After Midnight (13 page)

“Tommy Cahill,” Noah supplied.

“Junior,” she quickly corrected. The last thing she needed was the police knocking on her father’s door instead of Tommy’s. “Tommy Cahill, Junior.”

“Junior, got it. What did Junior do that I need to know about?”

“He roughed her up last night,” Noah supplied when she didn’t respond quickly enough.

Isabeau frowned at him.

“He had a few words with her, too. She won’t share with me what he said, but I get the feeling it’s something you should hear.”

“Ma’am?”

She looked away. She hugged her arms around herself and shivered. Because suddenly, she was very, very cold.

She’d looked Noah in the eye and denied Tommy’s words held any importance, because they’d been so painful she didn’t want to repeat them. Didn’t want him to know what Tommy said to her hurt more than his hand vised around her arm. That as an only child who’d lost her mother at twelve, she’d always hoped to form a bond with the son of the man she thought of as her father. Or that during those few minutes he’d had her pinned against the wall, Tommy shattered that optimism with more than cruel words.

Tears welled up and she blinked them furiously away. His words didn’t matter. None of it did. From now on, she’d be more careful whenever Tommy was around—careful not to find herself in a position where he could get his hands on her.

Or any other part of his anatomy.

A wave of dizziness washed over her.

“Whoa.” Noah shifted his hand from her back to snag her elbow. “That’s the second time today all the color has drained from your face at the mention of Tommy’s comments to you.”

“It’s just…”

“Ma’am, I think you should tell me what he said.”

Her stomach cramped abruptly, bile climbed up the back of her throat. In her mind she replayed not just the hate-filled words, but the press of his erection against her abdomen as he snarled them.

Shifting sideways, she made sure Noah no longer touched her as she repeated Tommy’s words verbatim. “ ‘You think you’re something special, don’t you, half-breed? You think you’re better than me? Because you’ve got my father’s affection? Let me tell you, you’re nothin’. Just the daughter of his dead whore girlfriend. A little half-breed nothin’.’ ”

Noah’s body went tight as a bowstring. “Bastard.”

“No, technically, that would be me.”

“Isabeau,” he warned.

“My parents weren’t married,” she explained, her focus now on Officer Grant. “I was a toddler when my mother moved in with Tommy’s father.”

“Who is also your father?” the officer questioned.

“Biologically, no. My father and Tommy’s are two different men, hence Tommy’s referring to my mother as a…It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Noah argued.

“No.” She closed her eyes, opened them. “They’re just angry words, spoken by a man who’d had too much to drink.”

Noah reached out, tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “Which is why you shouldn’t take them to heart.”

“What he said is—”

“Not true. Nothing he said is true, Isabeau.”

“But it does tell me that Tommy Cahill, Junior, is someone I need to speak with,” Officer Grant stated. “A man with that kind of anger toward you wouldn’t hesitate to vandalize your vehicle.” He tipped his head toward his partner, who stood next to their cruiser. “My partner and I will check it out. When we find out anything, we’ll be in touch. In the meantime, a copy of the report will be available to you tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” Her gaze tracked Officer Grant until he slid behind the wheel of his police cruiser and maneuvered out of the parking garage. She looked back at Noah.

He’d narrowed the distance between them and now stood dangerously close to her. The fact that every nerve in her body scrambled had her desperate to step away. Then her lungs drew in the inviting scent of him, and she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“He’s wrong,” he said, drawing the back of his fingers down her cheek.

How did he do that? Take her from cold to hot with one touch? “Who’s wrong?”

“Tommy. You are special.”

Emotion clogging her throat, she stared at him.

“You’re special to me.”

Chapter Seven

Isabeau stood at her kitchen sink, staring at the swirl of red as it washed down the drain. It was Thursday, her night off, and because she found it impossible to relax, she’d painted her bathroom. Every time she sat still for more than five minutes, her thoughts would drift to Noah, always to Noah. Even now, as she worked to rinse paint from the brush, his face slipped to the forefront of her mind. She saw his eyes, those striking green orbs that seemed to see right into her. She felt his hands on her back, the shock of electricity his touch sparked, and something inside of her quickened to a gallop.

Even as her brain tried to warn her away.

Thoughts of him kept stirring up feelings she didn’t want to examine too closely. Staring blankly while her mind raced, she worked to clear her thoughts of him. She focused on the music that drifted softly from the speakers around her apartment. But as the whiskey-smooth tenor crooned about being ready for love, sighed in defeat.

She’d been happy with her life, content to mind her business when Noah walked through her door and smacked her between the eyes. He knocked her off kilter, made her feel unsettled and edgy. Made her think about things she hadn’t thought about in years, wish for things she couldn’t have. Not with him.

Not with any man.

Isabeau sighed. She flicked off the water. Turning, she leaned back against the counter and studied her surroundings. Thanks to her restlessness, her apartment was spotless. Everywhere she looked surfaces gleamed and sparkled beneath the glow of recessed lighting. There was nothing left to dust or vacuum. Nothing left to keep her mind occupied, away from thoughts of the too-sexy singer.

A knock sounded at the door. She frowned. Suddenly the music sounded louder, her body more sensitized. She knew before opening the door, the identity of her visitor. “Noah.”

He stood with his shoulder against the doorjamb, legs crossed at the ankles, as he skimmed his gaze from her toes up her bare legs. His attention paused on her paint-splattered tank top and cut-off jean shorts before continuing to her eyes. “Hello.”

She dragged in a breath as her nerves scrambled. Dark need stirred her blood. “Hi.”

How could he look even sexier than the last time she’d seen him? It wasn’t possible. But he did. From the worn, comfortable jeans that hugged him in all the right places, to the green T-shirt that matched his eyes, the man looked sinfully good. She was still trying to absorb the effect he had on her nerves when he smiled. Damn him. His smile was wicked and cocksure.

It took her breath away.

“Should I have rung you first?”

“What? No.” She stepped back and gestured with her hand. “Come on in.”

He stepped inside, and she shut the door behind him. His gaze swept around the room before coming back to her. “Have you been painting?”

Maybe she should have left the door open. Was it hot in here? “I painted the bathroom. How’d you know?”

“I can smell it,” he replied. “Plus, you have a bit of red paint right…” He reached for her, the pad of his thumb brushing slowly across her collarbone. “Here.”

Heat sizzled to life between them. Every cell in her body tingled. Her breath froze in her lungs. She felt herself leaning toward him. For her own peace of mind, she eased back.

His hand dropped away. He frowned. “I didn’t get all of it.”

She absently scrubbed at the spot. “It doesn’t matter. It’s latex paint, it will come off in the shower.”

“Okay.” He rocked back on his heels and continued to watch her in a disconcerting way. She was unable to read his expression until the music on her stereo changed to the next CD. As the first few beats played, his smile returned. “Aren’t you a little too young to be a fan of Thin Lizzy?”

“You can never be too young or too old for great music.”

“How do you decide what is great and what isn’t?”

“You expect me to say by the artist’s skill, don’t you? But that’s only part of it. Personally, I judge music by the way it makes me feel.”

“And how does Thin Lizzy make you feel?” he asked, as he crossed the room to her fireplace and the racks of compact discs that littered the mantel top. The fact that he appeared totally comfortable in her home, while she was a mass of nerves, filled her with dismay.

“Energized,” she replied. “Happy.”

His fingers traced over the spine of each disc until he located and removed one. “What about this one? How does it make you feel?”

She shifted her gaze, then wrinkled her nose. “You can have that one if you’d like. It gave me a headache.”

Amusement slid into his eyes. “No, thanks. It had the same effect on me.”

Her lips curved.

“You have an extensive collection,” he commented, his attention back on the collection he spoke of.

“It’s a passion,” she admitted, then crossed the room to stand next to him. “Some might call it a compulsion, but I love all kinds of music.”

“Do you ever listen to your own music?”

“No. Do you?”

“Sometimes.” He faced her. In his hand, he held one of his own CDs. “I’m surprised you have this one. It didn’t sell very well.”

“No?”

He opened the case and discovered it was empty.

“In the CD player.” She had one of those players that held over three hundred CDs. She kept it full. “Number thirty-two.”

He shifted to stand before the player, studied it for a minute, then turned the dial. The machine responded immediately, shuffling through the discs until it reached the correct slot. An electric guitar riff filled the room, immediately followed by his voice.

“Tempted”; her favorite song.

He shook his head.

“You didn’t believe me?”

“I thought perhaps you were being kind.”

“Why would I be kind?” She winced the moment the words left her mouth. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

He gave her a slow, alluring smile that turned into laughter. “I’m not certain if you’re good or bad for my ego, Isa.”

She couldn’t breathe. For a split second, she forgot how. The man’s smile was powerful enough, but when he laughed? Nothing had prepared her for the power of his laughter. Her knees turned to jelly. Her blood heated.

“I think your ego will survive,” she managed around the knot in her throat.

His gaze moved over her with a touch as sure as his fingertips had been a few moments ago. “You think your opinion of me doesn’t matter?”

“In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see how it would, but you don’t need to worry, I like you just fine.”