by Nancy Gideon
Jacques’s gaze went to the hostage to assess her state of mind. She was terrified and trembling, a split second from instant death, but her dark eyes met his with an eerie calm, as if she knew rescue was coming. As if she had absolutely no doubts.
Without thought or hesitation, Jacques pulled the pistol he kept beneath the cash drawer in case of emergency and strode purposefully from behind the bar. In one smooth move, he leveled the barrel and fired a single shot into the shadows, punching a neat hole through the Tracker’s forehead that blew out the back of his head.
With a quick glance to see that Philo was moving, Jacques strode across the club, lifting Nica by the forearm to settle her into a chair before bounding up the steps to where Susanna stood.
She’d staggered free as the dead man fell. Her pulse, so steady and calm while caught in the grip of danger, began a rapid pounding, sending a dizzying rush of blood to her head. Her entire focus haloed about the grimly set features of her rescuer.
“Nice shot,” was her breathy comment.
“Are you all right?”
She frowned slightly at his concerned tone, then followed his gaze down to the front of her blouse where her assailant’s bloodied sleeve had left damp smears of crimson all over the front of it.
As her head lifted, her eyes gave a brief flutter and she dropped dead away into Jacques’s arms.
“You’re safe now. I have you.”
The rumble of his words caressed her cheek, followed by the soft graze of his lips. Never in her life had she felt such a sense of security as within the strong wrap of his embrace. His chest provided unconditional sanctuary, his arms curls of unbreakable steel. The fierce hammering of his heart spoke a vow of perpetual devotion, each beat comforting because of the next that was sure to follow.
So this was love, this huge engulfing blanket of tenderness tucked about her with a promise of forever.
This was love.
She opened her eyes to gaze into those clear pools of blue, drowning in the emotions she saw there. Need, desire, worry, loyalty, each sensation taking root in her own soul as it was recognized.
She whispered his name like a prayer of thanksgiving.
And he bent to kiss her, slowly, searingly, endlessly.
“It’s all right. You’re safe.”
Susanna gazed up into the blue of his eyes and for a moment all was confused. She lifted her hand to his face, almost surprised to feel the very real warmth of stubbled skin beneath her fingertips.
“You saved me,” came her dreamy sigh.
Her touch grew more bold as she lost herself in the familiar textures, stroking along the broad plane of his cheek, her thumb riding the swell of his lower lip. She watched his brow pucker and his eyes go a shade darker until finally his large hand covered hers, holding it gently, drawing it away from him to settle it on her middle, atop the other.
“Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?” he asked with somber concern.
Susanna blinked once, twice, scattering the overlap of time and place to ground her in the moment. She wasn’t in a stairwell in Chicago. She was in New Orleans, stretched out on a leather couch with Jacques LaRoche hunkered down beside her. “Yes, of course,” she told him, managing to sound lucid. “Is everyone all right?”
“Nica’s at the bar putting ice on my foolish friend’s head. His two men were injured, but nothing fatal. You fainted.”
“I—I did? How unlike me.”
He smiled faintly at her embarrassment. “You’ve had a lot of guns pointed at your head by stone killers, have you, to just shrug it off as an everyday occurrence?”
Her own lips curved ruefully. “Not every day, but this wasn’t my first go-round, Mr. LaRoche. I apologize for inconveniencing you.”
He straightened, rising to his feet to tower over her. “Apology accepted.”
Her hands stirred, moving over unfamiliar cotton fabric. Glancing down, she found she was wearing a man’s white shirt.
Seeing her question before she spoke it, Jacques explained, “You had blood all over your blouse. It’s soaking so the stains won’t set.”
Her eyes widened. “You—you took off my clothes?” The idea of his hands on her, undressing her, made her pulse quiver.
He mistook the reason for her alarm, saying quietly, “Nica did. I only supplied the shirt. No need to worry that I soiled you with my touch.”
“That’s not—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t, Dr. Duchamps.”
Her chuckle mocked his brittle reply. She put out her hand to him. “Could you help me up or are you afraid of getting dirtied?”
His hand engulfed hers, tugging slightly so she could sit up, fighting waves of threatening nausea as she did so. He released her immediately, unconsciously wiping his palm on his jeans. She marked the movement with another wry smile.
“Considering how much you dislike me, Mr. LaRoche, I’m surprised you would risk such a bold shot to save my life.”
“I wasn’t the one who had something to lose if I missed.”
She didn’t react to that sharp bite except to say, “I’m sorry my presence here upsets you.”
“Your existence upsets me.”
She despised the prejudice he barely bothered to conceal. They were joined by the same ancestors. Distant relatives, but family nonetheless.
Family wasn’t a concept the Chosen believed in. Selective breeding was. She couldn’t fault them for the narrow logic of their opinions. They didn’t know any better. They were emotionally bankrupt. But Jacques LaRoche didn’t have that excuse.
“How can you say that? You don’t even know me.”
“I know what you are, what you believe, how you treat my kind like filthy animals incapable of intelligent thought.”
Her gaze grew as narrow as his mind-set. “It’s that type of statement that leads to those kinds of assumptions. You do not know me. You don’t know what I believe, what I like, or what my favorite color is.”
“Red.”
“What?”
“It’s red,” he said again, this time disturbed by that certainty.
She stood, teetering unsteadily both in body and emotion. Jacques started to reach out to her, but arrested the gesture. They stared at each other, at an impasse.
Finally, Susanna said, “I’d better go before you start to wonder if you shot the wrong individual.” As she turned toward the door, his direct question made her pause.
“Did they come here because of you?”
She didn’t favor him with a look as she firmly said, “No,” and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Jacques moved to the one-way glass overlooking his club, his gaze following her down the stairs on her way to join Nica and a groggy Philo. His shirt swam on her like a choir robe, emphasizing how small and fragile she was.
He was sorry for his gruff words, knowing that they’d hurt her, but he’d reacted out of primal self-defense. When she’d opened her eyes to stare up at him with such obvious longing, when she’d touched his face as if he were the love of her life, he’d tried to take a breath and found himself unable to consume air.
Because it was that look, that touch that haunted him behind the veil of his forgotten past, that same intense spark of emotional connection so agonizingly missing from his life. Something about her hurried his heartbeats until his chest ached to contain them.
He’d been shocked by his willingness to allow her, no, to encourage her with his silence, a stranger, an enemy, to stay just so he could drink in these unexpected sensations until that long emptied well was full again.
She was confusing him, stealing in to lay claim to tiny bits of a life he didn’t remember. That’s what they did. Lied. Manipulated. That’s what they were good at. That much he knew with a bitter certainty.
Red. Why had he said that as if he knew it was true?
And where had he learned to handle a gun?
He’d taken the piece
off a rowdy customer and tucked it away without even checking to see if it was loaded. It fit his hand like an extension of his arm. He’d fired with unerring instinct and cold purpose, letting himself in on another unpleasant secret.
Some time ago, in that past hidden from him, he’d been a stone-cold killer, too.
Four
Charlotte Caissie was not what Susanna expected.
Nica said she was a police detective and the mate of Max Savoie, the leader of the New Orleans clan who also headed an extensive criminal empire. But other intriguing properties had her studying the female with interest as Charlotte entered the club and crossed to the bar as if she had part ownership in the place.
The tall woman with exotic looks and quick eyes, who garbed her curvaceous form in what Susanna could only describe as Goth dominatrix style, leaned across the bar to squeeze Jacques in a reciprocated hug, then turned her attention to Philo, fussing and scolding as she gestured to the evidence on the floor behind her. Both men regarded her with a respectful affection that Susanna envied. Then, suddenly all business, the detective bent over the still figure of the Tracker, flipping back the shrouding drop cloth so she could get a look at his face. She restored the cover and shook her head, obviously not recognizing him. From her crouched position over the body, her attention cut to Susanna and held for a long, contemplative minute.
This human hybrid was the key to Susanna’s research, the way to resolve her own frustrations and fears.
All she had to do was overcome the tremendous chill of suspicion present in that stare as Charlotte approached and put out her hand.
“Dr. Duchamps, thank you for coming down to see me. Sorry to greet you with such drama.”
Susanna shook hands, refusing to flinch from the double-barreled stare. “Detective. As a scientist, I couldn’t resist the invitation.”
Charlotte settled into a chair between her and Nica, pleasantries at an end. “Nica tells me I can trust you, but I’ll make up my own mind about that.”
Susanna smiled. “Likewise, detective.”
That bit of boldness earned a return smile. “So you think what I propose is possible?”
“From what little I know, I can’t make guarantees, but I’m optimistic. And I have a few conditions of my own.”
Again, that cautious glint. “Name them.”
“Privacy, secrecy, safety. I don’t want anyone to know who I am, why I’m here, or what I’m doing.”
“I agree completely.”
“And freedom to work not only on your agenda, but on my own.”
Now that steely reserve flattened her tone. “I guess that depends on the nature of your agenda, doctor.”
“I’m a scientist, yes, but also a physician. I’ve devoted my area of study to genetics on the reproductive level. And I believe that might be of interest to you, due to your circumstances.”
“What do you mean?” she all but growled with a protectiveness that confirmed what Susanna already knew.
“When is your child due?”
“What?” Nica exclaimed in surprise. “You and Max?”
Ignoring that outburst, Charlotte conceded, “In early spring. And I’d appreciate you keeping it quiet, since I haven’t discussed it with the other party involved.”
Nica leaned across the table with a salacious, “Max doesn’t know?”
“He’s got a lot on his mind and I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure . . . until I knew everything was all right. I heard there could be problems.”
Susanna didn’t make light of her fears. “It depends on the type of conception, but yes, the danger is very real to both you and the child. That’s my condition. I want to follow the progress of your pregnancy. Because of your unusual situation, the information is invaluable.”
Charlotte reared back, eyes flinty. “You won’t make my baby into an experiment.”
Susanna caught her hand, pressing warmly. “No, that’s not what I intend at all. We’re each in a position to be of tremendous benefit to the other, personally, not just professionally. I understand your reluctance. I’m a mother, too, and the last thing I’d ever allow was my child to become the subject of clinical study. I can help you. I can monitor the development to make sure there are no problems. If there are, I’m your best chance of finding a positive solution. I’ve made this area my life’s work. You couldn’t be in better hands if something goes wrong.”
Susanna knew she was playing upon the other woman’s fears and emotions and did so with only the slightest regret. The opportunity was too important to let slip away. Not just for this growing hybrid child, but for her own.
“I’ll have to consider it,” Charlotte said carefully.
With a final squeeze of her hand, Susanna released her. “Of course you do.”
The detective took a deep breath, reluctant yet obviously desperate for the chance she was being handed. Her tone was clipped and concise as she returned to her original agenda.
“First things first. An answer to your conditions.”
At Susanna’s questioning look, she lifted her hand and motioned to the big bartender.
“Who’s the little dish?” Philo asked, following Jacques’s covert stare to the trio in the shadows. He was slumped over the bar, head resting on his arms, holding a cold bottled beer against his brow.
“Friend of Nica’s. A doctor of some sort.” An extremely vague summation, but Jacques wasn’t ready to throw gasoline on the fire of his friend’s temper so soon after dousing it with ice and pain meds.
“Maybe I should have her look at my head.”
“I don’t think she’s that kind of doctor.”
Philo smiled. “I dunno. Might be kinda fun looking at ink blots with her on a couch somewhere.”
Jacques was used to his friend’s randy attitude when it came to females and usually thought nothing of it, but his comment stirred an unexpected desire to bash in whatever remaining brains Philo had left.
A sudden bite of pain had him forcefully relaxing his hands, where he was surprised to find lengthening nails had punctured his palms. He had no reason to feel protective of the bothersome female. But it was hard to ignore the aggressive prickling that had him rubbing at the back of his neck.
“What does Savoie think about all this?” Philo asked, glancing grimly at the bloodstained floor where his companions had almost died. They’d been claimed by family members, leaving only the cleanup. Once Philo’s group had picked up the first Tracker he’d slain, they’d be by for this one; then it would be a quick trip to the swamps for an unceremonious burial.
“Hard to tell when he doesn’t return my calls,” Jacques grumbled. “He’s in some kind of meeting with his attorney. It’s not like we don’t know how to tidy up after ourselves without his say-so.”
He found Philo staring at him.
“What?”
“That was one hell of a shot.”
“Just luck.”
“Didn’t look like luck to me.”
“This from the fella who left the better part of his mental faculties over there on my floor?”
Jacques could joke about it, but in truth, it spooked him plenty. He didn’t know where the skill had come from, who had taught him, or for what purpose.
What had he done for the Chosen during his years in the North?
He scowled over at the table of females, wondering what they were up to. No good, from the way Charlotte was casting glances his way. When she beckoned him over, a mood of wariness came over him as he approached, as if an attractively baited trap was about to spring on him.
He paused behind the empty chair, asking politely, because Nica had called him on his rudeness, “Something I can do for you ladies?”
Charlotte smiled up at him and he felt the sharp snap of the trap’s teeth.
“Now that you mention it, yes, there is.”
She’d made it sound so simple. Practical and precautionary was hard to argue with, even when it meant an invasion of his privacy.
The disgusting truth was, he was a softy, just as Nica said. He might growl and posture but there was nothing Jacques wouldn’t do for those he cared about. And he considered Charlotte and Nica part of that makeshift circle.
Setting aside his initial alarm and reluctance, he could see the logic of the request. That didn’t mean he had to like it.
Susanna Duchamps needed a quiet, safe place to do some computer work and his office fit the bill. Never mind that he’d be majorly inconvenienced. Never mind that the thought of the dainty little doctor in such close proximity made his palms sweat. Charlotte had looked up at him, dark eyes filled with an urgent pleading, and he’d gone to grits.
She wouldn’t tell him what they were up to, only that it was something intensely personal and that he couldn’t tell anyone about it, especially Max. As annoyed as he was with Charlotte’s oh so self-important mate, that tipped things in her favor.
Charlotte hugged him fiercely. Nica smushed a kiss to his cheek. And Susanna Duchamps regarded him somberly, vowing to stay out of his way. He wouldn’t even know she was there.
Yeah, right.
His reply to her was as courteous as he could make it.
“You bring trouble into my place, you’ll wish you’d never set foot in it.”
From the look in her eyes, she was regretting it already.
The plan was for her to arrive at the rear door just after closing, around three in the morning. She had no problem with the time, saying she often worked odd shifts when caught up in a project. Then she’d set up at his desk and use those hours when the club was quiet to do whatever hoodoo that Charlotte felt she’d do so well.
What could go wrong?
Jacques was asking himself that very thing as he hurriedly entered in the previous day’s receipts so he’d have no excuse to linger.
What could happen while he harbored a Chosen scientist with an unspoken agenda in his, so far, under-the-radar club for Shifters only?
Disaster. The good doctor was just the sort of infiltrator Philo and his Patrol were out prowling the streets to protect against, and here he’d invited her in, offering a soul-sucking vampire the opportunity to drain away the lifeblood of their freedom. The more he thought about it, the more troubled he became. He knew her for what she was. He couldn’t plead any kind of ignorance. He knew all too well what her kind was capable of and that they weren’t to be trusted. His mind was funny that way. He just knew things without any memory being attached to them.