She had grown up on the wrong side of Courtney’s business—foster care. But if Harley had owned this place, then Marc knew Courtney must have purchased her portion of the property from her brother after Harley had married him.
He supposed that shouldn’t surprise him, either.
“Oh, I forgot,” Courtney said. “Let me run up to my house. Be right back.”
She didn’t give him a chance to reply, just spun around and took off again, leaving the door open behind her. The sound of her footsteps on the flagstones faded, and Marc took the opportunity to scope out the rest of the place.
The kitchen chewed up a lot of square footage, but as he ran a hand long the smooth finish of the wooden cabinets with their scrolled pewter handles, he could remember Harley talking about the months of work it had taken her to dismantle the cabinetry and refinish the wood. She’d lived without hinges and handles until she’d had the money to purchase the hardware so everything would match.
Such attention to detail because she had cared so much.
There were three large windows in the kitchen overlooking what appeared to be another walled edge of the property. Hard to tell with all the foliage. There were a lot of windows for such a tiny place, and he didn’t have any problem imagining why the Harley he had known had been so in love with her home. Secluded. Airy. Traditional. Right up her alley.
Of course Marc had known the Harley who had been Anthony’s longtime girlfriend. Not the Harley who had left his brother to marry Courtney’s brother. That Harley was a stranger.
Hurried footsteps through the open door brought Marc around in time to see Courtney reappear, the shallow breathing and high color in her cheeks as if she’d run the whole way.
Covering the distance to the kitchen, she set a thick file folder on the table. “Lots of reading here.”
Marc edged closer and flipped open the cover to riffle through the contents.
Reports. Court documents. Profile pages. Correspondence.
“How did you get all this?” he asked.
“It’s the case file from work.”
Normal rules just didn’t apply to any of the Gerard family. Marc should have seen that coming. Courtney wasn’t playing games. She had already made that clear. But this confidential file shouldn’t be anywhere but in her former office, particularly during an ongoing FBI investigation.
She seemed to think she could do whatever she wanted to get what she wanted. Marc knew the type. He wondered if Courtney had a clue that he didn’t think much of the way she operated. Or her family. She probably wouldn’t care. She’d tell him to keep his opinions to himself and write him a check.
“So how do you want to do this?” she asked. “I’ll swap my car before I need to take you home, so any idea when you’re going to want to leave?”
Marc smiled then, a real smile he didn’t have to force for someone else’s benefit. No, this smile just happened, a memory from days when he’d actually had something to smile about.
He didn’t want the complication of Courtney Gerard in his life right now, and he certainly didn’t need the complication of his attraction to her. He didn’t like who she was or what she stood for. But compliments of his nuisance family, she was his to deal with for the time being.
So he would make the situation work for him.
Folding his arms across his chest, he stared at her and said, “I won’t be leaving until we track down your kid. So why don’t you swing by my mother’s place while you’re out and grab my things?”
* * *
COURTNEY STARED AT MARC and blinked stupidly. He was waiting for her reaction. That much she knew.
But she didn’t have one. Not yet, anyway.
In that moment, she couldn’t decide what surprised her more —Marc’s declaration to become her guest or the purely physical sensation that dropped the bottom out of her stomach.
Because she stood close to Marc DiLeo?
Courtney knew this feeling, though she hadn’t experienced the sensation in a very, very long time.
But...Marc DiLeo?
She couldn’t begin to explain why she was suddenly so aware of everything about him. Everything. From the way he propped strong hands on the handle of his cane to the defiance radiating off him like summer heat. No denying he was an attractive man. That in itself was a DiLeo thing. Despite the scowl.
Was Courtney suddenly so aware of him because they were alone? Now that she thought about it, she’d never actually been alone with him until he’d finagled his way into her car today.
“Okay...well, okay,” she said.
If Marc wanted to stay, there was no reason he couldn’t. She didn’t use this place, and more of his attention would be given to finding Araceli if he was away from family distractions. That worked for her.
“I’ll need my things.” His expression was inscrutable, just intense eyes and that hint of defiance.
Did he really expect her to deny him?
“We can swing by your mom’s.”
“You go. Tell her to throw my stuff in my suitcase. There’s only one. Bring that and my laptop case.”
He should probably tell his own mother to pack his things, but his defiance was instigating hers. She needed his help. If he wanted to stay in her empty guest cottage and bum rides, then her guest cottage wouldn’t be empty anymore. No problem.
But she wouldn’t run interference for Mama, who had bullied Marc in the first place. Mama had pushed the issue, and she deserved what she got. If Marc decided to temporarily move out, then Courtney wasn’t about to feel bad.
“Sounds like you travel light,” she said. “I’ll go now then. Will you look through the file while I’m gone? We can work out the details of our arrangement when I get back.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
She slipped the cottage key from her pocket and handed it to him. “Make yourself at home.”
Then she headed to the door, so very aware of each step, the measured length of her strides, the whisper of her shoes on the floor, the way her hands dangled at her sides as if she was suddenly unsure what to do with them. As if his dark gaze followed her every step. When she finally pulled the door shut, she inhaled deeply, apparently her first real breath in a while because she felt light-headed.
What was wrong with her?
She had way more important things to deal with than physical awareness of a man who was an idiot. Taking another deep breath, she walked briskly to her car. Anxiety must be getting the better of her or else her emotions wouldn’t be all over the place.
Marc DiLeo? No way.
But even Courtney’s dismissal of her haywire reactions didn’t stop her from obsessing.
She bypassed Mama’s house. Instead, she drove onto the expressway and headed out of metro New Orleans for her brother’s house. She needed some time to wrestle her racing thoughts under control so she could effectively deal with Mama the bully.
By the time the security guard logged her tag number at her brother’s subdivision, Courtney was grateful for every mile she had put between her and the man she’d left in the cottage. Mac and Harley’s place bordered a conservation lot, and winding through the subdivision felt like driving into another world. The streets were shaded with old cypresses and oaks. The homes were set far back from the street.
Pulling into the driveway, she parked and peeked inside the garage to see if her brother’s car was there. It wasn’t, so she used her key to let herself in, calling out, “Harley, it’s me. Do not get up.”
There was no reply, so Courtney took the stairs two at a time and found her sister-in-law scowling when she walked into the bedroom.
Harley was such a beautiful woman, exquisitely feminine with big blue eyes and a cloud of red hair. She sat propped up with pillows, fully dressed in a comfy-looking shorts ensemble and strappy sandals.
“You look like you’re going somewhere.”
“I am,” Harley said. “Insane. Just a heads-up.”
“No worries. I can take you.” A first since Harley had been Damon’s protégé at martial arts from the time they’d been kids. She must surely have a black belt or two by now.
Harley narrowed her gaze and folded her arms. “Just kick me when I’m down, why don’t you?”
“I would never.”
“Why are you here? I know you didn’t come to visit, because Mac wouldn’t have left had he known you were on the way.”
“Where is everyone? It’s Sunday. Am I missing some performance I wasn’t made aware of?”
“Mac and Toni are with your parents,” Harley said. “Your dad is taking everyone out for dinner. Except me.”
“I’m sure they’d have gotten takeout and picnicked with you, though. They’re just looking for things to do that get Grandpa out of the house.”
“No picnics. Dinner out works for all of us. I can’t cook, and they’ve been hovering, trying to cheer me up. I’m so grumpy even I feel bad.”
“Humph.” Courtney sank onto the bed, careful not to jar the pregnant lady and the new little niece or nephew. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t go to dinner, too. I went to Mama’s instead.”
Of course Courtney had declined her parents’ dinner invitation specifically because she didn’t want to get into the details about why she was on leave.
“Mama mentioned that you’d been there today.”
“That was fast.” Not a surprise, as Mama and Harley were mother and daughter in so many ways. “Did you hear that Mama bullied Marc into helping me sort out my little work problem?”
Harley narrowed a no-nonsense gaze. “What I heard was that your work problem wasn’t as little as you said it was. Mama was tripping over herself to tell me what was going on without actually telling me what was going on. That was my first clue I might not have all the information.”
Courtney attempted nonchalance. “I wanted to pick Marc’s brain. I wasn’t sure if I should, given his convalescence, so I went to Mama first.”
Involving Marc even in a peripheral way would get back to Harley, so Courtney had known to have an explanation ready. Of course, her explanation didn’t fit so neatly now that the situation had taken an unexpected turn, and she was here for the explicit purpose of swapping cars to chauffeur Marc.
Harley arched a delicate eyebrow as if silently chiding, Is that really the best you can do?
This day was turning out to be a mixed bag in so many ways. Courtney’s only defense would be an offense, so she launched into one, explaining what she’d told Mama earlier without as many details.
Harley was positively scowling by the time Courtney finished. “There are children missing, an FBI investigation and you’re on administrative leave. Did I get that right?”
Courtney nodded.
“I get why you didn’t involve Nic, but why wouldn’t you be up-front with your brother and me? We have some experience with this sort of thing, you know. Just a little.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.” Which was a joke, since Harley could wield sarcasm without even opening her mouth. “From where I’m standing, you and my brother have your hands full. Mom and Dad have their hands full with Grandpa, too. I’m trying to help everyone, not give you all more to worry about. Why on earth would I burden you?”
“Because you care about me enough to give me something to do while I’m languishing in this bed going insane.”
“You’re not languishing. You’re baking my new little niece or nephew, keeping the oven all nice and toasty so she or he rises like a perfect little biscuit.”
Harley practically growled, which forced Courtney to bite back a smile. Smiling would have been a mistake right now.
“Harley, there’s a reason my brother isn’t giving you work.” Courtney gave her mouth something less offensive to do than grin. “Or your boss. Or me. My brother is worrying about his family right now, which is exactly what he should be doing. If I had wanted to add more to his plate or yours, I would have told you. I didn’t. I’ve got things under control, so enjoy your vacation. Once our newest Gerard gets here, you’ll be wishing you rested. You’re not as young as you were when you had Toni.”
Harley rested her head against the pillows with a sigh and stared at the ceiling.
Okay, maybe she was languishing.
Courtney was about to concede the point when Harley said, “I could advise you to do the same thing. Why are you taking on the FBI? Go home, take up knitting and let them do their job. But I know you won’t listen, so do one thing for me since wondering and worrying won’t be good for me or the baby. Or your brother for that matter, since he’s the one trying to do everything because I’m down.”
“What?”
Harley sat up again, leveled that bright gaze Courtney’s way. “Be honest with us from now on. I seriously can’t sit here with the seconds ticking by like years and not worry if I think you’re hiding things. I’ll worry even more. So will Mac. We’re in panic mode already.”
“Trust me. I know the feeling.” Courtney sighed. “No worrying about me. I’ve got things under control. Compliments of Mama and the bullying brothers, I’ve got Marc.”
“Bullying brothers. Well said.”
Courtney stretched across the bed. “You probably would have seen it coming. I didn’t.”
“Really? Well, you don’t know Marc that well,” Harley conceded. “He is not in a good place.”
“He’s alive after an accident. That’s a very good place.”
“No argument. But he’s another one who isn’t being honest. You two have that in common.”
“Cut me a break, will you?”
That got a hint of a smile. “You’ve come to the wrong house for breaks. I’m fresh out. No breaks for Marc, either. It was only a matter of time before Mama found some way to light a fire under his ass and get him moving. Sounds like you and your little work problem fits the bill.”
An answer to a prayer. Isn’t that what Mama had said?
Had the prayer been to give Marc something to distract him from his pain and slow recovery?
“I think Mama might get a bit more than she bargained for.” Courtney certainly had. She explained how Marc had invited himself to move in.
“He’s staying with you?”
“No. He has apparently taken a liking to your old place, because he wasn’t there ten minutes before informing me he wouldn’t be leaving. What was I going to say?”
“You’ll nearly be roommates. Good luck with that.”
“Speaking of, would you mind swapping cars with me? There’s not enough legroom in mine. I’m providing car service, too.”
Harley nudged Courtney’s leg with her foot. “The keys are on the ring by the door, but listen to me. Whatever you do, do not let Marc give you a hard time. I’m serious. And do not, under any circumstances, let him into your bedroom.”
Courtney opened her mouth to issue a quick reassurance on that score, but the phone on the bedside table rang out a rock tune.
Harley reached for it. “Do you mind? Mac will freak if I don’t pick up.” She glanced at the display. “Oh, it’s not— To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Courtney rolled over, ready to provide privacy, but Harley shook her head and cradled the phone against her shoulder to broadcast half of the conversation.
“No, where?” she asked. There was a beat of silence while the caller replied. “My old place? Really?”
Marc was on the other end of the line, and Courtney’s reaction came fast. A fluttering heartbeat. A shallow breath.
Harley was watching Courtney so closely that a flush prickled her cheeks and she missed the next exchange. Harley arched an eyebrow, and Courtney forced herself to look casual. She wished she had stepped out of the room.
“Tell you what, Marc,” Harley said. “Why don’t you come over here and stay with me? We can both lie in my bed and keep each other company while we work. I’ve got my big tummy and you’ve got your wrecked leg. We’ll make a great team.”
Even Courtney could hear the disgusted snort on the other end and admired the easy rapport between two people who had known each other forever.
“Play nice with Courtney or you’ll be answering to me,” Harley cautioned before saying, “Thanks. You take care of you, too. Call me if you need help. I’ll be here. In bed. Staring at four walls. Not moving.”
Disconnecting the call, she set the phone back on the table. “Well, you’re right. He’s settling in for the long haul.”
“You warned him to be nice. How much trouble am I in?”
Harley considered her. “Can’t say for sure. Marc’s off his stride since the accident. Any other time I’d tell you to lock your bedroom door and throw away the key so you don’t get your heart broken.”
Right. No problem there. “But now?”
“Now...well, I don’t know. He’s one grumpy bastard. More miserable than I am. That much I can tell you. But he and I aren’t the same as before. He hasn’t forgiven me for marrying your brother.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “Marc hasn’t lived here for a long time. He stays up on what’s going on, but that’s not the same as seeing for himself. He’s really hardheaded.”
“Like the rest of his brothers.”
Harley’s expression was thoughtful. “Except this one has a marshmallow center.”
Which was about the last thing Courtney expected to hear.
CHAPTER SIX
MARC SAT ON the couch in his new living room, grimacing as he grabbed a pant leg to hoist up his leg. The couch was just long enough to stretch out, and almost instantly the ache eased so he could attempt to think clearly.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating dust particles. And silence. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard so much quiet. Not since he had come home, for sure.
He should close the windows. The need for fresh air was yielding to the need for cool air. Despite all the trees, this was summer in New Orleans. God, he hoped there was central air or he might be regretting his decision. He was already starting to sweat, but he didn’t have enough energy left to get up and deal with the situation.
Instead, he opened the file on the coffee table to start piecing together the mystery. He needed to learn all he could about the missing kid.
Araceli Maria Ruiz-Ortiz had been born in New Orleans. Her parents had been from Colombia. She had one sibling, a brother who was four years younger. The father, Silvio Ruiz, had drowned on the wharves where he worked unloading cargo on the river. Araceli had been seven. The mother, Gracielle Ortiz, had been a seamstress and housewife before the husband’s death, a full-time housekeeper after.
Both parents had been in the country illegally.
“Not good,” Marc said to no one in particular. He could guess the next part of the story before setting down the profiles and starting on the court documents. Sure enough...the mother had been deported during an immigration crackdown when Araceli was eight.
The son had been at work with the mother when she was detained, but Araceli had been in school. For some undocumented reason, she had wound up in the care of a neighbor before being picked up by Family Services.
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Jeanie London
Former bounty hunter Marc DiLeo is not the guy Courtney Gerard wants helping her. But finding a kid who’s been missing for a long time takes priority over her personal preferences. And if anyone can locate the child, Marc can – even with his injury. So she’ll overlook his attitude.As they follow cold leads together, Courtney glimpses beneath his tough exterior to something surprising – caring, compassion… vulnerability. That softer side proves more irresistible than his good looks. An unexpected – and unexpectedly intense – attraction flares between them making her wonder why she never saw this before.Suddenly the man she was determined to avoid is the only man she wants close!
Right in front of her eyes…
Former bounty hunter Marc DiLeo is not the guy social worker Courtney Gerard wants helping her. But finding a kid who’s been missing for a long time takes priority over her personal preferences. And if anyone can locate the child, Marc can—even with his injury. So she’ll overlook his attitude.
As they follow cold leads together, Courtney glimpses beneath his tough exterior to something surprising—caring, compassion…vulnerability. That softer side proves more irresistible than his good looks. An unexpected—and unexpectedly intense—attraction flares between them, making her wonder why she never saw this before. Suddenly the man she was determined to avoid is the only man she wants close!
Marc came face-to-face with Courtney
She stood in the living room, visible through the doorway as he emerged from the steamy bathroom.
Suddenly everything about her was a dare.
From the glossy black hair that would feel like silk to the touch to the clear eyes she raked down the length of him.
He stood wrapped in a towel.
Her gaze traveled the length of him again. There was surprise all over her face, her eyes widening, her lips parting.
But she didn’t look away. She only stood there for a protracted moment, a deer stunned by headlights. And by the time she’d rallied, mumbling something unintelligible and turning away, it was too late.
Marc had seen everything.
This felt normal. A beautiful woman looking at him like he was a man. A woman looking at him with want in her eyes.
Yet she turned away....
Dear Reader,
Life is love. It’s our chronic aspiration and the source of our greatest strength. Love inspires us to courage and moves us past selfishness to kindness and generosity.
Araceli would do anything to have love in her life.
Courtney fought hard to bring love to her foster kids’ lives, but she kept love in the periphery of her own.
Marc had run far away from love and allowed it only an occasional visit. It wasn’t until adversity forced him to stop running that he came face-to-face with how much of himself he had lost along the way.
When love brings these three together, they realize what was right before their eyes all along—with love, they can conquer anything.
Ordinary Women. Extraordinary romance.
That’s what Harlequin Superromance is all about. I hope you enjoy Courtney and Marc’s story. I love hearing from readers, so please visit me at www.jeanielegendre.com (http://www.jeanielegendre.com).
Peace and blessings,
Jeanie London
Love In Plain Sight
Jeanie London
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeanie London writes romance because she believes in happily-ever-afters. Not the “love conquers all” kind, but the “we love each other, so we can conquer anything” kind. Jeanie is the winner of many prestigious writing awards, including multiple RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice and National Readers’ Choice Awards. She lives in sunny Florida with her own romance-hero husband, their beautiful daughters and a menagerie of strays.
To my beloved Pup.
You are a joy! You make life endlessly fascinating with your inspired interests, your enormous heart and your delightful friends! <3 YOU <3
Contents
Prologue (#ua672ce7b-4984-549a-9d6b-c760053ee250)
Chapter One (#u16a4de15-7faf-5602-b437-2547172309c1)
Chapter Two (#ub89aeb97-e534-5614-8074-fce05751aac8)
Chapter Three (#u061a2871-4567-5162-b3ed-0f7f1544040b)
Chapter Four (#uebeecaf9-464e-5fb2-86ac-2e95d2c05067)
Chapter Five (#u719cdb6f-ae51-5f8b-b249-ee0c4770e234)
Chapter Six (#uf1ccf0a2-1752-5fb2-8b4b-53ddb3b8ca9f)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
Before Hurricane Katrina
PAPA ALWAYS SAID love changed lives. I knew what he meant because love was all around me.
Every morning, Mama packed Papa’s lunch. Always the same sandwich, container of leftovers from dinner, fruit and fresh-baked pastry. She stacked them in his lunch bag in the order he would eat them through the day.
A fruit for the morning to keep him healthy.
Leftovers for lunch with the sandwich, too, if he worked really hard. Sometimes he saved half for later.
He ate the pastry with his con leche in the afternoon when he needed a sweet for strength.
In between each layer would be a neatly folded napkin with a love note. One for every meal.
Hecho con amor para ti.
Gracias por nuestra hermosa vida juntos.
The love notes changed every day—all but one that read Te quiero siempre.
Mama did love him always.
She loved all of us. We were her family.
When I was old enough for school, I opened my lunch bag to find my own love notes. Mama would draw little hearts that would make me proud to be the beautiful daughter she loved so much. Or funny faces to make me laugh, because Mama did not have the family talent for drawing.
I never used my love-note napkins but always tucked them into my pocket, a secret reminder of how much I was loved no matter what happened through the rest of the day.
Paolo wasn’t too little to notice. He didn’t say anything because of his speech trouble, but I knew. He was quick-eyed for a little one. Mama counted on those eyes.
“Paolo, where did Mama set her keys?” she would ask. “Paolo, did you see where Mama lay her scissors?”
My baby brother would run right to where she had left whatever was missing.
Paolo wanted his own love notes. I knew because he would stick his chubby hand in my pocket and sneak mine. I told Mama one day, and the very next morning, my baby brother burst from our bedroom as I was readying for school with a love note he’d found under his pillow.
My life was filled with that kind of love. Every night after dinner, my family gathered in the living room. Some nights, I practiced stitches on scraps of fabric while Mama altered clothes to earn money.
Higher hems for the short ladies and expanded seams for the ladies grown too fat for their zippers....
Papa would sit at his easel, telling stories from his day and drawing whatever he thought might sell on weekends when he sat in Jackson Square making caricatures for the tourists.
Weekend after weekend, through the Mardi Gras parades and the steamy days of summer, I would sit beside Papa at my own easel, smelling the Mississippi River, an apprentice practicing my sketches and learning from my beloved Papa.
I loved those weekends.
“You must read your subject to know how to please them,” Papa instructed. “Do not choose a feature they might feel shame for. Choose one that helps them laugh at themselves. Laughter is a gift, and if you please them, they’ll be generous with you. Americans are very generous. They appreciate talent and will reward you for using yours.”
I was eight when I drew my very first sketch.
My subject, an eccentric older lady who wore many big jewels, did laugh when she saw my finished product and gave me ten dollars. I felt such pride.
My second subject wasn’t so pleased. I got a dollar in quarters and not even one tiny smile.
Papa hugged me. “Can’t please everyone.”
But I worried. “Maybe I didn’t get the family talent.”
He scoffed, making a big sound that filled the steamy heat of that perfect summer. “You are learning to use your talent. Do you think to be as good as your papa without much practice?”
I could only shrug, feeling too much shame for words.
Taking my hand that held the graphite pencil, he lifted it to his lips for a kiss, his whiskers tickling my skin. “There. Now you have even more family talent. I share mine, for I have much to spare.”
That made me smile. A little.
“Love is the secret, Araceli. You must love this pencil,” he said, very serious. “And you must love your subject. But most of all, you must love your talent, for that is the only way you will learn to use it. You must try new things and make your talent sing inside you and flow out onto the paper.
“Remember this.” He smiled beneath his bushy mustache. “Love changes everything. It’s everywhere. You just have to look. Sometimes it hides, so you have to look hard. But open your eyes really big.” He shaped his fingers into circles and peered through them, looking silly. “It’s always there somewhere. I promise.”
CHAPTER ONE
Eight years after the hurricane
COURTNEY GERARD WENT on red alert when she glanced up to find her supervisor in the office doorway. She’d worked with Giselle since an internship in college. Courtney knew this look. Not good.
“What’s wrong, Giselle?”
Working for the Department of Children and Family Services could be emotionally demanding on the best of days. Children in difficult circumstances troubled caring people, and all the social workers in the New Orleans DCFS cared deeply about the kids they managed. Giselle’s expression promised this day wasn’t even close to the best.
“Are you okay?” Courtney tried again.
Giselle lifted a disbelieving gaze and stood rooted to the spot. Courtney was on her feet instantly, the impulse to do something preferable over the powerlessness of doing nothing. She’d barely circled the desk when Giselle gave her head a slight shake as if mentally rebooting.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.” Sinking into a chair, she clutched a file folder as if her life depended on it. “We have a problem.”
We could mean the social services department or just the two of them. Courtney didn’t ask. Giselle was shaken, and struggling hard to maintain her professionalism right now. That much was obvious.
Leaning against the desk, Courtney braced herself. “Whatever it is we can deal with it. Right?”
Giselle didn’t answer—another bad sign. She set the file between them, an innocuous folder with a case number and name in an upper corner that read Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz.
The case hadn’t been Courtney’s for long. Only since a drizzly, cold February morning earlier this year, when one of their social workers hadn’t made it to work when expected. A multiple-car accident on Interstate 10 had robbed them of one of their team, a woman with a huge laugh and kind heart.
“Has something happened?” Courtney asked. “Is Araceli all right?”
Giselle opened the file, rooted through the documents and slid out a photo. “Who is this?”
The image was the most recent of the girl in question, which Courtney herself had taken on their first visit together. She’d snapped photos of all the kids in the cases she’d taken over, uploaded digital copies to the server and printed hard-copy files. Standard procedure. “That’s Araceli.”
“You’ve actually spoken with her?”
Adrenaline made the hairs along Courtney’s arms stand on end. “What kind of question is that? Of course I’ve spoken with her. She’s been my case since Nanette.”
Since Nanette.
The euphemism for the tragedy that had impacted everyone in their close-knit department in so many ways beyond increased caseloads.
“Any red flags?” Giselle asked.
Courtney frowned. She interviewed all of her kids, checked in with each of them monthly. Giselle knew all social workers followed the same procedure, so unless she was implying that Courtney had stopped doing her job properly... “What sort of red flags? Abuse? Drugs? Gangs?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Did anything at all seem off to you? What were your impressions of the girl?”
Courtney scoured her memories, apprehension sabotaging her focus. “I have to work to engage her most of the time. She resents my intrusion in her life but has enough respect not to be overtly rebellious. She’s sixteen. You know how those last few years till majority can be for some kids.”
Giselle nodded. “When you get her talking, does she communicate well? How’s her English?”
Courtney considered the girl she was scheduled to visit again in just another week. “Accented but okay. I noted my first impressions in my report. Her guardians can be problematic.”
“How so?” Giselle latched on to that admission. “I need to know everything you can tell me.”
“The mother communicates in English better than the father, but he’s the one who likes to do the talking. He won’t allow me to talk to his wife and let her translate. A cultural thing, I think.” She shrugged, frustrated even thinking about how she could burn an entire afternoon going over every single thing once, twice, sometimes three times until satisfied she understood and had been understood.
“No hablo Español. Hablo muy poco de todos modos.”
Señor Perea didn’t seem to care that Courtney was the department go-to girl for all things French, including French-based Louisiana Creole and Cajun. Of course, there was a smattering of Spanish words in those dialects, so if he slowed down enough for her to catch the verbs, she could usually figure out the rest. “The situation was never optimal, Giselle. I’m not Nanette. She spoke Spanish fluently. You knew that when you assigned me this case.”
Giselle inhaled deeply, acknowledging imperfect reality in that one gesture. “But I knew I could trust you to put forth the effort to make sure these kids were properly cared for until I could get someone fluent in Spanish to replace you.”
What she didn’t say was that there were other social workers in the department who might be good and caring but who would also let the language barrier deter them.
Courtney was detail-oriented and thorough. Always. She would take the time to be clear, even if it meant derailing her schedule. Even if it meant she didn’t return to the office to start reports until after dark. Even if it meant she sacrificed a normal life to manage a caseload that had only grown in the years since the hurricane had leveled their entire agency.
They’d all been overworked before category-five winds had blown holes in the levees around Lake Pontchartrain, but since every record in every case they managed had been obliterated, they’d all been burdened additionally with rebuilding the system. A new system that wouldn’t utterly and completely fail during a catastrophic natural disaster.
They’d all made sacrifices, were still making sacrifices, but some managed to juggle the additional workload better than others. Courtney didn’t have a husband or kids awaiting her at home every day. “Will you tell me what has happened? You’re flipping me out with this interrogation.”
“You have to promise you won’t panic.” Giselle was the epitome of self-restraint, but everything about her begged Courtney to manage her reaction.
Giselle’s need in that moment seemed impossible to meet. The best she could do was face her supervisor and close friend, and nod, hoping she could keep the promise.
Giselle held up the photo. “This is not Araceli.”
It took Courtney a moment to wrap her brain around that. And in that one surreal instant, she took action again, reaching for the photo and inspecting it carefully, unable to absorb the overwhelming implications passively.
Same glossy dark hair. Same melting brown eyes. Same smooth caramel skin.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, Giselle, but I promise you this is Araceli. I’ve met with her every month since Nanette.”
Giselle pulled out another document with two photos stapled to the corner and set it on the desk between them. One eight-by-ten was a group shot of a classroom of young kids. Mr. LeGendre’s third grade, according to the neat font imprinted along the bottom above the students’ names. The other photo appeared to be the sort of proof used by photographic companies. There was a name and number beneath the face in that photo. The child was young like the ones in the group shot, maybe seven or eight, with a jagged smile where adult teeth were growing in.
Courtney scanned the group shot. She spotted Araceli’s name but couldn’t pick out the accompanying face from among the smiling kids. Reaching for the proof, she inspected the girl in that photo.
Gold skin. Glossy black hair. Melting dark eyes.
But a younger version of the uncommunicative girl Courtney met with every month?
A chill skittered through her, a physical sensation that made her breath catch hard. Grabbing the photo she’d taken herself, she placed them side by side, swung her gaze between them, made sense of the truth before her eyes.
There was something about the way the features came together that warned not even eight years could transform this child into the young woman who visibly reined in inconvenience each time they met.
Glancing up, Courtney saw her disbelief reflected in Giselle’s expression. “Are you sure? This can’t be possible.”
“Apparently Araceli’s file wound up on a compliance officer’s desk. Turns out he used to be in the classroom before he went into staffing. He looked at the Araceli in the file and questioned whether she was his third-grade student. The classroom photo was his, but he still wasn’t sure. He contacted the photography company on the off chance they had records since they’re not based locally. You’re looking at what he found.”
A rare piece of evidence left after the hurricane. Courtney stared at the proof again and latched on to the first thing she could in the midst of her racing thoughts. The most irrelevant. The least horrifying.
“Why was a compliance officer reviewing Araceli’s file? I should have been included.”
“No meetings were scheduled because of this situation. Araceli, or the girl we thought was her, got into a fight with a weapon during summer classes.”
The zero-tolerance policy changed the rules when a weapon was involved. “What weapon?”
Giselle scowled. “A chair. But given the way she used it... She has to be moved.”
“Okay.” Courtney rubbed her temples, willed her brain to reason. “Then where is Araceli, and who is this girl?”
“If we knew, we wouldn’t have a problem.”
That stopped Courtney cold. A powerful wave of vertigo rolled through her.
Two girls. One name.
A missing child.
Her heart pounded so hard each beat throbbed as reality narrowed down to the terrifying implications.
A missing child.
Details didn’t matter. The situation simply didn’t get any worse. Letting her eyes flutter shut, she blocked out Giselle’s expression, the hard-won professionalism that wasn’t concealing her panic.
Inhaling deeply, Courtney willed herself to think, to ask the questions that were critically important now that a child was missing.
“Has anyone spoken to the Pereas yet?” She forced the words past the tightness in her chest. “What about this girl?”
“The FBI will conduct the investigation.”
“Not the police?”
“We have nothing on Araceli but what’s in this file,” Giselle explained. “She crossed state lines during the hurricane evacuations. The investigation is out of police jurisdiction.”
The hurricane.
Another euphemism. There had been hurricanes before and since, but Katrina was the hurricane. Giselle didn’t have to say another word because again, her expression reflected the helplessness and horror of an event that had been far beyond the control of the people involved, an event that had challenged everything from their comfy worldview to standard business practice for this department.
All hard-copy documentation had been lost in the flooding. Out of the five thousand plus kids in foster care at the time, two thousand had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, then many shuffled again a month later because of Hurricane Rita.
Kids had wound up spread over nineteen states in that mess, and social workers such as Courtney, Giselle and Nanette had tracked them all down again. The aftershocks were still being felt to this day, along with memories of the litany of priorities that had dictated their lives as they functioned from evacuation shelters because offices and homes had been flooded, cell towers had been down, and the city had been under martial law.
First, we keep you alive....
Then we get you safe....
Then we work on your health and medications....
Then we figure out where you belong....
Recalling that long road back to a functioning system brought another realization, one that hit with familiar category-five velocity.
The hurricane had been eight years ago.
“Tell me we have some other documentation, Giselle,” she demanded. “Tell me we’re not operating on what Nanette pieced together after the hurricane.”
Giselle spread her hands in entreaty, motioned to the desk. She didn’t have to say another word because they were both thinking the same thing.
The only person who might shed some light on this situation had died on the side of the road, surrounded by strangers on a drizzly February morning.
“Her work was stellar.” Giselle assumed the crappy responsibility of verbalizing the doubt that would be cast on someone not able to defend herself. “I won’t believe this situation is a result of negligence. That goes against everything I know about her.”
“You’re right. Absolutely right.”
“The FBI will want conclusive proof, but we don’t have any. Nanette looks culpable. This department looks culpable.”
Which circled right back around to the we.
Giselle was responsible for this department and everything that took place within. Courtney was responsible for this case and everything that had taken place since Nanette.
A child was missing.
The only answer that mattered, the one that left her doing exactly what she’d been told not to do—panicking—was the very one she had no answer for.
What were their chances of finding Araceli alive?
“We had no way of tracking Araceli after the hurricane.” Giselle riffled through documents one by one. “We can’t prove Araceli’s the child on one document in this folder. We can’t prove we placed the real Araceli with the Perea family. We can’t prove she’s the Araceli in this Red Cross database.”
Her voice escalated. “We can’t prove she evacuated to the Superdome with her foster family, then got separated on the buses in Houston. We can’t prove she went to Atlanta after being evacuated during Hurricane Rita. We can’t prove she was the child we got an emergency injunction to remain out of state until the Pereas moved out of the FEMA trailer and back into their home. We have no idea who we’ve been shuffling around because the last known photo of Araceli is from third grade.”
The papers were now all over Courtney’s desk. Papers that proved nothing conclusively—except that Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz had gotten lost somewhere over the course of the past eight years.
Courtney walked to the window that provided no escape. She saw nothing but eight years stretching out like a lifetime, and all the horrifying things that could happen to a girl alone. The passage of time was marked only by the silence echoing as she mentally replayed every horror story she’d ever heard.
The young girl in Florida who’d been adopted by her longtime foster family and was tortured and starved to death instead of living happily ever after.
The twins who were kept in cages in the basement under the care of foster parents who’d been taking kids into their home for four decades.
The nearly three hundred kids who’d been placed with a sexual predator over the sixteen years it took social workers to figure out that many of these kids were being molested.
Negligence. Incompetence. Heartlessness.
Horror stories.
Most social workers weren’t the careless or inept monsters showcased in the media. The majority were the ones the general public never heard about. Social workers who maneuvered deftly through the obstacle course among laws and legalities and court decisions for kids they were responsible for protecting.
Most social workers cared more for needy kids than they did their own paychecks, because no one got compensated for all the work. Most didn’t mind the long hours, and usually found a way to squeeze in just one more kid when they were already burdened by a staggering caseload.
Given the crushing demands of the job, it wasn’t hard to see how mistakes could happen even to the most caring and competent social workers. They managed needy kids’ lives the way an air traffic controller oversaw airspace: the consequences of one oversight, one distraction, one error could result in the loss of human life.
The life of a child.
Courtney’s thoughts slowed enough to finally see the street through the window. DCFS offices were located in a utilitarian building on Iberville Street north of all the French Quarter action. From her second-floor window, she overlooked the stone wall of the cemetery, discolored and stained like the mausoleums within, many overgrown with weeds protruding from odd places.
Interstate 10 ran the length of the cemetery and all the way to Florida. The green directional signs were the only splash of color in a scene that had never looked so bleak, washed in gray skies that promised rain. Somehow it fit that she couldn’t look at the interstate without thinking of Nanette.
“What happens now?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “How do we find Araceli?”
Giselle could only spread her hands in entreaty. She had no clue, because how on earth did one go about tracking down a child who had potentially been missing for eight years?
How could they even hope to find her alive?
* * *
“DAMON’S COMING TO get me, right?” Marc DiLeo forced out the question through gritted teeth.
After all these months, he should have been used to asking. He wasn’t. He resented the hell out of it.
Especially something as simple as a ride when he owned a Jeep and a Harley.
His older brother, Nic, glanced away from the road as they were driving down Canal Street in Nic’s police cruiser. At least no one could see them through the heavily tinted glass.
Did anyone even care that he was being chauffeured to his therapy session because he couldn’t drive himself?
No. It only felt that way.
“Damon’s teaching a class,” Nic said. “Anthony will pick you up, and if he can’t get away, he’ll send one of the guys.”
Great. Now Marc’s ability to burden everyone reached beyond family into the periphery, to the guys who worked in his younger brother Anthony’s automotive garage.
This was his mother’s fault. She’d bullied him into leaving Colorado Springs for rehab. Not that Marc had put up much of a fight. He’d been in a medically induced coma when many of the decisions about his care had been made. After the haze of anesthesia and painkillers from four surgeries had worn off, all the decisions had been made.
That had been the time to reassert control over his life. Only he hadn’t had any fight in him.
So his mother had seized the opportunity to bring him home to New Orleans. And everyone paid the price because she was the only one of the bunch who didn’t drive.
“Tell Anthony not to bother,” Marc said. “I’ll take a cab.”
“Don’t start with me. Everyone wants to help.”
Help? This family would kill him with their help, which was why he had moved to Colorado Springs in the first place. “I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass an older brother could be. Good thing you’re the only one I have. If I changed my name, I’ll bet none of you could find me.”
Nic gave a disgusted snort. But he glanced at the road. He scowled harder when some idiot in a showy Bimmer sliced out of one lane and cut into the other, forcing the Yukon in front of him to brake, and by default him.
“You know, you’re a cop,” Marc said. “You could pull that guy over and give him a ticket.”
“You know, you’re a jerk. You could try saying thanks for everyone’s help and leave it there. No one has a problem getting you to and from your sessions.”
“Wrong.” Marc had a big problem.
Nic braked hard, and Marc instinctively grabbed the oh-shit handle to hang on as the cruiser swung toward the curb so fast the tires screeched. Marc’s cane hit the door with a clatter. The cop lights flashed with an accompanying whoop of a siren, scaring the hell out of some pedestrians who broke formation on the sidewalk and scattered.
Nic didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “Have all those painkillers rotted your brain? Do I need to throw your sorry ass in detox?”
Sorry ass was right. Marc couldn’t rebut that fact, but he wasn’t listening to Nic rant, either. Guess this was his stop. He reached for his cane and the door handle. The handle moved, but the passenger door didn’t open. Nic controlled the locks.
“Isn’t there some law against double-parking?” Marc said. “You’re a cop. You should set an example by observing the law.”
“I’m not a cop,” Nic growled. “I’m the chief of police, which means I get to do whatever the hell I want. And right now I want you to listen to me.”
Great. Marc’s day was crashing and burning and he hadn’t even gotten to physical therapy yet. Okay, to be fair he had practically begged for this confrontation. Nic’s patience had been simmering for weeks. He was the oldest brother, and used to stepping in to clean up everyone’s mess in this family. He’d been doing the job since their father had died, leaving their mother with a bunch of little kids who had needed caring for. The years since hadn’t done much except shorten Nic’s fuse.
Marc was usually exempt from the bullying because he was next in line to the throne, the only one who had been old enough to work and make a difference, which took some of the responsibility off Nic’s shoulders.
Not today. Today, Marc had pushed too far.
“I want to know what the hell is wrong with you,” Nic demanded. “I want to know why you’re such a miserable pain in the ass to everyone who is going out of their way to help you.”
“That answer should be obvious.” It was stretched out awkwardly before him, braced at the knee and ankle for support. His busted and surgically pieced together right leg that impeded him from doing just about everything from walking to sleeping because of the never-ending pain.
“That’s your leg, Marc. I’m talking about your shitty attitude.”
Marc didn’t bother replying. The shitty attitude and the answer would be the same. One minute he had been chasing a skip toward the Mexican border over rough terrain. The next he was ejected from his Jeep at ninety miles an hour.
At least the skip hadn’t bolted. The border patrols had had to cut him out of an SUV.
Now, four months later, the skip sat in jail awaiting trial, and Marc was an out-of-work bounty hunter who could barely stand to take a piss let alone drive, living with his mother in this city he’d put behind him long ago.
“You’re not usually so dense,” Marc said. “I didn’t realize becoming a father dulled the edges.”
Nic clutched the steering wheel, knuckles white, visibly restraining himself. Probably wanted to throw a punch. When all else failed, restrain the idiot pissing him off. Made him a helluva cop. Probably would have thrown a punch, too, if all his high-tech computer cop gear hadn’t blocked a decent shot.
“All right, Marc, you listen to me. And you listen good because I will not repeat myself. This is your one and only warning. Next time I will knock you down and keep you there while everyone you’ve been rude to takes a swing. You hear me?”
He expected an answer?
Nic exhaled hard, frustration radiating like heat off asphalt. “I get that it’s taking you a long time to heal. I get that your leg hurts and the therapy is only making the pain worse. But you’re alive, and you have a lot of people who care about you, even though you’re pushing everyone away. The next time you want to open your mouth, just remember that if anything more than a thank-you comes out, my fist will be going in.
“You’ve got Mom worried sick. No one will drop by the house because you’re so miserable to be around. You’ve even managed to piss off my daughter, who’s in love with everyone and everything in this family. Really, man, you’re making a hell of an impression on your niece. That make you proud?”
Pride would imply Marc cared. And Nic’s daughter, Violet, was an impressionable teenager who needed a good dose of reality. She’d lived most of her life without knowing her father or this crazy family. She might have been better off living the rest of her life without knowing them.
“Do you hear me, Marc? I’m not playing. Knock it off with your pity party before you alienate everyone and wind up alone with your busted leg.”
“What makes you think that’s not what I want?”
A valid question. But Marc miscalculated the protection of the cruiser’s computer gear because the next thing he knew, Nic’s fingers were tightening around his collar until he swallowed hard against the pressure.
Damned painkillers were slowing his reactions.
“Get. Over. It.” Nic spit out each word, the veins bulging in his temples.
Marc wouldn’t give his brother the satisfaction of a reaction. He would sit here and asphyxiate. No sweat. A corpse in the front seat of the police chief’s cruiser. Nic was the only one with a problem here.
He knew it, too. His gaze narrowed as he reined in his anger, emphasizing the point with another twist that nearly crushed Marc’s windpipe.
Finally, Nic eased his grip. “You get what I want?”
Under normal circumstance, Marc wouldn’t have taken this crap. But circumstances weren’t normal. He couldn’t throw off his brother. Couldn’t even argue because Nic was right. Marc was a miserable asshole. He knew it.
The drugs were making his brain rot because he didn’t care.
“Unlock this door before I put my fist through the window and you get blood all over your front seat.” He forced the words out through his raw throat.
He wasn’t playing, either. What was one more injury when he was a damned cripple already?
Nic must have recognized it, too, because he finally leaned back and warned, “Get a grip, Marc. Seriously. I get whatever the hell I want. I’m the chief of police in this town and your older brother. You’re screwed either way.”
That much was true.
CHAPTER TWO
Two weeks later
JUST DRIVING THROUGH New Orleans and parking in front of Mama DiLeo’s house made Courtney feel better. As if she were somehow in control of her life. As if she somehow had a say. She didn’t, but for one shining moment, she almost felt that way.
Late summer heat pounded at the windows even this early in the day, but she sat there, ensuring that her emotions wouldn’t leak around the edges. Not usually a problem, but with life upside-down, the self-control she took for granted was giving her fits.
Courtney had been placed on administrative leave from work while the FBI conducted the investigation on Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz—a situation that had gotten worse when the girl they’d presumed was Araceli had also gone missing within days of the classroom fight that revealed this mess.
Life had come to a screeching halt for Courtney. Days that had passed at a frenetic pace and ended with still so much to be done were suddenly empty. Hour after hour, from the time she opened her eyes until they shut of their own accord—who could sleep anymore?—were minutes ticking by with no purpose.
No more caring for kids. No more stabilizing, learning and managing their lives. Her keys to the department had been confiscated. She had been temporarily evicted from her office and told to wait for others to sort out the situation of the mixed-up and missing girls. She had been told there was nothing she could do but catch up on things at home.
But all the jobs Courtney had once intended to squeeze into long weekends had been forgotten—the flower bed around her new shed, wallpapering the tiny interior of her niece’s dollhouse, tiling the wall behind the sink in the kitchen. Somehow she had managed to be more productive during those weekends that passed in the blink of an eye than she did now with day after endless day free.
Two eternal weeks as the FBI launched an investigation with all the deliberation of a law enforcement agency that had no hope of finding Araceli alive. Courtney had been obedient, even patient, but as each day passed with a lot of wasted time and no discernible progress, she had grown frustrated and frightened.
After learning from Giselle that the FBI had been searching for the fake Araceli and hadn’t yet begun a search for the real one, Courtney could no longer wait for others to sort out the situation.
So here she was at Mama DiLeo’s house, two hours before Sunday dinner, armed with the beginnings of a plan.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Courtney opened the car door, finally ready. She had to knock only once before a lilting voice called, “Coming.”
The door swung wide, and Mama DiLeo was there, smiling as she recognized her guest. “Good to see you, honey. Come in.”
Courtney couldn’t quite manage a smile, but Mama smiled for both of them, a smile that made Courtney feel as if she mattered more than anyone in the world.
Mama DiLeo’s unique gift.
She always dressed to the nines, and had rocked a pixie cut for as long as Courtney had known her. While she didn’t stand much more than five feet two, including the heels, this widowed mother of six—five of whom were sons who reeked of testosterone—was a force to reckon with.
“Size doesn’t matter when you have superhero strength,” her oldest son, Nic, always said. “Mama has it in spades.”
Courtney had seen this woman stop arguments with a glare. She could break up a physical tussle between her sons with one sharp command.
Those superpowers and the smile were already smoothing the edges of Courtney’s mood.
“I’m really early,” she said. “But I wanted to talk with you before the house fills up.”
“Perfect. We have lots of catching up to do. I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
Since the bottom had fallen out of her world.
The house was unusually quiet today. During Sunday dinners, conversation swirled from the kitchen to the dining room to the family room down this hallway....
Everyone included. Everyone welcome.
The boundaries that constituted family were fluid with the DiLeos. There was always room for one more at the table. The front door was always open to anyone who needed a meal, a place to stay or some laughter. All that gracious hospitality was due to the enormous heart beating inside this one tiny woman. Mama DiLeo believed family was a function not defined by blood but by love.
Her heels tapped over the tile as she went to the stove and lifted the lid on a simmering pot, stirring the contents with a long-handled spoon. Steam rose, sending up a burst of garlic.
“Hope you’re hungry.” Mama set aside the spoon. “You’re my angel today. I could use help cutting these vegetables. My assistants are running late.”
“I should work since I forgot to bring anything. Not even flowers for your table.” Which only served to emphasize her deteriorating mental state. She never came to Sunday dinner without swinging by the bakery, the florist or the wine shop.
“The only thing you ever need to bring is yourself, honey.”
“That’s all you’re getting today, Mama. Good thing I know my way around a cutting board.”
With a smile, Mama went to the sink and washed her hands. “We need to make a pit stop before we get started. Grab that basket from the baker’s rack, will you please?”
Courtney did as requested and waited while Mama rooted through a drawer to locate a pair of clippers. Then Courtney followed her out the back door.
The scene from the porch was breathtaking. Mama was an inspired gardener, not in the traditional New Orleans sense of manicured lawns. She favored a more natural setting, with slate walkways lined with wildflowers, and benches beneath sprawling oak trees. Geraniums, hosta and butterfly bushes dotted the yard with splashes of color.
Courtney followed Mama to the herb garden, tried to absorb the peaceful setting to calm frayed nerves.
“So, what’s on your mind that you don’t want to discuss in front of everyone?” Mama asked as she knelt beside the garden to sort through a fragrant tangle of parsley and basil plants.
“I wanted to bounce something off you. I need some help, but I’m not sure I should ask for it. I trust you to advise me.”
Mama snipped some leaves and motioned Courtney to bring the basket closer. “What’s up?”
New Orleans might be the thirty-seventh-largest city in the nation, but Mama considered all the inhabitants related.
Family by blood. Family by love. Family by proximity. Family by work. Family by church. Family by krewe. A category for everyone she welcomed into her world. Courtney was one of the elite few with an official family connection. Sort of. Her brother Mac had married Mama’s unofficial daughter, Harley, who had become attached to the family at a young age.
There was no possible way Mama didn’t already know how life had blown up in Courtney’s face.
“I’d like to talk with Marc about my work situation, Mama. He tracks down people, and I need his opinion.”
Mama sank back on her haunches and glanced up. “That wasn’t what I was expecting. Not Nic?”
“We both work for state agencies, and I would never put him in a position of conflict.”
Mama frowned but conceded the point with a nod. “I already know why you don’t want to ask Harley and your brother.”
“All my family wants to help, of course, but everyone is so worried about Harley and Mac that I intentionally downplayed the situation so they wouldn’t start worrying about me, too.”
With Harley on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, the whole family was in an uproar already. Mac was wrapping up their cases at their investigative agency and keeping up with their daughter’s schedule, which was another full-time job. That had been the only positive to this situation—all the free time had allowed Courtney to help by chauffeuring her niece around.
“They won’t be happy when they find out.”
That was an understatement. “They’re going to kill me. But I’ll deal with them when I have to.”
Mama pulled a face, and for a long moment, she just knelt there, clippers dangling from idle hands, clearly waiting. “Marc, hmm?”
“I would never dream of bothering him right now, but there’s a lot riding on the outcome.”
Children’s lives.
Then there was Courtney’s career. Giselle’s reputation. Nanette’s legacy. Nanette above all provided a convenient scapegoat for the FBI. Her heartbroken family, still struggling with grief, faced a media storm that would trash a woman who couldn’t defend herself. Courtney didn’t know what had happened to Araceli, but she knew Nanette would not have been negligent.
Courtney would not stand by and watch people she cared for take the fall any more than she would take the fall herself. She would not stand by while the FBI took their sweet time covering their butts while there were children missing.
“That’s what I want your opinion about. I know how difficult Marc’s recovery has been. If you don’t think it’s a good idea to bring up work, I will not open my mouth.”
For a moment, they considered each other. Then Mama’s eyes fluttered shut, and she inhaled deeply. She remained that way so long that Courtney felt compelled to look away, as if she had distressed a woman who didn’t need any more of a burden than to worry about the son she had almost lost.
Courtney would be left to accept that she was back to square one, all alone with the responsibility for a child’s life, whether or not she was on administrative leave. Where Courtney was didn’t matter.
Where Araceli was did.
But none of this was Mama’s problem, and Courtney had no right to put this on her. While she trusted Mama to be honest with her opinion about Marc, Courtney also knew that saying no wasn’t so simple for a nurturing woman who cared about people as much as she did. Mama was already worried about Marc. Now she’d start worrying about Courtney, too.
As the seconds ticked by, undisturbed except by the bees buzzing from flower to flower and squirrels scampering overhead, Courtney convinced herself that this was the stupidest, most selfish idea she’d ever come up with. She was being totally unfair.
Mama slowly rose to her feet.
Courtney offered a hand. “I am so sorry. I know you’re worried about Marc, and the last thing I should do is give you something else to worry about. Please forget I said anything at all, and you have to promise me you won’t start worrying about me.”
Mama chuckled. Dropping sprigs of parsley into the basket, she lifted her gaze to Courtney’s, eyes alight with laughter.
“Why are you apologizing, honey?” she asked. “You’re an answer to a prayer.”
* * *
MARC WINCED AS he put his weight on his leg, the pain that screamed through him literally stealing his breath. Why had he bothered getting out of bed?
Stupid question. If he stayed in bed too long his leg would stiffen and he wouldn’t be able to walk all day.
Making his way down the stairs carefully, clumsily, he clung to the banister for support while trying not to drop his cane, his leg making each step dangerous. With his luck, he’d fall and land on his damned head, and Vince would finally convince their mother to turn the downstairs office into an invalid’s bedroom complete with hospital bed. Of course, if Marc had any real luck, the fall might kill him. He would have been okay with that, too.
By the time he made his way to the last step, he was forced to stop and give his leg a break. The house was quiet, which was a good thing because another hour and everyone and their brother would show up for dinner. He needed caffeine before he could decide whether to contend with a shower and civilized company, or be uncivilized and hide in his room.
Either one meant tackling the stairs again.
From the hallway, he saw his mother in front of the sink. She must have heard him because she turned. For a split second, her expression told him that watching him hurt. Even placing his body weight on one side didn’t do a thing to minimize the pain of the leg he nearly dragged along. Throw in the fact that he was still half-drugged, and he must look like hell.
She quickly masked her reaction with a smile. “Good morning, sunshine.” Grabbing a mug from the drain board, she headed toward the coffeepot. “We have company.”
“There’s a surprise,” he shot back, deadpan.
Moving into the kitchen, he found their guest standing over the table chopping vegetables on a cutting board.
She met his gaze with gray eyes so clear they were almost startling. Or maybe it was the onions she was chopping that made her eyes seem so bright. He could smell them from here.
“Hola, Mac’s sister.”
“Hi, Marc,” was all she said, her smile forced.
“You remember Courtney,” his mother prompted, narrowing her gaze so he knew she didn’t like his rudeness.
Courtney Gerard was more than one of his mother’s strays. Courtney had a family connection—not blood but close enough that he should have known her name.
He remembered a lot more than her name.
Courtney was Marc’s Bathsheba. The exact type of woman who managed to catch his eye whether he was interested in her or not. Everything about her was long, from her willowy body and shapely legs to the glossy hair that flowed in an inky wave down her back. He remembered her all right, and it annoyed the hell out of him every time he saw her.
Which was every time he came home.
His mother pressed a mug of coffee into his hands, and he thanked her, leaning against the archway. He wouldn’t give the ladies a show by sitting down. Not when he wasn’t staying. The stairs were looking a helluva lot better than this kitchen right now. Half draining the mug in one swallow, he savored the heat that seared his throat.
His mother arched an eyebrow but didn’t comment. She also didn’t return the coffeepot.
He held the mug out. “You’re an angel, love.”
She topped him off, and he sipped again to make more room. He had to drink his fill now because he couldn’t make it up the stairs with the mug.
“Would you like something to eat? Anthony brought doughnuts from Nicola’s before church. There are still a few left.”
“Doughnuts can’t possibly touch whatever it is you’re cooking over there. I’ll wait until dinner.”
That pleased her. All the sharp edges smoothed from her expression. All the disapproval gone as fast as it had shown up. Like a good Italian mama, feeding people always made her day.
She retrieved a colander hanging from the rack on the wall and brought it to the table, where Courtney cleared onions off the cutting board. “We’ve been chatting about Courtney’s work,” his mother said. “I’d like you to weigh in.”
Marc could smell the setup from a mile away. He could sense it before Courtney even opened her mouth, a full mouth with dusky pink lips that made him think of kissing. And sex.
This woman needed to go home.
Or he needed to get back to Colorado.
“Wish I could, but I’ve really got to shower. I’m off to a late start if you want me for dinner.”
His mother frowned, and in two quick steps, she was at the counter again, grabbing the coffeepot.
“Finish this up, so I can brew a fresh pot.” She cut him off at the pass, wedging herself between him and the doorway.
“Won’t take long, Marc. I promise.” Courtney’s voice was as crystal clear as her gaze, direct and to the point, yet still somehow smoky. Like sex. A voice that would sound good in the dark. “I’d like to get your input if you don’t mind.”
He did mind. She was suddenly twitchy, almost urgent. Then she opened that pretty mouth and launched into a sob story about missing kids and a federal investigation.
Marc wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but if he had been guessing, this train wreck of a situation wouldn’t have even made the list.
Marc was sure he’d once heard what she did for a living, because he remembered thinking she had the luxury of making herself feel good by trying to save the world. Great in theory, but he knew too many people who empowered themselves at the expense of others. He didn’t respect the motivation.
Or maybe he just didn’t like Courtney.
He damn sure didn’t like her brother or the way he had used his money to steal Anthony’s longtime girlfriend, Harley.
Or maybe Marc didn’t like how he noticed Courtney. She looked like everything he wanted, but she wasn’t anything he was interested in. He was honest enough to admit that to himself.
Whatever the reason, he had his own no-win situation to deal with right now.
“No matter how I spin it, the outlook is grim,” he said, hoping to put a swift end to this interrogation. “If this kid hasn’t surfaced in eight years, the chances of finding her alive are not good.”
“But you do think it is possible to track her down, Marc, so at least we’d know what happened to her?”
God, he shouldn’t feel anything, but that look on her face... She was desperate, and he couldn’t offer much hope. “No one vanishes into thin air, but with kids, there is the unforeseeable luck factor. Freaks and traffickers prey on them. Or some random wacko may have taken a liking to her, and she wound up a nut job’s thrill. The FBI will find your Jane Doe, just a matter of time, but no one may ever know what happened to your other girl.”
To Courtney’s credit, she took reality standing. No drama. No tears. No pleas for him to sugarcoat the truth. Just that lovely face growing brittle around the edges as she struggled to cling to a last bit of hope, no matter how unrealistic.
“Wish I had a better opinion. Good luck.” He tried to make his escape.
But by the time he’d set down the cup and gotten halfway to the door, he heard Courtney say, “Even so, Marc, I have to look. Please tell me where to start.”
The plea in her voice stopped him. “You start by figuring out when your real girl was last seen. Until you figure that out, you can’t unravel where she might have gone.”
“Okay.” Her clear gaze clung to him, so eager, but the frown forming on her smooth brow convinced him that she didn’t have any idea how to proceed.
He wasn’t surprised. “I can tell you where to look, but I can’t magically give you the instinct to know what to look for. I can’t help you. You’ll have to take my word.”
This time, he was out the door before she could stop him with another question.
CHAPTER THREE
IF MARC HAD not been starving, he would have stayed in his room until the house had emptied after dinner. Too many drugs, too many stairs and the effort of taking a shower had kicked his ass all over again.
He wasn’t in the mood for people and wanted to sleep off the drug hangover. Unfortunately, between the smells of his mother’s cooking and the noise level that told him how good the food was, he had no choice. He made a mental note to keep protein bars in his room for the duration of this visit so he could avoid family gatherings altogether.
Against his better judgment, he made his way downstairs again. The thumping of his cane must have announced his arrival because Damon said, “Guess who’s gracing us with his presence.”
Caffeine and a shower hadn’t taken the edge off. If Marc had been thinking clearly, he would have used his phone and a twenty to bribe his niece Violet into bringing a plate upstairs.
“To what do we owe this honor?” Damon asked.
There were a few laughs from around the table, but Marc ignored his brother, which was easy to do since the kitchen looked like Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday. He noticed Courtney immediately, seated beside his mother, quiet in the midst of all the noise, so beautiful. Sad, too, he decided. That was probably his fault. He should probably feel bad.
He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself when he still had to get to the counter, and make it to the table with a plate and silverware while maneuvering through the obstacle course of people crowding the food. Then he’d have to get to his seat.
The table was full. His mother was all about first come, first served, and hers was the only reserved seat—the corner closest to the stove. This was her throne to hear her tell it, so she could easily replenish serving bowls. While Marc had been growing up, that seat had been at his father’s right.
“My best girl and right-hand man,” Marc could remember his father saying. “My better half.”
Today, she was Marc’s savior. After taking one look at him, she started directing traffic.
“Scoot the twins toward Anthony,” she said. “Marc, sit next to Violet. She’ll make room.”
“Come here, Uncle Marc.” Violet patted the space on the bench beside her, a strategic corner placement so Marc would be able to stretch his leg out of everyone’s way.
By the time he dropped heavily onto the bench, food started making its way toward him. Marc turned his attention to filling his plate as the conversation resumed about the wedding. Nic was finally going to marry his high school sweetheart and the mother of his teenage daughter, Violet. This wedding was a long time in coming, and the family was thrilled.
Marc didn’t want any reminders of the upcoming nuptials, though. When he had agreed to be Nic’s best man, he had assumed accompanying his big brother to the altar wouldn’t be a problem. Now the thought of being on display to a church filled with guests annoyed him. He’d already tried to beg off, citing an inability to accomplish his best man duties, but Nic had flatly refused to accept his resignation.
Marc made quick work of dinner, glad when the conversation turned from the wedding to the Saints’ performance during preseason. Everyone had an opinion, and he listened, distracting himself from his awareness of Courtney, who ate next to nothing although she made a good show of pushing food around her plate.
He was probably responsible for her lack of appetite, too. His troublemaking mother must have thought so, because when the talk about the Saints lagged, she solicited opinions about whether or not he should help Courtney with her problem.
Marc should have seen it coming. He would have bet money Courtney hadn’t. Her expression froze along with the fork she held over the plate.
“Wait a second.” Anthony swallowed hard around a bite. “Am I hearing this right? Are you telling me Boba Fett DiLeo can’t track down a missing kid? Who is this kid—the Golden Child?”
Courtney blinked a few times, still surprised her shitty situation had become the entrée of table conversation.
Violet pulled a face. “I know Boba Fett, but who’s the Golden Child?”
“Vintage Eddie Murphy, niece girl,” Damon said. “Before you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.”
Nic scowled. Some things never changed, and he did not like reminders that he hadn’t been privy to the existence of his daughter until two years ago.
“I didn’t say can’t track down,” his mother explained matter-of-factly. “I said won’t.”
Marc should have known nothing with this family could ever be simple. Setting down his water glass, he settled back to watch the show. He would not prepare a defense. He refused to play this game.
“I don’t understand.” Anthony feigned confusion. “Why won’t you help out Courtney?”
Every gaze at the table was suddenly on Marc. As brother in the middle, Anthony was slick. He had learned long ago to maneuver between family factions. The top shelf contained the power brokers—his mother, Nic, Marc himself. More often than not, Anthony preferred to swing with them, but there were times he played devil’s advocate or peacemaker. He wielded humor and stupidity with equal skill, and usually managed to emerge from family disputes unscathed. Marc did not have the patience for his brother today. Any of them.
“I have helped. The lady asked for an opinion. I gave one.”
The lady still looked like a deer caught in headlights, but she recovered quickly, suddenly becoming very interested in the food she’d been pushing around on her plate.
“Courtney, you better hope your missing kid didn’t run away like this one—across continents.” Damon patted the top of Violet’s head, and she beamed at the mention of the antics that had led her to find the father she’d grown up without knowing.
Now she was the oldest grandchild and resident superstar, her status as shiny and new to the family made her special, and she was old enough not only to revel in her position but milk it for all it was worth.
“I’d have given Uncle Marc a run for his money,” she said saucily. “Can you say South America to Louisiana? There are lots of countries in between.”
Nic directed his scowl her way this time. “That’s because you don’t respect normal boundaries.”
“I don’t do continents,” Marc said.
“Really?” Violet wanted to know. “Why not?”
“I can’t legally bring anyone over the border,” Marc explained. “That’s half the fun of my work—luring criminals into the country, so I can catch him. Or her. There are lots of hers. None as pretty as you.”
That earned him a high-beam smile, and for a moment, Marc thought he might have redirected the conversation. No such luck.
“Then what’s up with this missing kid?” Anthony persisted. “Not in any real danger, I hope?”
All gazes swung Courtney’s way. She was caught and had no choice but to be sucked into this nonsense.
“It doesn’t look good,” she said simply. Then she made the mistake of pausing to draw breath.
His mother stepped into that breach and interjected her two cents about Marc’s refusal to help. By the time she was done, everyone was making noise about how he shouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t help track down a missing kid.
The only thing Marc could say for Courtney was that she clearly wasn’t in collusion with his family. And the frown on her pretty face suggested she didn’t much like being used as a reason to bully him. But she didn’t not like it enough to open her mouth and tell everyone to shut up. He found that disconnect between self-interest and outrage, a struggle so evident on her face, interesting for the woman who had involved his mother in the first place. Then again, Courtney had arrived early to speak with him privately. She hadn’t intended for him to be put on the spot. He gave her credit for that.
Which begged the question about why she was so solicitous. Did she feel sorry for him?
Marc shouldn’t care one way or the other. But there was something about the way she sat there, scowling at his mother, slanting horrified glances at him whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. Each time someone opened his mouth, she sank lower into her chair. She felt bad. That much Marc knew. And he didn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity, not even for the time it took to finish dinner. So he did exactly what he had refused to do—defend himself.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m with you. I don’t want to think about anything bad happening to this kid.”
“Then why won’t you help Aunt Courtney?” Violet asked.
“Because the situation isn’t so simple or else your father would be helping Aunt Courtney.” What was wrong with his family? A few dinner invitations made someone an honorary member?
Damon snorted with laughter. “I thought you were the dude who never met a skip you couldn’t track.”
“I track people who want to vanish. That’s a big difference from a little kid who all of a sudden went missing one day.”
“What if she didn’t just go missing? What if someone took her?” Anthony went the confused route this time. “Sounds like she disappeared a long time ago. How old was she, Courtney?”
“I can’t discuss details,” she said in an obvious attempt to redirect. “All I can say is the last accurate documentation we have on her was before the hurricane evacuations.”
Just mention of the hurricane brought a collective gasp and a reverent silence that lasted all of thirty seconds until Damon opened that mouth of his again.
“Can you imagine a kid in that mess?” he asked. “You know what this place was like during the hurricane.”
“No, I don’t,” Marc said. “I was based in Southern California, luring a corporate CEO from Beijing.” Trying to work in between watching news of the hurricane and attempting to contact anyone who could tell him whether or not his family had evacuated or if they’d been blown away by the storm, too.
“The place was a war zone,” Nic said. “Take my word.”
Obviously everyone did because there were a few murmurs of assent and some nodding heads.
“God, the thought of a kid unprotected in that...” Anthony’s words trailed off. Obviously becoming a parent had added newfound understanding.
“New Orleans, cher.” Damon glanced knowingly at Courtney. “Crime capital ten years straight. Kid could have met up with gangs, perverts. Hell, kid could have been trafficked.”
Courtney visibly paled until her black eyelashes stood out against skin that seemed cast in ivory.
“Sounds like someone’s police department isn’t doing their job.” Marc deflected the attention. Let someone else get rolled under the bus for a change. He didn’t even live here anymore.
“My police department is doing just fine,” Nic shot back. “No thanks to people who refuse to help. Like someone who shall remain nameless.”
“I’m not sure why you all are so determined to involve me in Courtney’s business. I gave my opinion. If this kid was trafficked, she’ll probably be dead by now.” He was the voice of reason. “Kids don’t last long under those conditions. Not when they’re turned into junkie whores.”
Anthony’s wife, Tess, dropped her silverware onto the plate with a clatter. “Gentlemen, do you mind? This is not what I call dinner conversation.” With one fluid move, she was on her feet scooping up a plate and helping her daughter from the bench. “Violet, would you give me a hand with Rocco?”
Violet popped up and grabbed plate, drink and kid before Marc’s sister-in-law had cleared the room.
Damon watched them go with a frown. “You can’t even help Courtney take a look, Marc? What else do you do all day?”
Once, Sensei Damon would have wound up on his ass for that question. That’s why he held tenth dan grades in five disciplines. An inability to control what came out of his mouth chronically had him in trouble with one or more of his brothers. He’d be dead if not for learning how to defend himself.
Now all Marc could do was motion to the leg stretched out and make excuses. “See this leg, champ? Taking about everything I have in me to get it up and running again.”
“We’re not talking ten-hour workdays here,” Anthony pointed out.
“How do you know how much work it takes to track anyone? They teach that in automotive repair school?”
That blow hit. He could see it all over Anthony’s face, and Marc was sorry about that. He liked Anthony. He really did. Out of all his brothers, Anthony was the one good-natured enough not to get on Marc’s nerves most of the time. But if Anthony, and everyone else for that matter, was determined to back him into a corner, they had better prepare for him to come out swinging.
“Can you say physical therapy?” Marc forced calm. “And when I’m not torturing my leg into submission or hobbling around with this cane, I’m supposed to be healing. Don’t any of you listen to Vince?” Time to roll the family doctor under the bus. Helping should be his choice, and he resented otherwise.
But resentment didn’t cloud his vision, and he clearly saw his mother elbow Courtney under the table. The move was merely a nudge, intentionally meant to go unnoticed. But Marc noticed everything. Attention to detail was his gift, exactly what made him such a good hunter.
He watched the play of emotions across Courtney’s face, waited to see how she would respond. She met his gaze across the distance, tried to look calm and collected when her discomfort was leaking around the edges in a big way. “Is it possible to explain how I should proceed, Marc? Point me in the right direction, so I know what I’m looking for.”
Is it possible?
Looked like Anthony wasn’t the only diplomat at the table. Courtney gave Marc an out even though she walked a tightrope among loyalty to his mother, desperation to track down her missing kid and looking herself in the mirror. She handled the pressure fairly well, considering she had already asked him this question.
When he replied, he addressed the whole table. “Frankly, I’m disturbed by the way all of you are trying to muscle Courtney and me into doing what you want. I shouldn’t have to defend my decision. I’m the one who would be doing the work, and since not a one of you knows what tracking someone involves, I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what I should be doing. And you definitely shouldn’t be manipulating Courtney.”
His mother scowled, but Marc’s rant had the desired effect—for all of ten seconds the entire kitchen went silent. Then, in that moment of breathless pause, the security alarmed beeped when the front door opened.
“Uncle Vince,” Violet squealed from the living room.
There was a muffled reply and laughter before footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Everyone was still staring at Marc when Vince appeared in the doorway, looking like a younger male version of everyone else around the table, only dressed as if he’d come straight from making rounds at the hospital in his jacket and tie.
“Hey, everyone.” He waved, oblivious to the scene he’d stepped into. “Hope you saved some food for me. I’m starving.”
His mother was already on her feet, closing the distance and giving her youngest son a hug. “You’ll never starve in your mama’s kitchen, cutie.”
Vince smiled dutifully when she pinched his cheek.
“Come on, let’s get you a plate.” She was already on her way to the counter. “Courtney, will you please make some room on the table? That’s right. Scoot the salad bowl back. Vince will fit next to you now that Marc has run off Tess.”
“Will do.” Courtney looked grateful to get out from beneath the spotlight.
His mother piled a plate with everything from the counter, then headed back to the table. “Come on and eat, Vince. You’ll need energy to talk some sense into your brother.”
Vince shrugged off his jacket and wedged in between Courtney and Anthony. “Which brother?”
“Marc.” There was a “Who else?” in there.
Marc could see where this was headed. He steadied himself on the table while maneuvering his leg.
His mother kicked off the debate as Marc tried to make his getaway. “Courtney needs help locating a missing child,” she said. “But Marc won’t help her because he says he should be healing, not working. As his doctor, what do you say?”
Vince technically wasn’t Marc’s doctor. Not that he hadn’t been dispensing medical advice since the accident. He had overseen every course of action, handled the medical decisions when Marc hadn’t been coherent enough to understand his choices and make decisions. Now Vince spooned grated cheese over his pasta and played Monkey in the Middle.
He could go either way on this. He was even-tempered and comfortable in his role as family baby. He wasn’t a pain in the ass like Damon or a bully like Nic or a backstabber like Anthony. He was a mama’s boy by default, and that would count. But it also counted that Marc had spent the past decade helping to finance that expensive medical education, keeping a roof above Vince’s head, a car under his ass and making the loan payments that couldn’t be deferred.
Vince must have been thinking the same thing. “Without you I would have never made it through school, so you’ll get perks as long as you want them because I appreciate everything you’ve done. Helping Courtney is just what the doctor orders.”
“Keep your perks to yourself, doc.” Marc shoved up from the table, leaning heavily on the cane. He was done.
Vince frowned. Their mother hovered behind him, patting his shoulder consolingly. She cut Damon dead with a sharp, “You better think twice before you open that mouth.”
Damon’s mouth snapped shut before he uttered a word, taking their mother’s advice for once.
This damned family. Marc was done with being at their mercy.
Levering his weight onto his cane, he stood. For one shining moment, he felt some semblance of control, empowered almost, as he stared down at everyone seated before him, waiting expectantly for his next move.
“Courtney,” he said, and met her surprised gaze. “You’ll provide a place to work and transportation.”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded.
“And pay my premium?”
She didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Marc wasn’t surprised. She came from money. Otherwise she would wait for the FBI like most law-abiding citizens. He chased people like her—the ones with enough money to think rules didn’t apply to them. They broke laws, and if they were stupid enough to get caught, they had the means to try to escape paying the price.
Those were the skips he brought to justice.
This case would be different, but given his present circumstances...
Marc motioned to the door. “Then you’re on. Let’s go.”
He began his trek across the kitchen. He headed down the hallway and didn’t stop until he got to the front door. He didn’t need anything. Not his wallet. Not money. Not a damned house key.
The spare was kept under the porch swing if he needed to get in when his mother wasn’t home. Courtney could drive him if he did. His cell phone and painkillers were in his pocket.
All he needed was out of this house.
* * *
“GO, GO, GO!” Mama said urgently under her breath.
Courtney stood and reached for her plate, unsure. “That was coercion. You all were merciless.”
“Just another day in the DiLeo house.” Vince shrugged and dug his fork into the pasta.
“Better hurry or Gimpy might get away.” Anthony gestured that she follow.
“Leave the plate,” Mama commanded. “Go.”
So Courtney could face the resentful man who’d been bullied into helping her? Why had this seemed like a good idea again?
Hurrying from the kitchen, she saw the door wide open and Marc making his way across the yard. From behind, he could have been any one of his brothers, any one of the broad-shouldered, tawny-haired Italian boys with the big laughs and bear-hug welcomes.
Except for the cane. And the attitude. And the fact that she actually liked all the other DiLeo brothers.
Marc must have heard her approach because he said, “Can you get to your car?”
“I’m parked on the street.”
“The Mini Cooper, right?” His tone made it clear he wouldn’t have expected anything else.
She quickly realized he would have trouble getting in and out of her small vehicle with a leg that didn’t bend easily. Covering the distance between them, she set her hand on his arm to stop him.
They needed to clear things up here and now.
“Marc,” she began, but when he glanced at her, the whiskey eyes all the DiLeo boys had inherited from their mother belonged to a stranger.
How had she not realized he was even taller than Anthony? She had misjudged the distance because suddenly she was too close, had to tip her head back to meet his stormy gaze.
The impulse to retreat a step hit hard, but Courtney stood her ground. “Listen, that didn’t go the way I expected in there. You don’t have to help me. Not unless you’re willing.”
“You don’t want to pay me?” he asked in that dark voice, throaty yet somehow smooth like molasses.
“No, that’s not it. It’s not the money.”
Something flickered deep in his gaze. She might not know this man well, but she knew his brothers. Every one quick-witted and a bit of a ballbreaker in his own way. Marc was making her uncomfortable and didn’t mind.
What was it about this man, the one and only DiLeo she didn’t absolutely adore?
“I don’t understand why you need to be rude, Marc. I know your family coerced you. I was there, remember? And if you remember correctly, I wanted your opinion. I never asked you to do anything.”
“I don’t come cheap.”
“It has nothing to do with your fee.”
“Your call, then. Pay me for my time and provide chauffeur services to everywhere I need to go, or let me get back to my busy day.”
The everywhere I need to go made red flags fly. Did he mean everywhere he needed to go to discover what had happened to Araceli or did he mean everywhere everywhere he needed to go?
Courtney didn’t ask. Ironically, she probably had less to do with her days than he did. And the only thing she cared about was finding Araceli.
“Getting you where you need to go is no problem,” she said. “I’ll make arrangements for a different vehicle if we need to do a lot of running around.”
“We’ll need to do a lot of running around.”
“No problem.” He was only trying to provoke her. She knew it, but she didn’t want him to think he could push her around. As she faced Marc’s somber expression, she suddenly felt as if her very life depended on standing up to this man.
So she stood there, gaze unwavering, though the effort cost. Her chest grew tight, making her breaths come in shallow bursts, but she refused to look away, refused to blink, even though her neck felt as if it might snap from keeping her head tilted.
“We’re good then.” He was the first to break. “You’ve hired yourself a bounty hunter. For what that’s worth nowadays.”
That said a lot about why Marc had resisted.
“Thank you.” She meant it.
He leaned heavily on his cane and repositioned himself in the springy grass, and Courtney suspected she hadn’t won that little battle of wills at all. Marc had probably only needed to move his injured leg so he didn’t topple over.
His physical limitations were all too evident as he made his way to the car and braced himself with a hand on the door frame to lower himself into the passenger seat. She held the door, watched the muscles bulge in his arm. His jaw tensed as if he fought the pain of bending his knee to wedge his big body into the compact compartment.
She opened her mouth to tell him to use the seat release, but he was already there. The seat jumped back with a metallic spring, and his expression eased.
She didn’t know what to say, so she circled the car, leaving him to pull the door shut himself. She had only meant to consult with this man, to be advised about how to proceed. Now she had her very own bounty hunter, broken though he was, and she had no clue about what came next.
He sat so close, his elbow propped on her console, his hand draped casually on a knee. Somehow he managed to fill up her spacious-for-a-compact-car interior, and she wasn’t sure what to say or do.
Drive...that much was a given.
Cranking the car, she slipped the shift into gear, feeling flustered and off-kilter. Driving away from the curb, Courtney was determined to find her center and regain control. “So what kind of place do you need to work? Let’s start there.”
“Standard office setup. Wi-Fi. Printer. Fax.”
Okay, great. “One office coming up.”
He didn’t reply, just stared ahead, so she drove along in silence, remembering what Mama had said about being an answer to a prayer. What had Mama wished for this son?
Courtney didn’t have a clue. Up until Marc’s protracted visit after his accident, she had seen him only a handful of times through the years. He was quiet, intense, brooding almost, and suddenly seemed to suck up more than his share of air.
CHAPTER FOUR
“HERE IT IS—Beatriz Ortero.” The librarian used the name I had gone by for years now. “I’ve been waiting for you to come in. I wanted to ask about your tutor. She hasn’t been in with you for a while.”
“Her schedule is nuts.” I didn’t sound too sure, even though I had known this question would come up sometime.
Not that I expected some random librarian to notice Debbie was gone. One of the neighbors maybe. Definitely one of the ladies at church if I had ever seen one. But I hadn’t run into any yet—thank God—and I hadn’t been back to our church since Debbie had gotten too sick to make it to services.
“She has conflict with an after-school program, so she makes me work online.” I sounded more certain this time, more casual. “She doesn’t want me to lose the habit of making a time and place to study. She calls it practicing for college.”
Had called it, anyway.
But the librarian was not interested, which made me wonder why she had noticed in the first place. Her gaze darted to the window as some kids passed the glass wall that separated this librarian from the others.
The queen on her throne.
No, that didn’t fit. This librarian in her bland-colored pants with her disapproving expression wasn’t regal as far as I was concerned. She was annoyed. That much I knew. Probably because the security guard hadn’t noticed the kids. He was too busy puffing up his chest at the pretty page who shelved books.
She finally turned back to me. “Will you please let your tutor know the paperwork needs to be renewed if you want to keep using the tutoring room?”
“Does she need to come in or do you want me to bring her the paperwork? She still has a few weeks left of the program.”
The librarian didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned over and searched through a desk drawer.
So I stood there and didn’t say anything, even when she glanced up as that same group of kids got noisy, jockeying to get through the teen room door.
The security guard still didn’t notice. When the librarian looked in his direction, her expression pinched, her angular features converging at an imaginary point in front of her face.
If I were to sketch her, I’d exaggerate her pointy features and add whiskers, turning her into the rat queen. Of course, she probably wouldn’t find anything to laugh about. But I would. And I had not had much laughter in me lately, so one smile might be worth getting stiffed a tip.
The image in my head smoothed away some of the worry. I just hoped this unhappy woman wouldn’t take out her unhappiness on me since I was around the same age as the noisy kids.
She withdrew the papers and handed them over. I smiled and said, “Thank you,” very politely, hoping to prove myself different than everyone else my age.
If I lost this tutoring room, I couldn’t get another. Not without an adult. I didn’t need a quiet place to study—my whole life was quiet without Debbie—but I would have trouble when I needed to present for one of my online classes. I needed some place to videotape, and I couldn’t invite anyone home. That would be breaking our most important rule.
Never ever let anyone know where we live.
Debbie had made me swear before she died never to break that rule. Not until I was eighteen. Not until I could make my own decisions, so I didn’t get caught in the legal system again.
Debbie trusted me to care for myself far more than she did the government, and had done everything possible to set up life so it would continue without her. She had bought four boxes of checks and had signed every single one so I could pay the rent and utility bill on time. She had set up auto-deposit on her trust fund, so it would continue to deposit monthly payments until someone figured out she had died.
“It’s not a lot,” she had said, “but it will be enough to cover the rent and that’s something.”
As always, Debbie had delivered even the most dismal news with a smile and jingly laughter. An angel. That’s how I always sketched her. With wings and a halo. My angel.
The memory made me ache. Even after all these months, the pain was still so big it stole my breath.
Most days I pretended Debbie was out on a church errand or running to the bank whenever her old uncle would surprise her with a check. Or that she’d been tired from the chemotherapy and had gone to bed before me. But little things, like this paper that needed a signature, got me every time. So I stood there waiting for the rat queen to find her keys, with my chest so tight I ached.
“Here we are.” She stood and led me from around her glass castle with quick steps.
The security guard straightened up as she passed, puffing his chest some more so the shiny buttons on his uniform glinted importantly, but the kids behind the windows of the teen room didn’t notice her. There was more laughter, still too loud, but she didn’t slow down until we reached the tutoring room.
After unlocking the door, she flipped on the light. I thanked her and unloaded my backpack. I only had the tutoring room for one hour and my presentation would take forty minutes. Every minute under, and I would be docked five points off my overall grade. My GPA was my most valuable asset, second only to my talent, so I wasn’t about to screw it up without good reason. I would never get scholarships otherwise. And I would need lots of scholarships to pay for the Art Institute of Chicago.
Setting the dry-erase markers on the whiteboard, I checked the time.
4:06.
The paperwork and key search had chewed into my hour. Sometimes the librarians would let me run over time if the room wasn’t booked. Not the rat queen. She would be waiting outside the door and counting the seconds until my hour was up.
Slipping out the door again, I walked around the back of the audiobook section to the quiet study room, hoping to avoid notice. This is where the smart kids were, the ones with more to do than check their social media. The only thing we all had in common was that we couldn’t afford our own technology. I had a tutoring room, so the rat queen should have known what kind of person I was.
A person with a plan.
A plan that was in big trouble when I looked around the quiet study room.
“Where’s Peter?” I hissed beneath my breath, careful not to disturb the adults who were seated at the various study carrels.
The last thing I needed was more trouble.
“Don’t know,” Faffi whispered from her seat nearest the printer. Beside her, Sylvia shrugged.
Faffi was another person with a plan. I called her the screaming liberal. She had political aspirations and already served as an intern on a local councilman’s campaign. She would love my presentation about immigration policies today. I argued both sides, but personally leaned left.
“Was he at school today?” I asked.
“I didn’t see him.” Sylvia’s plan wasn’t as specific as mine or Faffi’s, but it didn’t have to be. She wanted to be a doctor, which meant she had to rock her International Baccalaureate program to get scholarships to a good university. She was another one who would need lots and lots of scholarships to pay for school. Good thing she was brilliant.
“Are you talking about that kid on the skateboard?” Rohan tugged an earbud from his ear.
“Yeah, the one with the hair like that gay guy from American Idol.”
Rohan laughed, loud enough to make me glance around to see if we were annoying the room’s other occupants. Adults in a library liked nothing better than to narc on kids who weren’t obeying the quiet rule. Rohan didn’t seem to care. Maybe he didn’t have to because he had such a cool name. Who knew they watched The Lord of the Rings in Bangladesh? “I saw him on the public bus this morning, but he wasn’t at first lunch.”
“I didn’t see him, either,” Faffi told me.
I sighed. Nothing was ever going to be easy, was it? I had to record four people, so the virtual teacher knew I’d actually presented to an audience. Peter had agreed to sit in so long as I paid him in cigarettes.
Would the rat queen sit in if I offered her the three packs of Camels in my backpack? I’d bet money the security guard would. If I had any money to bet. I didn’t because I’d already spent what I had on three packs of Camels. Not to mention the time I’d wasted finding a convenience store to sell them to me without identification because I was underage.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll figure out something.”
I glanced at the clock on the way out. Six whole minutes to come up with a plan. Great. I got everyone quietly inside the tutoring room. Then I saw him.
He walked past the window, looking as noticeable as he had the first time I’d noticed him. Which was sort of strange really, since there wasn’t anything that noticeable about him.
Except for the guitar slung over his back, he might have been any student from the high school. A senior, definitely. I wasn’t surprised to find him here since we were only a few blocks away from where I’d first seen him.
He had been playing on the street corner across from the Western wear store where I usually set up my pitch. The lady who owned the store liked me. I was quiet compared to all the street musicians who played in the District, and I always chalked a brilliant design on her sidewalk space that made tourists slow down long enough to notice her store.
Whenever tourists sat for a caricature, they stared at her window displays. I always threw a cowboy hat or some boots and fringe into my sketches to get folks in the country mood.
We were a match made in heaven.
Maybe this guitar guy went to school, maybe not. But I remembered him. And his music. Not the usual country that every musician in town played. He stuck out in the streets the way I did with my art.
No, this guy’s music was more varied, some folksy, some rock, some alternative. Definitely original. He had a raspy voice that managed to be smooth and clear. I liked listening to him. Yeah, that was why I had noticed him.
I didn’t have time to think, so I acted.
He sidestepped the opening door with a quick move and a steadying hand on his guitar.
“Excuse me.” For some reason, I sounded breathless, as if I had run to catch him.
He turned and stared down at me with eyes as dark as his hair. There was something Hispanic in him. No question.
Those dark eyes got curious, and I realized he was waiting for me to say something.
“Do you have forty minutes I could borrow?” I blurted. “Like right now.”
A grin appeared as he stared at me, visibly deciding what to make of my random proposition.
“I have to tape a presentation for my online class, and I need four in my audience. Had a no-show.”
I hadn’t realized how cute he was, but it was impossible to ignore up close. He had these crazy high cheekbones and caramel skin. He was buff, too. The muscles in his thighs stretched his jeans like he was one of those cross-country runners who trained around the neighborhood.
“I’ll pay you ten bucks.” Same thing I paid everyone else. Except Faffi, who extracted payment whenever she needed me to do something for her. A budding politician. I would vote for her. “Or three packs of Camels.”
That grin turned into a full-out smile. He had a dimple. “I’ll take the Camels.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MARC HAD BEEN enjoying his escape for the first ten minutes of the ride. Courtney didn’t know what to make of him, had no clue what she’d signed on for. But she put on a good show. He respected that. Maybe because he sensed how uncertain she was, bouncing back and forth between appreciating his presence in her car but being worried about the way he’d gotten here.
Even he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t exactly been accommodating, and his guess was she considered him the family wild card. Anthony would never have given her a hard time.
But any enjoyment Marc felt about escaping the prison his life had become ended when Courtney steered her overpriced toy car out of his neighborhood and headed into hers. He shouldn’t be surprised that manicured lawns stretched back from the streets or that chain-link and weather-battered wooden fences yielded to expensive brickwork and ornate iron gates.
By the time she wheeled off a side street and pulled into a driveway, Marc remembered why he hadn’t thought much of this woman’s family. The Garden District mansion in front of him, all pitched eaves and wraparound gallery, looked like a house kids might tour on school field-trip day.
“So this is home.” Not a question, but a stupid comment he should have kept to himself. The irony of all the stairs must be wearing on his impulse control. Stairs leading to the front porch. Stairs inside leading to one, two, three floors. Unless that top floor was an attic? He could hope.
Courtney nodded, silky hair threading over her shoulders with the gesture, drawing his gaze once again to her slender neck and the delicate curve of her jaw. “Well, half of this is home anyway. House was split into two residences.”
“So you rent?” Okay, he wasn’t really interested, but his lack of impulse control had started this conversation. Couldn’t blame her for that.
“No, I own my side. Like a co-op.”
Mortgage on half a place this size must be a small fortune that she surely couldn’t be swinging on her social worker’s salary. He knew what real estate went for in New Orleans because Nic had been hunting for a place to move his family into after the wedding. Especially in this part of town. Cheaper to pay a mortgage in this economy, which was why Marc owned two properties himself.
“Who owns the other half?”
“Admiral Patton and his wife.”
No response was necessary, which was good since Marc didn’t have much to say. Not anything that would be considered a constructive start to their working relationship.
And he was here to work. Period.
He needed to remember that, because everything about Courtney distracted him, from the hair she wore loose to the feminine way she moved. The only thing that grounded him was her mouth. Every time she opened it, he remembered who she was.
He’d known the Gerard family had money. The name was attached to some heavy hitters, and he’d heard of them all while growing up in New Orleans, names belonging to the longtime district attorney, some politicians and other visible city power brokers. Civil service seemed to run in the family like a luxury most people couldn’t afford.
Courtney eased up on the brake, coasting the short distance to the garage, where she came to another stop. Slipping out the driver’s side, she stood watching him put on a show as he pulled himself out of the car. She made a few false starts, as if she wanted to offer help but had decided against it.
A good call on her part.
When the cane clattered to the driveway, she snatched it up and offered it to him, seemed relieved to do something to dodge the tense silence. His frustration and her guilt for subjecting him to her toy car weren’t a pretty combination. He didn’t feel inclined to reassure her by cracking a joke or making excuses for the pitiful display he made.
Once he was solidly on his feet, Marc met her frowning gaze, felt every inch as broken as he was.
“I have an idea,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she presented a show of her own, only she stole his breath as she ran lightly across the grass and up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. She unlocked the door, and the beeping of a security alarm startled the afternoon quiet.
Marc stood, propped on his cane, willing his pulse to slow. His heart throbbed so hard he could hear it. Unless that was just a trick of the quiet. He guessed this part of town was usually pretty calm. Maybe not along Rue St. Charles, but a few blocks back, where this place was. Another world, sheltered from the shrieks of sirens that riddled other neighborhoods. Or the exhaust-filled traffic that marked the business district and the French Quarter at all hours.
The beeping stopped and Courtney reappeared, resuming her attractive display with her fast, graceful movements and breathless smile. She dangled a key ring as she approached. “Your office.”
She surprised Marc by leading him along a flagstone path toward the rear of the property. He hadn’t paid attention to the building partially concealed in the shelter of trees. Had thought it was another detached garage at first. But on closer inspection, he realized it was too small to be a kitchen or the old slave quarters. Only one floor and no stairs.
“A guesthouse?” he asked.
“A cottage.” Courtney preceded him to the door. “It’s small. And no one has used it since a friend needed a place to stay through a divorce. We’ll need to air it out.”
“Your place or the admiral’s?”
“Mine.” She fitted the key into the lock while he clambered onto the porch. Thrusting the door wide, she grimaced. “I need to remember to open this place up occasionally.”
She stepped inside, then held the door for him.
“A house and a cottage? A lot of room around here for one person.”
“Wasn’t meant for just one.” She gave a shrug that was probably meant to be casual but didn’t manage the job.
Unless he missed his guess, there was a lot more to that statement. A relationship gone south? There was enough room around here for a few families. Did a woman who made a career of micromanaging other people’s kids even want a family? He didn’t have a clue about Courtney’s personal life, but Marc knew one thing—she had a story. His family probably knew every detail.
Courtney obviously didn’t want to discuss her personal life and sailed into the living room, saying, “Fortunately, the place never gets too hot because of all the shade.”
She took off again, heading straight to the windows that cornered two walls, and thrust aside long white sheers to reveal paned glass that overlooked the well-tended foliage and the back wall of the property.
Marc followed her only far enough to survey the place. Leaning against the wall, he appreciated this unexpected good fortune. No stairs. Not one.
She was right about the size. There was a living room, eat-in kitchen and two doors that most likely led to a bedroom and a bathroom. Under a thousand square feet by his estimation, but the open floor plan and floor-to-ceiling windows gave it a bigger feel. The living room was large enough to accommodate a furniture grouping around a television and an area with a corner desk that served as an office.
“Wi-Fi?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” She struggled with a stubborn window.
He didn’t offer to help. Once he might have saved a damsel in distress. Now all he could do was observe, appreciating the sight she presented, her efforts to budge a stubborn window drawing the blouse tight across her back. And he did enjoy the sight she made with her arms outstretched, the curve of her waist visible beneath the cascade of dark hair.
The drug hangover must have finally worn off because to Marc’s utter amazement, he felt a familiar throb as if his body wanted to prove that the rest of him wasn’t as damaged as his leg.
This particular urge hadn’t made an appearance since before the accident. He’d be an idiot to put too much stock in anything right now, but the simple fact that his reactions were still there reassured him.
“Jeez,” Courtney said as the window shot open, throwing her off balance in the process. The sheers fluttered and she righted herself with a steadying hand on the frame. “Needs oil or something. I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
Then she vanished into the bedroom.
Marc didn’t follow, didn’t want to risk connecting the sight of Courtney with a bed, so he hobbled over to the desk instead.
Modem. Laser printer. Fax-copier-scanner combo.
None of the equipment appeared to have seen much wear, but that didn’t surprise him. Why wouldn’t she outfit the office in a place she didn’t even open up for air? There was no computer, but that wasn’t a problem. If he’d been thinking when he’d left his mother’s, he would have brought his laptop.
He hadn’t been thinking about anything but getting the hell out before he killed someone. Starting with his mother.
Courtney reappeared. “How will this place work for you? I mean, after it airs out, of course.”
She’d only brought him here because he had made such a pathetic sight getting out of her car. But Marc wasn’t going to dwell on that. Nor would he look a gift horse in the mouth. “This place is good. I work better without distractions.”
“No distractions here. The admiral works around the yard, but he doesn’t usually come back here. I think he got out of the habit after selling the cottage to Harley.”
Just then a few pieces of a puzzle clicked into place. “This was Harley’s old house?”
“I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
“I knew about her house, just not that you’d bought it.”
Harley was the connection between his family and Courtney’s. His mother would have adopted Harley long ago if the State of Louisiana would have allowed it. They hadn’t, so Harley had contented herself with being an honorary family member, solidifying her place during years as Anthony’s girlfriend.
Until Mac Gerard had come on the scene with all his money. Now Harley brought her husband’s family home for Sunday dinner, too. Anthony didn’t seem to mind. Marc couldn’t begin to explain the situation, didn’t care enough to try.
But anyone who had known Harley had known when she purchased this place—her first home. And from that moment on, Marc’s visits had been punctuated with stories about whatever work she’d been doing. Any time he had asked, “How have you been, Harley?” he never heard about college achievements or career successes, but her accomplishments around this house.
“I sanded the floors to the grain before refinishing them,” she had told him proudly. “They gleam like new.
“I tackled plaster last month. Repaired the damage from some old broken pipe, and now I’m texturing the walls. By the time I’m through, no one will know there’d ever been a leak.”
Marc glanced around the room, at the bright white, finely textured walls, at the planked floor with the rich pine finish beneath the gleam of polyurethane. Both jobs done with care and attention to detail.
If anyone had deserved a home, that anyone had been Harley. She had grown up on the wrong side of Courtney’s business—foster care. But if Harley had owned this place, then Marc knew Courtney must have purchased her portion of the property from her brother after Harley had married him.
He supposed that shouldn’t surprise him, either.
“Oh, I forgot,” Courtney said. “Let me run up to my house. Be right back.”
She didn’t give him a chance to reply, just spun around and took off again, leaving the door open behind her. The sound of her footsteps on the flagstones faded, and Marc took the opportunity to scope out the rest of the place.
The kitchen chewed up a lot of square footage, but as he ran a hand long the smooth finish of the wooden cabinets with their scrolled pewter handles, he could remember Harley talking about the months of work it had taken her to dismantle the cabinetry and refinish the wood. She’d lived without hinges and handles until she’d had the money to purchase the hardware so everything would match.
Such attention to detail because she had cared so much.
There were three large windows in the kitchen overlooking what appeared to be another walled edge of the property. Hard to tell with all the foliage. There were a lot of windows for such a tiny place, and he didn’t have any problem imagining why the Harley he had known had been so in love with her home. Secluded. Airy. Traditional. Right up her alley.
Of course Marc had known the Harley who had been Anthony’s longtime girlfriend. Not the Harley who had left his brother to marry Courtney’s brother. That Harley was a stranger.
Hurried footsteps through the open door brought Marc around in time to see Courtney reappear, the shallow breathing and high color in her cheeks as if she’d run the whole way.
Covering the distance to the kitchen, she set a thick file folder on the table. “Lots of reading here.”
Marc edged closer and flipped open the cover to riffle through the contents.
Reports. Court documents. Profile pages. Correspondence.
“How did you get all this?” he asked.
“It’s the case file from work.”
Normal rules just didn’t apply to any of the Gerard family. Marc should have seen that coming. Courtney wasn’t playing games. She had already made that clear. But this confidential file shouldn’t be anywhere but in her former office, particularly during an ongoing FBI investigation.
She seemed to think she could do whatever she wanted to get what she wanted. Marc knew the type. He wondered if Courtney had a clue that he didn’t think much of the way she operated. Or her family. She probably wouldn’t care. She’d tell him to keep his opinions to himself and write him a check.
“So how do you want to do this?” she asked. “I’ll swap my car before I need to take you home, so any idea when you’re going to want to leave?”
Marc smiled then, a real smile he didn’t have to force for someone else’s benefit. No, this smile just happened, a memory from days when he’d actually had something to smile about.
He didn’t want the complication of Courtney Gerard in his life right now, and he certainly didn’t need the complication of his attraction to her. He didn’t like who she was or what she stood for. But compliments of his nuisance family, she was his to deal with for the time being.
So he would make the situation work for him.
Folding his arms across his chest, he stared at her and said, “I won’t be leaving until we track down your kid. So why don’t you swing by my mother’s place while you’re out and grab my things?”
* * *
COURTNEY STARED AT MARC and blinked stupidly. He was waiting for her reaction. That much she knew.
But she didn’t have one. Not yet, anyway.
In that moment, she couldn’t decide what surprised her more —Marc’s declaration to become her guest or the purely physical sensation that dropped the bottom out of her stomach.
Because she stood close to Marc DiLeo?
Courtney knew this feeling, though she hadn’t experienced the sensation in a very, very long time.
But...Marc DiLeo?
She couldn’t begin to explain why she was suddenly so aware of everything about him. Everything. From the way he propped strong hands on the handle of his cane to the defiance radiating off him like summer heat. No denying he was an attractive man. That in itself was a DiLeo thing. Despite the scowl.
Was Courtney suddenly so aware of him because they were alone? Now that she thought about it, she’d never actually been alone with him until he’d finagled his way into her car today.
“Okay...well, okay,” she said.
If Marc wanted to stay, there was no reason he couldn’t. She didn’t use this place, and more of his attention would be given to finding Araceli if he was away from family distractions. That worked for her.
“I’ll need my things.” His expression was inscrutable, just intense eyes and that hint of defiance.
Did he really expect her to deny him?
“We can swing by your mom’s.”
“You go. Tell her to throw my stuff in my suitcase. There’s only one. Bring that and my laptop case.”
He should probably tell his own mother to pack his things, but his defiance was instigating hers. She needed his help. If he wanted to stay in her empty guest cottage and bum rides, then her guest cottage wouldn’t be empty anymore. No problem.
But she wouldn’t run interference for Mama, who had bullied Marc in the first place. Mama had pushed the issue, and she deserved what she got. If Marc decided to temporarily move out, then Courtney wasn’t about to feel bad.
“Sounds like you travel light,” she said. “I’ll go now then. Will you look through the file while I’m gone? We can work out the details of our arrangement when I get back.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
She slipped the cottage key from her pocket and handed it to him. “Make yourself at home.”
Then she headed to the door, so very aware of each step, the measured length of her strides, the whisper of her shoes on the floor, the way her hands dangled at her sides as if she was suddenly unsure what to do with them. As if his dark gaze followed her every step. When she finally pulled the door shut, she inhaled deeply, apparently her first real breath in a while because she felt light-headed.
What was wrong with her?
She had way more important things to deal with than physical awareness of a man who was an idiot. Taking another deep breath, she walked briskly to her car. Anxiety must be getting the better of her or else her emotions wouldn’t be all over the place.
Marc DiLeo? No way.
But even Courtney’s dismissal of her haywire reactions didn’t stop her from obsessing.
She bypassed Mama’s house. Instead, she drove onto the expressway and headed out of metro New Orleans for her brother’s house. She needed some time to wrestle her racing thoughts under control so she could effectively deal with Mama the bully.
By the time the security guard logged her tag number at her brother’s subdivision, Courtney was grateful for every mile she had put between her and the man she’d left in the cottage. Mac and Harley’s place bordered a conservation lot, and winding through the subdivision felt like driving into another world. The streets were shaded with old cypresses and oaks. The homes were set far back from the street.
Pulling into the driveway, she parked and peeked inside the garage to see if her brother’s car was there. It wasn’t, so she used her key to let herself in, calling out, “Harley, it’s me. Do not get up.”
There was no reply, so Courtney took the stairs two at a time and found her sister-in-law scowling when she walked into the bedroom.
Harley was such a beautiful woman, exquisitely feminine with big blue eyes and a cloud of red hair. She sat propped up with pillows, fully dressed in a comfy-looking shorts ensemble and strappy sandals.
“You look like you’re going somewhere.”
“I am,” Harley said. “Insane. Just a heads-up.”
“No worries. I can take you.” A first since Harley had been Damon’s protégé at martial arts from the time they’d been kids. She must surely have a black belt or two by now.
Harley narrowed her gaze and folded her arms. “Just kick me when I’m down, why don’t you?”
“I would never.”
“Why are you here? I know you didn’t come to visit, because Mac wouldn’t have left had he known you were on the way.”
“Where is everyone? It’s Sunday. Am I missing some performance I wasn’t made aware of?”
“Mac and Toni are with your parents,” Harley said. “Your dad is taking everyone out for dinner. Except me.”
“I’m sure they’d have gotten takeout and picnicked with you, though. They’re just looking for things to do that get Grandpa out of the house.”
“No picnics. Dinner out works for all of us. I can’t cook, and they’ve been hovering, trying to cheer me up. I’m so grumpy even I feel bad.”
“Humph.” Courtney sank onto the bed, careful not to jar the pregnant lady and the new little niece or nephew. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t go to dinner, too. I went to Mama’s instead.”
Of course Courtney had declined her parents’ dinner invitation specifically because she didn’t want to get into the details about why she was on leave.
“Mama mentioned that you’d been there today.”
“That was fast.” Not a surprise, as Mama and Harley were mother and daughter in so many ways. “Did you hear that Mama bullied Marc into helping me sort out my little work problem?”
Harley narrowed a no-nonsense gaze. “What I heard was that your work problem wasn’t as little as you said it was. Mama was tripping over herself to tell me what was going on without actually telling me what was going on. That was my first clue I might not have all the information.”
Courtney attempted nonchalance. “I wanted to pick Marc’s brain. I wasn’t sure if I should, given his convalescence, so I went to Mama first.”
Involving Marc even in a peripheral way would get back to Harley, so Courtney had known to have an explanation ready. Of course, her explanation didn’t fit so neatly now that the situation had taken an unexpected turn, and she was here for the explicit purpose of swapping cars to chauffeur Marc.
Harley arched a delicate eyebrow as if silently chiding, Is that really the best you can do?
This day was turning out to be a mixed bag in so many ways. Courtney’s only defense would be an offense, so she launched into one, explaining what she’d told Mama earlier without as many details.
Harley was positively scowling by the time Courtney finished. “There are children missing, an FBI investigation and you’re on administrative leave. Did I get that right?”
Courtney nodded.
“I get why you didn’t involve Nic, but why wouldn’t you be up-front with your brother and me? We have some experience with this sort of thing, you know. Just a little.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.” Which was a joke, since Harley could wield sarcasm without even opening her mouth. “From where I’m standing, you and my brother have your hands full. Mom and Dad have their hands full with Grandpa, too. I’m trying to help everyone, not give you all more to worry about. Why on earth would I burden you?”
“Because you care about me enough to give me something to do while I’m languishing in this bed going insane.”
“You’re not languishing. You’re baking my new little niece or nephew, keeping the oven all nice and toasty so she or he rises like a perfect little biscuit.”
Harley practically growled, which forced Courtney to bite back a smile. Smiling would have been a mistake right now.
“Harley, there’s a reason my brother isn’t giving you work.” Courtney gave her mouth something less offensive to do than grin. “Or your boss. Or me. My brother is worrying about his family right now, which is exactly what he should be doing. If I had wanted to add more to his plate or yours, I would have told you. I didn’t. I’ve got things under control, so enjoy your vacation. Once our newest Gerard gets here, you’ll be wishing you rested. You’re not as young as you were when you had Toni.”
Harley rested her head against the pillows with a sigh and stared at the ceiling.
Okay, maybe she was languishing.
Courtney was about to concede the point when Harley said, “I could advise you to do the same thing. Why are you taking on the FBI? Go home, take up knitting and let them do their job. But I know you won’t listen, so do one thing for me since wondering and worrying won’t be good for me or the baby. Or your brother for that matter, since he’s the one trying to do everything because I’m down.”
“What?”
Harley sat up again, leveled that bright gaze Courtney’s way. “Be honest with us from now on. I seriously can’t sit here with the seconds ticking by like years and not worry if I think you’re hiding things. I’ll worry even more. So will Mac. We’re in panic mode already.”
“Trust me. I know the feeling.” Courtney sighed. “No worrying about me. I’ve got things under control. Compliments of Mama and the bullying brothers, I’ve got Marc.”
“Bullying brothers. Well said.”
Courtney stretched across the bed. “You probably would have seen it coming. I didn’t.”
“Really? Well, you don’t know Marc that well,” Harley conceded. “He is not in a good place.”
“He’s alive after an accident. That’s a very good place.”
“No argument. But he’s another one who isn’t being honest. You two have that in common.”
“Cut me a break, will you?”
That got a hint of a smile. “You’ve come to the wrong house for breaks. I’m fresh out. No breaks for Marc, either. It was only a matter of time before Mama found some way to light a fire under his ass and get him moving. Sounds like you and your little work problem fits the bill.”
An answer to a prayer. Isn’t that what Mama had said?
Had the prayer been to give Marc something to distract him from his pain and slow recovery?
“I think Mama might get a bit more than she bargained for.” Courtney certainly had. She explained how Marc had invited himself to move in.
“He’s staying with you?”
“No. He has apparently taken a liking to your old place, because he wasn’t there ten minutes before informing me he wouldn’t be leaving. What was I going to say?”
“You’ll nearly be roommates. Good luck with that.”
“Speaking of, would you mind swapping cars with me? There’s not enough legroom in mine. I’m providing car service, too.”
Harley nudged Courtney’s leg with her foot. “The keys are on the ring by the door, but listen to me. Whatever you do, do not let Marc give you a hard time. I’m serious. And do not, under any circumstances, let him into your bedroom.”
Courtney opened her mouth to issue a quick reassurance on that score, but the phone on the bedside table rang out a rock tune.
Harley reached for it. “Do you mind? Mac will freak if I don’t pick up.” She glanced at the display. “Oh, it’s not— To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Courtney rolled over, ready to provide privacy, but Harley shook her head and cradled the phone against her shoulder to broadcast half of the conversation.
“No, where?” she asked. There was a beat of silence while the caller replied. “My old place? Really?”
Marc was on the other end of the line, and Courtney’s reaction came fast. A fluttering heartbeat. A shallow breath.
Harley was watching Courtney so closely that a flush prickled her cheeks and she missed the next exchange. Harley arched an eyebrow, and Courtney forced herself to look casual. She wished she had stepped out of the room.
“Tell you what, Marc,” Harley said. “Why don’t you come over here and stay with me? We can both lie in my bed and keep each other company while we work. I’ve got my big tummy and you’ve got your wrecked leg. We’ll make a great team.”
Even Courtney could hear the disgusted snort on the other end and admired the easy rapport between two people who had known each other forever.
“Play nice with Courtney or you’ll be answering to me,” Harley cautioned before saying, “Thanks. You take care of you, too. Call me if you need help. I’ll be here. In bed. Staring at four walls. Not moving.”
Disconnecting the call, she set the phone back on the table. “Well, you’re right. He’s settling in for the long haul.”
“You warned him to be nice. How much trouble am I in?”
Harley considered her. “Can’t say for sure. Marc’s off his stride since the accident. Any other time I’d tell you to lock your bedroom door and throw away the key so you don’t get your heart broken.”
Right. No problem there. “But now?”
“Now...well, I don’t know. He’s one grumpy bastard. More miserable than I am. That much I can tell you. But he and I aren’t the same as before. He hasn’t forgiven me for marrying your brother.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “Marc hasn’t lived here for a long time. He stays up on what’s going on, but that’s not the same as seeing for himself. He’s really hardheaded.”
“Like the rest of his brothers.”
Harley’s expression was thoughtful. “Except this one has a marshmallow center.”
Which was about the last thing Courtney expected to hear.
CHAPTER SIX
MARC SAT ON the couch in his new living room, grimacing as he grabbed a pant leg to hoist up his leg. The couch was just long enough to stretch out, and almost instantly the ache eased so he could attempt to think clearly.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating dust particles. And silence. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard so much quiet. Not since he had come home, for sure.
He should close the windows. The need for fresh air was yielding to the need for cool air. Despite all the trees, this was summer in New Orleans. God, he hoped there was central air or he might be regretting his decision. He was already starting to sweat, but he didn’t have enough energy left to get up and deal with the situation.
Instead, he opened the file on the coffee table to start piecing together the mystery. He needed to learn all he could about the missing kid.
Araceli Maria Ruiz-Ortiz had been born in New Orleans. Her parents had been from Colombia. She had one sibling, a brother who was four years younger. The father, Silvio Ruiz, had drowned on the wharves where he worked unloading cargo on the river. Araceli had been seven. The mother, Gracielle Ortiz, had been a seamstress and housewife before the husband’s death, a full-time housekeeper after.
Both parents had been in the country illegally.
“Not good,” Marc said to no one in particular. He could guess the next part of the story before setting down the profiles and starting on the court documents. Sure enough...the mother had been deported during an immigration crackdown when Araceli was eight.
The son had been at work with the mother when she was detained, but Araceli had been in school. For some undocumented reason, she had wound up in the care of a neighbor before being picked up by Family Services.
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Jeanie London
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Former bounty hunter Marc DiLeo is not the guy Courtney Gerard wants helping her. But finding a kid who’s been missing for a long time takes priority over her personal preferences. And if anyone can locate the child, Marc can – even with his injury. So she’ll overlook his attitude.As they follow cold leads together, Courtney glimpses beneath his tough exterior to something surprising – caring, compassion… vulnerability. That softer side proves more irresistible than his good looks. An unexpected – and unexpectedly intense – attraction flares between them making her wonder why she never saw this before.Suddenly the man she was determined to avoid is the only man she wants close!