Authors: Jeanie London
Where was Lucas?
Turning, she found him emerging from the shadows by the Yo Ho Ho float.
He was frowning. “Bree, what happened?”
Striding toward her, he flipped on the light, and she blinked against the sudden glare to find herself staring into his emerald-hard eyes, a look she’d never seen before.
“Bree?” he prompted, peering around as though he was looking for a threat.
She opened her mouth to reply, but pride stopped her. Jude was long gone. If he’d wanted a confrontation, he’d never have taken off. He would have left her to introduce him to Lucas and John, to figure out some way to explain their relationship. Or he could have attacked both men with the element of surprise on his side.
But that wasn’t Jude’s game.
Without a doubt he was slinking out the same hole he’d arrived through, and she hated the thought of Lucas knowing she’d been involved with such a lowlife, was still involved with such a lowlife, although not by choice any longer.
She didn’t want him thinking she couldn’t stand up to Jude, that she didn’t have the situation under control.
But did she really?
Suddenly Bree wasn’t so sure. The only thing she knew for certain was that she didn’t want to admit her past had returned to bite her in the ass. She didn’t want to explain the gory details of Jude Robicheaux’s involvement in her life.
Even Lana and Toujacques finding out suddenly didn’t feel as important as Lucas spending their last few days together protecting her.
And that’s exactly what he would do.
“No, everything’s fine.” It took every ounce of energy to force the words out. “I got it under control.”
Lucas’s gaze narrowed, searched her expression with eyes that tried to see inside.
“Are you sure, Bree?” John asked doubtfully. “We thought—”
“We thought you might need our help,” Lucas cut him off. “But if you’re okay…”
“Everything’s under control. Trust me. I just dropped by to pick up some paste from the storeroom for the ball. I was hoping to work on my costume this morning.”
So much for that surprise.
She’d had enough surprises for one day, thank you.
L
UCAS WATCHED
B
REE
closely, unsure if she was lying to him or to herself. From where he was standing it didn’t look as if she had anything under control. He’d seen the car parked beside hers outside. John hadn’t recognized the car as one belonging to a krewe member, so Lucas had glanced at the tag. A rental.
The light revealed the faint red marks on her cheeks—marks made by someone’s fingers. Yet she smiled up at Lucas with that beguiling smile and told them nothing was wrong.
John seemed willing to accept whatever she told him.
Lucas wasn’t.
He stared into her face, the intimacies of the past few days shielded behind an expression that masked everything she was thinking inside that beautiful head, the truth about those marks on her face hidden behind a smile.
But he could see past the mask. Two days with this woman, and he recognized the wild light in her eyes, the way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
She was agitated, big-time.
Lucas felt in tune with Bree in a way he’d never been with anyone else, and when she launched herself into motion as if she couldn’t stand still another second, he knew everything was wrong and she wanted to hide it.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“Don’t go,” she said quickly. “I need help getting some things from the storeroom. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m just going to take a look around.”
“Lucas—”
“John will give you a hand. I’ll be right there.”
Lucas didn’t give her a chance to reply but took off. He walked the perimeter of the warehouse, between the floats, searching for anyone who might be crouching in the shadows, someone who might have left those finger marks on Bree’s cheeks.
After reaching the offices, he peered through the vertical blinds to see that, as expected, the rental sedan was gone. He spotted a caddy with paper and pens on the desk, helped himself and jotted down the tag number before he forgot.
Then, satisfied they were alone inside the den, he headed back to the storeroom. He found Bree buried inside, with John standing sentinel outside the door, chatting about her plans to attend the coronation ball.
“Tally told us that you’d changed your mind and were coming,” John was saying. “I’m glad. You worked so hard on the float and the costumes. You’d be missed if you weren’t there.”
John wore his heart on his sleeve, and Lucas squelched an unfamiliar irritation that had him scrutinizing the overeager look on the kid’s face, how he blocked the doorway so Bree couldn’t get out without passing mighty close.
When Bree caught sight of him, she asked, “You okay?”
He only nodded, feeling anything but. He wanted answers, but Bree was keeping them to herself.
And he didn’t have the right to demand any.
“So what brings you two by so early this morning?” she asked, obviously having had enough time to regain her balance.
“John and I wanted to discuss a volunteer venture for the krewe before we got started on the electrical system.”
“Really? Is this top secret or can you tell me?”
John laughed. “It’s not top secret, but we haven’t told anyone yet. Kind of need to take it to the board first.”
“Got it.” Bree made a cross over her heart, then pressed a finger to her lips. “What if I promise I won’t breathe a word?”
“Not even to Tally?”
“Scout’s honor.”
John darted a glance Lucas’s way. “I wrote a program for a video game about the captain. Lucas thought we could sell them and give the proceeds to the krewe. Great idea, huh?”
“Just a guess, but Lucas’s company would manufacture the game?”
Lucas nodded.
“Well, then, I think it’s a great idea. Josie is always looking for new ways to raise money.”
John beamed and Lucas watched as Bree gathered an armful of beads and jewels and maneuvered herself around to stand. Lucas brushed John aside and grabbed her arm to give her leverage. She peered up at him beneath her lashes and smiled.
The finger marks had faded completely.
Backing out of the storeroom, he felt his pulse accelerate when Bree rose up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Good morning.”
“So what are you wearing to the ball, Lucas?” John asked.
“What are you wearing to the ball?” Bree repeated. “I know you won’t find a costume anywhere in this town.”
“I’ve got stuff in Josie’s attic.”
“Your mom the pack rat, hmm?”
He nodded and helped Bree grab a box off a nearby shelf. “What about you? Didn’t give you a problem, did I?”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m working on something.” She transferred all the bright jewels and a tiara into the box and said, “Well, that’s it for me, gentlemen. I’m beat. I’ll be back again at noon, if anyone asks.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Lucas took the box from her.
“See you later, John,” she said.
“’Bye, Bree,” the kid called back, and this time Lucas definitely heard a sigh.
Bree looked contemplative but completely recovered as they wove through the warehouse, and if he hadn’t seen the marks on her cheeks or the car in the parking lot, Lucas might have second-guessed himself. But someone had been inside the den with her this morning, and he intended to find out who.
“Have a good night?” he asked.
“Same old, same old. How about you? Get some sleep?” Her smile flashed, and he felt that same punch-to-the-gut awareness that he always did, that same rush of need that made him want to pull her into his arms.
But now there was something else, a sense of possessiveness that felt both raw and defensive, as he watched
her unlock her car door, take the box from him and deposit it on the seat.
He wanted a straight answer but could come up with no way to get her to be honest. He could confront her about the car he’d seen in the parking lot but wondered if he’d only force her to lie. He might have made love to Bree, but he was only a temporary part of her life. This whole situation had driven home that point loud and clear.
Unsure how to handle the situation, Lucas only knew he didn’t want her to go home alone and felt powerless to stop her. He’d seen Christien’s and Tally’s cars parked on the street when he’d left the court not twenty minutes ago. That meant Tally would be sleeping off her night at the Blue Note, Christien was off duty and Mark was back from his girlfriend’s. Bree wouldn’t be alone in Number One. It would have to do.
But it wasn’t enough, he realized. Not nearly enough.
“Are you heading straight home?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. There’s a bed with my name on it.” Slipping her arms around his neck, she pressed close. “Wish you were going with me.”
He just pulled her close and caught her mouth in a kiss.
She melted against him, all warm and wanting. Their tongues collided as if they hadn’t been together in forever, a rush of need so intense he might have lost himself in the taste and feel of her…if he wasn’t so troubled by the morning’s events.
“I’ll try to get this electrical situation resolved today so I won’t have to come back early tomorrow,” he said. “You’re coming back at noon? I’ll come get you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. We’ll get dinner and I’ll drop you off at work for your shift.”
She eyed him as if she might argue, but something in his expression must have convinced her he’d made up his mind.
“It’s a date.” She slipped inside her car and blew him a kiss. “See you later.”
He shut the door and watched her back out.
Lucas was still standing there as she pulled into the street and disappeared in the traffic.
The only thing he knew for certain was that whatever was going on in her life, Bree didn’t have it under control.
Maybe she didn’t want to involve him because they’d only signed up for a weeklong fling. But things were changing between them. He wasn’t sure what that meant to their relationship yet…he only knew that there’d been someone in that warehouse who’d touched her hard enough to leave marks. And that didn’t really leave him a choice about what he would do next.
Lucas had made his reputation by combining his interests in law enforcement and computer technology. He’d rewritten the software for the National Crime Information Database, which collected and dispatched information on felons and stolen items to the FBI and other agencies around the country. He’d founded his company developing programs used to track sex offenders, missing children and deadbeat parents.
If Bree wouldn’t pony up, Lucas would find out what was going on for himself.
W
HEN THE SIGHT OF
Lucas vanished from her rearview mirror, the events of the morning finally overtook Bree. Exhaustion, stress and anger combined to make her insides vibrate, her hands tremble on the steering wheel.
She sucked in deep gulps of air to fight the dizziness clouding the edges of her vision, to focus on the road as the car in front of her braked unexpectedly in a flash of bright taillights.
Bringing the Jeep to a quick stop, she willed herself to control her physical reaction.
Jude Robicheaux would get nothing else from her.
Nothing,
damn it.
She’d cried enough tears when the man had skipped town, leaving her to hold the bag with the police.
Touching the gas pedal, she brought her car up to speed again, forcing herself to concentrate on the early-morning traffic and wishing she was already home.
It wasn’t so much seeing Jude that upset her—although she still didn’t know what he wanted—but that ugly reality had intruded on her perfectly idyllic week with Lucas.
He’d known something was wrong, had wanted to know what, and she’d sidestepped the issue again.
But involving Lucas would only invite him to get his macho-man hackles up. She wanted the man’s passion, his
respect. No matter how much she’d enjoyed his whole knight-in-the-skimpy-towel routine, she didn’t want him charging in on his horse to save her for their remaining days together. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was perfectly capable of handling Jude.
Should she go to the police, forget about waiting?
Bree considered it, found to her surprise that she was more bothered by letting Jude know he’d rattled her than she was by the thought of Lana and Toujacques finding out about her past.
The bastard had been so smug. She didn’t want him thinking she was the same girl who’d once fallen for his every line. She wasn’t. She was a woman who wasn’t letting any man bully her.
And shutting out a man she cared about in the process.
“Argh!”
Wheeling her Jeep into an open spot on the street, Bree glanced around to ensure there were no surprises waiting before she unlocked her door and stepped out.
Here she was trying to convince herself that she could handle the situation when she didn’t know what to do about Jude—go to the police now or wait two days?
She didn’t know what to do about Lucas either. Should she spill her guts and let the pieces fall where they may? And what did it matter, really? He was leaving in two days anyway.
The bottom line: Bree didn’t have a clue.
The only thing she knew was how much she hated walking down the alley to her home feeling as if someone was watching her. Just the slightest sound had her glancing back over her shoulder to see who might be there.
A week ago she’d felt safe in Court du Chaud.
Now she wanted to rush inside her house and turn on the security system.
Bree didn’t get the chance. When she reached for the doorknob, she found her outer door unlocked.
She and Tally always locked the door. Mark and Christien, too, at their request. Instinct would have sent her backing away, but she caught a glimpse of wild color inside and pushed the door open warily.
A massive arrangement of hothouse flowers sat in front of her door. Had it not been for the unlocked outer door, she might have thought the gorgeous arrangement a surprise from Lucas.
But the adrenaline rush told her differently.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the card.
The love of your life.
Bree crumbled the card. This day was crashing from bad to worse, and that was saying a lot. She had a hard time imagining anything worse than facing Jude inside a dark den and pretending to Lucas that everything was A-okay.
Now Jude was declaring open war. He must have run straight from the den for the flowers. At the French Market probably, because not too many floral shops opened before nine.
This was his first step out into the open, and she knew he wanted to intimidate her. If Lucas had been with her when she’d arrived home or if Tally, Mark or Christien had chanced across the flowers, she’d have been hard-pressed to explain who’d sent the obviously costly arrangement.
She didn’t have to think twice about what she was going to do with the flowers. Setting her small box of costume paste on the floor, she collected the arrangement and headed outside, groaning beneath the weight of the
ceramic bowl filled with the surplus of tropical blooms and lush greenery.
The overpowering scents of stargazer lilies and hydrangeas mingled sweet and thick beneath her nose, fragrances she normally adored that now only made her head throb.
Maneuvering out her gate, she headed into the court.
“He will not ruin my last few days with Lucas,” she said, needing to hear the sound of her own renewed determination.
“S
TUBBORN CHIT
!” G
ABRIEL
spat out the words from his seat on the piazza’s hedge. “What in God’s name is she doing?”
Unfortunately Breanne did not have to answer the question for Gabriel to piece together a general idea. Instead of running to Lucas for protection against this man from her past, she was stubbornly dealing with it herself.
Damn! Just how was he supposed to convince her otherwise when he couldn’t materialize and talk some sense into her?
Ambition before love.
Oy! What was a ghost to do?
Belle grand-mère
expected him to fail at this task, and he found, much to his surprise, that along with the host of other reasons he could not fail, proving to the old crone he was not as inept and corrupt as she believed was one of them.
One would think after two centuries pride wouldn’t matter. Alas, it appeared to be his cross to bear, in life and in death.
Gabriel launched himself from his seat to follow
Breanne across the court, racking his brain for some way to warn her that her old beau was up to no good.
Parting ways with Breanne as she circled her yard, Gabriel swept inside her second-story bedroom and stood beside the window, listening to the sounds of her entering downstairs.
He mulled his too-limited choices, even considered a few ideas the old crone had tossed his way—how desperate had he become to consider anything that one had to say?—and found himself back to cursing his stupidity for not realizing he could only materialize to two people.
Breanne’s arrival distracted him from his self-pitying thoughts, and Gabriel watched as she withdrew clothes from her dresser and retreated into the bathroom. She looked tired, her aura the bleached gray of old timbers.
On her arrival home yesterday she had looked equally tired but so very content. Her aura had brightened from lifeless gray to a blue-gray color that reminded him of the sea at sunset. He wanted to see her aura gleam as bright as the summer sky—the way her twin’s did.
In life, Gabriel had not understood how much another’s pain could hurt. He’d been unable to see past his pride enough to care how things affected anyone but himself. In death, the dull aura of this strong and beautiful young woman and the melancholy that clung to her like a mist ached inside him.
If nothing else in two hundred years of limbo, he had learned to feel. He supposed he could thank the old crone for that.
When Breanne emerged from the bathroom garbed in a pair of men’s pajamas, Gabriel watched her pull her hair into a tousled nest on the top of her head and secure it with some sort of clip.
The lines of her face and neck were drawn delicately, and her features were both graceful and refined. He found himself amazed that after so many generations he could still see his exquisite Madeleine in their lovely descendent.
Ah, Madeleine.
How much would he give for a chance to hold her once more in his arms, to apologize for being the ass he was?
Gabriel knew, as he watched this sad young girl who was but one in the strong and amazing bloodline they had created together, that he would gladly give another two centuries of eternity.
No, he would give it all.
His ever after for the peace of knowing Madeleine understood he had not left because he had not loved her seemed a small price to pay. He had loved her. More than life itself. But he hadn’t understood love, nor had he known how to show her. He hadn’t truly believed she would give up her life to be with him because he had not believed himself worthy of her love.
Damn his pride!
Had he believed, had he trusted, he might have chosen the same path as Julian Lafever. Alas, it had taken two hundred years and a pair of headstrong twins to help him see the truth.
And one nagging old crone who had loved enough to sacrifice her own eternity to curse/bless their whole family.
But now he understood. He had brought this fate upon himself with his pride and blindness.
Only he could make amends.
But the task before him still seemed impossible as he watched Breanne draw her knees up under the covers and make notations with a writing tool in her book.
She had not bothered drawing the curtains, and he gazed down into the street that was coming to life with daytime activity, stared at her car with the mysterious technological device that worried him and knew that if he accomplished nothing else in his death, he must find a way to reach this girl.
Finally setting the book aside, Breanne slipped under the blankets and snuggled into her pillows with a sigh. Gabriel glanced at the book she had left open on her night table. Some sort of journal. He stared at it and frowned, something niggling at the back of his brain….
Then inspiration struck.
Why had he not thought of this before?
Would that he could prove to
belle grand-mère
even parlor tricks could serve a noble purpose. What nobler purpose was there than warning their headstrong descendent of danger?
U
NDER THE PRETENSE
of taking a lunch break, Lucas left the den. Hopping inside Max’s car, he wove through traffic to a nearby riverfront park, where he found a picnic table and unpacked his laptop computer.
He logged on to the Web via satellite uplink and maneuvered his way to the Orleans Parish law-enforcement Web site to run an active search of violators.
He typed in Bree’s name, race and age, then waited.
No match found.
The reply blinked on the screen in bold text, and while he hadn’t expected to find any prior criminal record or outstanding warrants on her, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t find a restraining order on file against someone else—someone who would leave marks on her face.
That was the name he wanted.
There was nothing in Bree’s character to lead him to believe she would have been involved in some sort of domestic abuse or with some unsavory character.
When he Googled her name, he came up empty again, so, flipping open his cell phone, Lucas speed-dialed his personal assistant, Lorelei, who answered on the second ring.
“Well, hello, stranger,” her cheery voice rang out over the connection. “You ever coming home?”
“Verdict’s still out. You ever think of relocating to New Orleans?”
“Only if there are more good-looking single men than available women.”
Lucas laughed. After going through a nasty divorce last year, Lorelei had recently declared her mourning period over. In her midthirties, she was attractive and incredibly efficient, with a biological clock admittedly ticking louder each day.
“I’ll check while I’m here,” he offered. One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t let Lorelei get away. She was the reason he could work in riverfront parks and on Pacific bluffs and extend vacations long past his return flights. “I need Shawn Danko’s direct line.”
Shawn Danko was Lucas’s contact person with the FBI, an associate deputy director he’d worked with while rewriting the software for the National Crime Information Database.
As with all his contacts, Lucas didn’t travel with private numbers. He preferred the safety of his encrypted software inside his office. Client confidentiality. Wouldn’t do to have his laptop stolen and some overeager hacker break his encrypted algorithms to find the private numbers of seriously top-level names in the nation’s law-enforcement agencies.
Lorelei sent it via encryption directly to Lucas’s laptop, and when his e-mail server flag popped up, he said, “I’ll give you a call if I run across Mr. Right.”
He severed the connection and dialed Shawn Danko.
“Why do I know you must want something from me, Russell?” the associate deputy director asked gruffly.
“Your balls are itching?”
“That and you don’t call to chat out of the blue.”
“I need you to run someone through our baby. Unless you want to provide the protocols so I can do it myself.”
“Oh, you’re a laugh a minute. Let me get there.” During the pause, Lucas could hear the muffled sounds of a busy office. Then everything went quiet, as if Shawn had made it to his office and shut the door behind him. “All right, go.”
“Breanne Addison. Provide a search string for the parishes around New Orleans. I want to know if she comes up anywhere in the system.”
“You know what’s coming next.”
“Yeah, yeah. I have only the most honorable of intentions.”
“How honorable? You’re asking me to lay my job on the line by abusing my security clearance.”
“You’re an associate deputy director, and I wrote the program. That’s got to count for something.”
“Only if you give me a damn good reason.”
Lucas stared out at the river, where a bayou cruise boat pulled away from the dock, and voiced a truth that felt both strange and right. “I’m getting involved with this incredible woman and I think she’s in trouble.”
Shawn snorted. “
Involved? Incredible?
Shit, Russell. You’re the one in trouble.”
“No argument there.”
There was a beat of silence on the other end. “Well, not even national security can stand in the way of love, and I’d know, having been married…how many times is it now?”
“Four the last I heard.”