"If he's alive." It wasn't the answer he wanted to give, wasn't the answer she wanted to hear. It would be so much easier, so much more hopeful, to be able to say simply yes. Yes, he'll show up. Yes, he'll help us. Yes, he'll survive this.
Yes, your daughter will still have a father when this is all over—a father she'll never know, a father who will never know her.
But he couldn't offer false promises, and she couldn't accept them.
She spoke again, her voice lower this time. "Do you think he'll be all right?"
"Carlucci's been taking care of himself since he was … what? Six years old? I think he'll manage." Watching her closely, he asked, "Do you ever plan to tell him about Cassie?"
"No. I don't know how he would react—whether he wouldn't care, in which case I would hate him more than ever, or whether he would have some macho need to claim her as his own, which I couldn't allow him to do. I promised Mama and Daddy that Cassie would never know the truth. It's best for her."
Smith had to agree with her. Cassie was a bright and well-adjusted girl, but the truth could change that. It would certainly shake up her entire happy life to learn that her loving parents were, in fact, her grandparents, that the older sister who doted on her was her mother, that her father was a mob lawyer who might go to prison if his former boss didn't execute him first, who might change his identity and begin life anew, who might never want to know that he had a daughter.
After a brief silence, he asked another tough question. "Does it bother you that he loved another woman so much?"
She looked up abruptly, her expression faintly startled. "You saw that, too."
He nodded. It hadn't been a difficult guess to make. All he'd had to do was look at Carlucci's face when Jolie had asked which of Falcone's victims had been important to him and consider what it would take to bring out that sort of sorrow in him. The answer had been easy: losing Jolie. There were other people he loved, other people he would grieve for, but none so much as Jolie. None that could drive him to do what Nick Carlucci was doing but Jolie.
"No, it doesn't bother me." She smiled a little crookedly. "It makes me jealous, but it doesn't bother me."
"Why jealous? Because he loved her in a way he didn't love you?"
"No. Because I assume that if he loved her that much, she must have loved him a lot, too. I wonder what it's like to be loved like that."
Smith thought about the words she had chosen. Not to love like that, but to be loved like that. Did that mean she already knew what it was like to love someone that much?
Could it mean that she loved him like that?
He thought she loved him. Hell, he knew she loved him. He just wasn't sure she was willing to do anything about it. After all, she was the one who had insisted there was no place in her life for a man, no place for marriage. She was the one who looked into the future and saw only her career … while he had no future to look into without her.
"Sometimes there are problems," he said in response to her last comment. "Sometimes you disagree. Sometimes it seems you see everything from opposite viewpoints. Sometimes you fight … but you always make up. You never lose sight of what's important. You never stop caring. You never stop needing each other."
She studied him for a long time, her expression serious and a little, just a little, afraid. Twice she started to speak; twice she stopped. Then, drawing a deep breath, she asked in an unsteady voice, "And how would you know? You told me that you'd never been in love."
His own voice was none too strong. "That was before I fell in love with you." He tried to smile to ease the tension that was wrapping around him from the inside out, but he couldn't. This was too serious. Too important. Too damned vital to the rest of his life. "I do love you, Jolie. I love damned near everything about you."
She managed the smile that he couldn't. "You're not too crazy about my job, are you?"
They had had this conversation before, just last night, only the roles had been reversed. Now he gave the same answer she had given then in response to his question. "No more than you are about mine."
"I'll turn in my resignation tomorrow."
Her offer took him by surprise. Granted, she could be teasing—he had been when he'd made the same offer last night—although, as it turned out, he'd been more serious than he'd realized. But she didn't look as if she found anything about their conversation less than serious. Less than the-rest-of-their-lives important.
But she couldn't mean it. She couldn't actually be considering giving up her job for him. She loved her job. It meant everything to her.
At least, it used to.
She waited, her hands clasped tightly together, for some response from him. After a moment more, he gave it, his voice gently chiding. "You can't quit your job, Jolie."
"Actually…" She smiled edgily, showing him how nervous she was. She should be nervous, he acknowledged. This was a major, major decision for her. "I wasn't thinking about quitting. I was thinking about writing something else. How do you think I'd do on the society pages?"
Reaching out, he unknotted her fingers, then took both of her hands in his. "I think you would do fine no matter what you're writing about. I also think the society pages would bore you to tears in about six hours."
"Better to be bored than shot at," she replied. "Better than getting you shot at. Besides, maybe I could learn something from all those Southern belles."
"Like what?"
Her smile turned shy. "Like how to fit into your world."
Using his hold on her hands, he pulled until she had no choice but to move into his arms. "You fit into my world just fine," he murmured as he held her. "Hell, Jolie, you are my world."
She settled more comfortably in his lap, resting her head on his shoulder. "Of course, if I gave up my life of crime, I'd have a lot more free time. There'd be no more clandestine middle-of-the-night meetings."
"No more sneaking down alleyways or watching your back."
"No more worrying about the FBI snooping around in my belongings or in my past."
"Whatever would you do for excitement?" he gently teased.
She kissed him, slow, lazy and full of passion, then gave him a smile that matched and said in a thick, sultry voice, "I'm sure we'd think of something."
Feeling himself respond to her promise—not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually—he bent for another hungry kiss. "I'm sure we will," he agreed with a soft, satisfied laugh.
Just before his mouth touched hers, just before he satisfied the hunger she had created, she spoke again. She made one more promise.
One sweet, forever-and-ever promise.
"I love you, Smith."
* * *
Epilogue
« ^
Jolie sat cross-legged in bed, papers spread around her, a pair of recently acquired reading glasses perched on her nose. She was supposed to be working—yes, she had told Smith, she was bringing work along on the trip—but she hadn't accomplished much. First, there had been getting her sea legs to deal with; she had spent two entire days getting disgustingly sick. Then had come long hours learning to help Smith with the sailing and even longer hours staring out at the water. The ocean—beautiful, reasonably calm, incredibly soothing—fascinated her in a way that Smith, who'd grown up with the ocean lapping at the edge of his backyard, didn't quite share. Swimming lessons had filled a few afternoons; while she would never be as comfortable in the water as Smith was, at least she could stay afloat and get from point A to point B.
And, of course, they had spent hours—long, hot, sweet hours—making love.
Work had been the farthest thing from her mind.
Glancing at the clock, she leaned back against the pillows and sighed contentedly. It was ten minutes until midnight, New Year's Eve. If they were home in New Orleans, they would be in the midst of a giant party in Jackson Square
, counting down to midnight, one of her personal traditions for as long as she could remember. But out here in the Carib
bean, anchored off a sandy little uninhabited island whose name they didn't know, was a tremendously satisfying alternative.
It had been a hell of a year. Nick had stayed alive and had stunned Jimmy Falcone, his lawyers and the jury with his testimony. By the time he had finished his first day on the witness stand, a conviction on all charges had been virtually inevitable. It had taken a while—the trial had dragged on for weeks—but in the end, Smith had won. Nick had won. The people of New Orleans and Louisiana had won. Falcone had gotten slapped with a sentence so stiff that he would never see freedom again. He would likely die in prison.
She hoped that offered some bit of solace to Nick.
Before he had testified for the government, Nick had pulled out another surprise, this time stunning both her and Smith. He had pleaded guilty to the charges against him. He had refused Smith's attempts to make a deal, had refused to even discuss the possibility. Making a deal, he had insisted, could taint his testimony. If he got a reduced sentence or a free walk in exchange for his testimony, Jimmy's attorneys would twist that to their advantage. They would make it look as if the government had bought his cooperation. They would accuse him of saying whatever the government wanted in order to save his own skin. He hadn't wanted even the slightest doubt created in even one juror.
Now he was in prison, too, sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary in Alabama. Jolie couldn't help but think that he'd gotten exactly what he wanted: revenge against Falcone and punishment for his own crimes.
With Falcone's conviction had come a number of job offers for Smith. He had been brilliant in Court, she thought, immensely proud. Of course, he had turned them all down; the US. Attorney's office was where he belonged. Still, he'd told her, it was nice to know there were places that wanted him in case he ever changed his mind.
It was nice to know. She had gotten an offer herself from a regional magazine, a slick, thick publication that covered everything from politics and current events to restaurants and debutantes, from fashion to the arts to tourism. They had wanted to make use of her own particular expertise: the first article they had in mind from her would be an in-depth piece on Falcone's organization.
She had accepted their offer. It was that piece that was scattered around her now.
It was the first piece she'd written that would bear her new byline, Jolie Wade Kendricks. Once she was established, once everyone who had known and read her in the past had grown accustomed to the new name, she would drop Wade and use Kendricks exclusively.
She was just an old-fashioned girl at heart, she supposed.
"What are you smiling about?"
Removing her glasses, she looked up at Smith, standing in the doorway wearing a pair of gym shorts and nothing else, and her smile grew wider. "I've got a jillion things to smile about."
"Such as?" He crossed the room, stripped off his shorts, then waited while she gathered her papers, before joining her, naked, on the bed.
"I learned how to swim."
"Hmm."
"They've got the typical winter damp and fog back home, and I'm on a boat in the Caribbean." She laid everything, including her glasses, on the bedside table and slid down to lie beside him. "I've got a new job that I'm really going to like—one that will hopefully keep me out of trouble with you people."
"That's certainly something for me to smile about," he said dryly. "What else?" Balancing on one arm, he toyed with the top button of her gown. Made of batiste, falling to midcalf and buttoning up the front, the gown wasn't sexy enough to take on a honeymoon, her sisters had informed her.
But then, they had never been favored with the experience of Smith removing it.
"I had a beautiful wedding."
"We had a beautiful wedding," he corrected her. Finally he pushed the tiny white button through the hole and slid his hand an inch lower to the next one.
She acknowledged his correction with a nod. "Your parents liked me."
"They adored you." In fact, that had been his mother's first comment after meeting Jolie: Oh, Smith, she's adorable. Her next comment had dampened his satisfaction just a little. You two will have beautiful children. Your father and I can hardly wait.
He opened the second button and the third, then took a moment to explore what he had uncovered. Her skin was soft, a warm gold, browned by days under the tropical sun. Dipping his fingers lower beneath the gown, he brushed across her breast. Her nipple was already swelling, already growing hard in anticipation. "What else makes you smile, Jolie?" he murmured as he pushed the fabric back so he could bathe her breast with open kisses.
Her breath caught in her chest, and her voice sounded hoarse and strained. "You do," she whispered.
Moving to lie between her legs, he supported himself on his elbows and teased her with sweet kisses and feathery caresses before opening another button and yet another. The gown was open to her hips, heat was emanating from the oh-so-sweet place inside her, and he was hard and aching to fill her when she spoke.
"You know what else would bring me smiles?" She stroked him—his hair, his face, his jaw—before continuing. "After the wedding, Cassie was helping me change out of my gown, and you know what she told me? That she hopes we make her an aunt soon. She said…"
As he watched her, she swallowed hard, blinked back the dampness that filled her eyes and smiled ruefully. She was embarrassed by the tears, he thought, loving her so much that it hurt.
In control again, she went on. "She said that any child would be lucky to have us for parents. Do you know how much that means to me?"
Her daughter, who could never know that she was her daughter, thought she would make a good mother. He knew.
"I've thought about it a lot since then and … I think she's right. I think we can be good parents, Smith. I think we can be damned good parents. It doesn't have to be right away—I mean, we just got married—but…" she said, finishing in a whisper. "Having a baby, having your baby, would really make me smile, Smith."
Now it was his throat that was tight, his eyes that were suspiciously damp. He moved up the bed to kiss her, long and hard, and at the same time, he sought his place inside her, pushing until she was full, until she sheltered him completely. Breaking off the kiss, he closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the feel of her, so soft and heated, feeling his love for her, feeling her love for him.
Then, need growing stronger, he gazed down at her before he started moving inside her. "Then by all means, jolie blonde," he murmured, his lips brushing hers. "Let me make you smile."
* * * *
A MAN LIKE SMITH Page 25