Taking his hand, she led him across Bourbon Street.
He seemed the sort of man who would take direction badly, but he clasped her fingers and let her forge a path.
She smiled into the crowd, touched shoulders, and said, “Excuse me.” She steered clear of the gangs of obnoxious young men, dodged a spilled drink, winced when an extremely drunk woman flashed them. Scantily clad transvestites carried signs advertising their nightclub acts. Brock’s Famous Dancing Monks performed their routine on the teeming sidewalks.
Nessa wanted to explain that Bourbon Street wasn’t really Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras was the parties, the parades, the family time. But what was the point? Jeremiah wouldn’t believe her, anyway.
She glanced back once, and found him intently observing her.
He was a very odd man. He sent a prickle down her spine and up the back of her neck, and she was glad she hadn’t invited him to the Dahl party.
On the other side of Bourbon Street, they broke through the worst of the mob. The crowd thinned enough to hear the lone wail of an unseen musician playing sad, bluesy notes on the saxophone.
She raised her voice to be heard above the music. “Okay, Jeremiah, the bank’s probably twelve blocks from here. Are you sure you don’t want me to try and get a cab?”
“I can walk it if you can,” he said.
The saxophone wailed a sour note. The music died, then stumbled to a start again.
“The musicians have to learn somewhere,” she said, and kept walking.
The music and the noise was fading behind them, all except for the rumble of a street cleaner or…the sun went out, and she glanced at the sky. “Oh, no.”
The rumble was thunder. The cloud was tall and black. The heat was about to break in a spectacular collision of Northern cold front and warm Gulf air. And she was stuck here with Mr. Sourpuss, who would undoubtedly be as snotty about the storm as he was about the heat and about Mardi Gras. She needed to get rid of him as rapidly as possible, and that meant cutting through a few alleys. Not the best part of New Orleans to show a tourist, but Jeremiah Mac had formed his opinion before he got off the plane.
She tried to free her hand, but he didn’t let go.
Interesting. He seemed tough, not like the kind of guy who would want to hold hands. In fact, not like an insurance investigator at all. More like a bodyguard. Or a hitman.
Amused at herself, she glanced back at him.
His gaze flicked around them, observing the thinning crowds, inspecting one brawny beggar who squatted on the street corner. His gaze found her. Rather sternly, he asked, “How often do you use this route? The area seems risky for a woman alone.”
“But I have you with me.” And she never told her aunts or Georgia when she walked this route, because he was right. It paid to stay alert.
She increased her pace.
He moved up beside her.
The first fat drops fell, hitting the sidewalk hard and steaming from the heat. “Bad timing,” she said. “We’re in for a soaking.”
Faintly she heard cries of dismay from the Mardi Gras crowd. People here glanced up, grimaced, pulled out umbrellas, and hurried on their ways. The street suddenly became lonely.
All day, she’d been with Jeremiah Mac, but not alone with him. Now she glanced at him, and he was watching her.
Eric and Mr. Broussard were right; Jeremiah wasn’t really handsome, but he looked like a man who always won, always succeeded, always got what he wanted. He would keep a woman safe from any threat, and demand his payment in bed. And it would be payment, with no obligations on his part. He would want no talk of love or future. He would tell no pretty lies. He’d want good sex, he’d give good sex, and he’d be gone. The man was cold as ice, and if she was going to break her long, very long, too long, almost fatal case of virtue, she wasn’t going to do it with a Popsicle.
Abruptly, the rain increased. The streets grew dark. The temperature dropped.
“Let’s run for it.” She started forward.
Catching her arm, he used her momentum to swing her into an alley. “Or not.” He shoved her onto a back step, against a door covered in peeling paint with a sign that said, CLAUDE’S AUTO PARTS—DELIVERIES RING BELL.
Instant panic set in. She felt threatened. Threatened and…smothered. She put out a hand to hold him off. “What? Hey, mister…”
“Listen.” He looked out toward the street.
She heard it. Hail. Sweeping toward them, slamming into the asphalt, the tile roofs, the garbage cans. The wave of the black rain changed, became a sheet of white as chunks of ice fell from the sky, exploding on the streets.
She felt stupid. How could she have not heard that? She blinked, trying to see, but the storm was at its height, black, raging, and frothing. The freezing air nipped at the edges of her flesh, but Mac stood between her and the worst of the storm, protecting her with his shoulders, his body, his legs.
Why did she feel breathless and feminine? He wasn’t her type. She’d spent the whole day not inviting him to the aunts’ party. Yes, he was tall and broad shouldered, but that was no reason to suddenly feel dainty and clumsy.
She strained to see his face, but all she could see was two glittering eyes, examining her….
Lightning flashed right overhead. Simultaneously, the thunder shook the ground. In the white blaze, she saw Jeremiah Mac. His features looked carved from bleak rock and stark desolation.
The light vanished.
Dark enveloped them.
He stood close, almost touching but not quite. His body radiated heat; the fine hairs on her skin lifted as if he sent an electrical current through her. She felt him flinch as hail bounced off the street and hit him. Yet he didn’t move; he was like a wall, protecting her from the elements.
Chivalry. From a Yankee.
She wanted to say something, but for once her gift for meaningless Southern courtesies had deserted her. His silence was so heavy, so thick, enveloping her like a living blanket, smothering her.
Except that it wasn’t really his silence that enveloped her.
It was his desire.
He wanted her and she…oh, no. She wanted him.
What was she thinking?
Okay, she wasn’t thinking. She was…feeling. Feeling the tension rising from deep inside, taking control of her heart, her mind, her nerves. She trembled from the dampness that seeped through her jacket to her skin, from the cool air that broke the heat like a sledgehammer.
She took a long breath, trying to get control. She could smell the rain, but she could also smell him—soap and a faint scent of, um, well…he made her think of sex.
He must be throwing off pheromones. That was the only explanation for the way her lids fluttered and drooped, the way the blood in her veins slowed and heated, the way she bit at her lip to stop a flirtatious smile.
As if it mattered. He couldn’t see her, not unless he had a cat’s vision. The darkness grew blacker. The storm shattered the air, hail denting plastic garbage cans, lightning striking hard and white, thunder cracking over their heads.
He was a stranger. He was everything a Yankee could be—blunt, impatient, rude, large, bold, rough…all domineering male. And he made her aware, for the first time in too long, that she was a female ripe for mating.
My God, if she didn’t seize control of herself, she’d soon be fluttering her fan and drawling endearments to him.
Yet her body didn’t care. Her hands lifted. She was going to put her palms on his chest, see if the promises he made with his still body and his unexpected chivalry were as solid as they felt.
Then, as roughly as it started, the hail stopped. The thunder still rolled, but farther to the east. The rain continued, but after the cacophony of the hail, that seemed like silence.
She dropped her wayward hands to the clasp of her purse, hoping he hadn’t noticed their journey toward his chest.
With a blast, the Southern sunlight hit the streets.
She blinked and found herself s
taring into a set of dark eyes.
He scrutinized her, stripping her down to her bare emotions. Stripped her naked—and he didn’t like what he saw.
With a jolt, she realized he didn’t like her. She didn’t know why, but clearly he didn’t.
So he was a fool, for she knew very well her own worth.
“We can go now.” She stepped out from behind him.
He moved aside easily, without hesitation, and the thick sexual tension dissipated in the cool air.
It hadn’t really existed. It had been the imagination of a woman who’d deprived herself of a relationship for far too long. Maybe the aunts had a point. Maybe it was time for her to get out a little. After all, dedicating herself to the bank wasn’t giving her any satisfaction.
The sun went back behind the clouds. Blazed out again. Went behind the clouds. Steam rose from the street.
“We need to get back to the…the bank.” So she could go home and get ready for the party. “The weather’s not usually like this. So unsettled.” In the alley, she bent down and picked up a hailstone in each hand. They were uneven, jagged, both about the size of a golf ball. She balanced them, marveled at them. “I’ve never seen them so big before.” That sounds sexual. “I mean—” She caught herself before she could say another word.
What was it about him that made her lose her glib good sense? She had to get him back to the bank now. Taking one step, she slipped on the hail-covered street.
He caught her arm, held her up when she would have done an ignominious case of the splits.
She glanced up at him and he looked dangerous, like a mugger far too familiar with the streets, like a man who took what he wanted.
Then, slowly, his head turned. He looked right at the rusting Dumpster.
A man with a hat pushed low over his eyes and a scarf wrapped over his mouth stepped out. He pointed a handgun at them. At Mac. “Gimme your wallet.”
Frustration hit her first.
New Orleans was really showing off her tricks.
Then rage rose in her, caught at her throat.
Her wallet? Not even.
Without thought, she flung the hailstones at their mugger.
He ducked.
One struck his shoulder. The other glanced off his head with satisfying thunk.
Before the mugger had recovered, Mac launched himself into the air, kicking out right at the guy.
The pistol fired.
Mac booted it out of the mugger’s hand.
The mugger hit the wall behind him, hard enough to knock the air out of him.
Mac landed on his feet. Started toward him. Slipped on the hail and ended up on his butt.
He didn’t curse. He got up, but the mugger wasn’t waiting around to see if Mac could get in a second kick. He ran, his legs rolling out from underneath like a marionette.
Mac collapsed back onto the ground and took a deep breath.
“You okay?” She fumbled her cell phone out of her purse.
“What are you doing?” Mac asked sharply.
“Calling the police.”
He caught her hand. “Don’t bother. He’s long gone.”
“But there’s a gun. They could get fingerprints—”
“And do what? Catch some drug user who is already on parole? As has been pointed out to me multiple times today, during Mardi Gras, the police don’t have time to do more than herd people.” With a grimace, Mac rose to his feet, then fixed his dark eyes on her. “Why in the hell did you throw those hailstones? Don’t you know you’re not supposed to resist a mugging?”
“Why the hell did you kick him?” She mimicked him. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to resist a mugging?”
He didn’t answer. He used his silence to demand an explanation, and she found herself muttering, “I hate thieves.”
He laughed, a brief bark of amusement.
That startled her. She didn’t know he could laugh. “I don’t see what’s so funny. I hate being robbed. I work too hard for my money to hand it over.”
“You could have been hurt.”
“I could have been hurt? What about you? I didn’t do an imitation of Bruce Lee. Not to mention—” A tear on his jacket caught her attention. On the side, under his arm, right through the fabric. She could see light through it. “What did you do? Did you—”
The pistol had gone off. The pistol had discharged.
“Damn it, he shot you.” She lifted the material.
She expected to see that the bullet had struck only the coat. Because otherwise, how was he standing?
But a red stain spread across his white shirt.
“My God, he shot you,” she repeated, her voice rising. She caught at him. “Sit down. Let me—”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? You’re bleeding.”
He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to his side. “The bullet nicked me, that’s all.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.”
Again, as she lifted her phone to her ear, he caught her hand. “No.”
“You’ve been shot.” Didn’t he understand how serious this was?
“I’ll go back to my hotel and wrap it up.”
“Wrap it…it’s a gunshot wound. You can’t just wrap it up!”
He was starting to look amused. “The bullet didn’t even puncture an organ.”
“Oh, well, then. As long as it didn’t take out a kidney or anything,” she said sarcastically.
“If I’d been a little quicker on the kick, he wouldn’t have gotten the shot off at all.”
“Shame on you! You’re not up on your karate!”
He seemed to take her seriously. “I work on it three times a week, but I was in my twenties when I started lessons. I was too old to have developed the necessary speed.”
She didn’t understand his pigheaded insistence about not going to the hospital, but then, she never understood this stiff-upper-lip stuff. “You are such a guy.” She lifted her phone, and when he would have caught her hand again, she glared. “I’m calling in a favor with the cab company. They’ll figure out a way to come and get us.”
He lifted his brows. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to my house.”
You are a dumb shit, boy.
Russell Whipple ran, aiming his steps for the spots without hailstones.
You couldn’t hit your butt with both hands.
The breath seared his lungs. Sweat dribbled from under his hat and the scarf over his face.
Stop whimpering, boy, and take your lickings.
His hand throbbed from that kick. He knew plenty about broken bones, and nothing was broken, but God damn, who knew that big bastard could jump like that? And that bitch—she’d hit him hard enough with that hailstone to cut his head.
You clumsy little shit, you can’t do anything right.
He took a chance and glanced behind him.
He was alone. Well, except for a couple of tourists wandering along, looking lost, and a busboy smoking at the back door of a restaurant.
Panting, Russell leaned against the wall, pulled off the hat, used the scarf to wipe the sweat off his face, and made himself relive the scene.
It had started when he caught a glimpse of Jeremiah MacNaught.
He hadn’t believed it. He thought for a moment that he’d been concentrating on him so hard, his mind had conjured him up. But there he was, walking along, head and shoulders above the tourists. Then the crowd had parted, and Russell saw who held him by the hand.
Ionessa Dahl.
Mugging them had been a whim, a whim brought on by too much work and too little sleep. He hadn’t planned it.
You little shit, you’re a screwup.
But his revenge on Mac was perfectly designed. He’d spent months putting everything in place, and the fact that Mac was in town…. Well, one more plan had to be implemented.
Because the way Russell saw it, Mac had to die.
This time, he would
stay dead.
Nine
If Mac had planned it, it couldn’t have worked out better. He was stepping out of a cab at the Dahl House, assisted by Ionessa Dahl herself.
He let her pay the driver, then slip her arm around his back and help him up the front walk.
He appraised the house as he walked. No wonder the thing was on the National Registry. It looked like the old mansions in Philadelphia, the kind he’d visited while earning his way through college.
The wraparound front porch was six feet off the ground, the steps leading up to it broad and worn. The house, handsome, brick, with all the trim painted white, rose two stories with an attic above that. Yet the paint was peeling, and even from here he could see rot on the exposed wood.
Still, this was Southern grandeur at its most attractive. “Nice place,” he said in deliberate understatement.
She laughed, a brief gurgle of surprised amusement. “We like it.”
“We?”
“My aunts and I.”
“So you have family.” In his experience, family was nothing to brag about.
But her smile crooked up fondly. “My great-aunts Hestia and Calista. When my parents were killed, they took me in.”
“That’s a good deed.” One, in his experience, she’d had to pay for, over and over again.
“They’re good people, born and raised in the city. Everyone knows them. Everyone loves them. The Dahl Girls and the Dahl House are legend in New Orleans.” She scanned the outside as if looking for something, then let out a sigh of relief. “At least it didn’t hail here.”
“How do you know?”
“The roof isn’t damaged. We had to get a new one after Katrina. The hurricane ripped the shingles off.”
“The Garden District is high ground, I’ve heard.”
“It is. That’s why the house survived with no flood damage.” She helped him up the stairs. “But once the roof went, it leaked and we had to repair damages inside. Not to mention every window was broken.”
He remembered the troubles New Orleans suffered after the hurricane. “Looters?”
“Oh, no. My aunts refused to leave the house, and they had guns. Looters didn’t stand a chance. The windows went during the hurricane—flying debris.” Nessa pointed at the giant live oak in the side yard, then opened the front door and maneuvered him inside. “They told me branches snapped off like twigs and flew around the yard.”