Seeker of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  “When was this?”

  “About a half hour ago.”

  Jacques pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and there it was. Missed call at 6:45 A.M. She’d been in danger. She’d called him and he hadn’t answered.

  Max directed his question to MacCreedy. “Were they there for you or her?”

  Silas’s hand stroked soothingly over Nica’s hair as her arms tightened about him, his attention on Savoie. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for either of us to go back there.”

  Jacques turned toward the blank office window as a terrible guilt twisted about the residuals of his fear. Again, his emotions careened wildly, way outside the normal spectrum of concern that he should have felt for a near stranger.

  Forgetting the small gathering at his table, he started to move away, unable to satisfy his anxiety until he saw for himself that she was unharmed.

  Max’s hand caught about his wrist.

  “She’s a danger to us,” he summed up with that cold, conclusive way he had. “She needs to go.”

  “You don’t get to make that decision. She’s under my protection.”

  Max’s unblinking stare called him on that. And look what a good job you’ve been doing with that so far. Aloud, he said, “What do you know about her? Do you know why she’s here, who she works for? She could be an infiltrator. We need to get rid of her now.”

  The back of Jacques’s neck prickled and his canine teeth lengthened as he drawled, “I didn’t know anything about your agenda when I took you in. Look how well that turned out for me, for all of us. You don’t get to choose when it’s convenient to care about what goes on here, and you don’t get to play leader of the pack only when it suits you. Susanna Duchamps is with me now, and only I get to say when she comes and goes. Worry about your own female’s agenda and leave mine to me.”

  He could have been mistaken but it looked as though Nica did a quick fist pump.

  “Jacques,” Max began, but LaRoche cut him off angrily.

  “Maybe you should keep to your own place to do your business and leave us here to take care of our own. Seems like one has nothing to do with the other anymore.”

  He pulled his arm back, knowing he couldn’t break Savoie’s grip unless he chose to let him go. The tight band of fingers loosened, allowing Jacques to jerk free and continue without a backward glance toward his office and the female waiting there.

  The female he’d just publicly declared was his responsibility.

  One he’d failed miserably.

  Seven

  There were no lights on in the room. Susanna sat on one of the couches, her slight figure steeped in shadows. Her head lifted when she heard him come in, giving him a brief glimpse of her pale features before it lowered again, masking her face behind the curtain of her mussed hair.

  “I should have listened to you.” Her words were quiet and inflectionless. “I didn’t and I’m sorry.”

  She was sorry. It took Jacques a moment to process that. She thought she was to blame.

  When he was able to speak, his voice growled like thunder. “Get your things. You’re coming home with me.”

  No argument. No hesitation. That in itself alarmed him as she shouldered the straps to her bulky purse and gathered the bags from her earlier shopping spree. She wouldn’t meet his gaze as she approached in silence, and that uncharacteristic humility added weight to his guilt. She stopped when his hand touched her shoulder but didn’t wince beneath the slight press of his fingers.

  “Do you trust me, Susanna?”

  She glanced up then, surprised because he hadn’t used her first name before this. Still, no expression registered as she told him, “Not at first, but I do now.”

  Something about that small admission wedged up in his throat, forcing him to clear it before he could ask, “Do you need to get anything from the apartment?”

  Her shudder was slight but unmistakable. “No. I don’t want to go back there.”

  “I have a toothbrush you can use.”

  A very faint smile. “Then I have everything I need.”

  If she’d been his as he’d boldly snarled below, Jacques would have snatched her up close and simply held her. But she wasn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he stepped back, letting her precede him to the car parked in the rear alley. He never spared the small group down by the bar a glance or another thought.

  Susanna sat still and silent while Jacques drove. Her only sign of agitation was in the quick, shaky pulls of breath that seemed unusually loud over the banging in his head. Her hands rested in a relaxed pose on her knees. He frowned at the sight of blood on one of them.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She blinked up at him in confusion.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  She shook her head, then followed his nod to her stained fingertips. Her gaze fixed there for a long moment. “I scratched one of them on the neck.”

  “Did you see their faces?” He was careful to keep his tone level as fury began to boil up inside him.

  “No, not really. It was dark and they surprised me. I’m afraid I’m not a very good witness.”

  His jaw clenched tight as he kept his eyes on the road. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, unprepared for her startled look.

  “About what? None of this was your fault. I was careless. You have every right to be angry.”

  She was taking the blame for his own mistakes. She’d been sitting there expecting him to chew into her for her disobedience while he was close to drowning in shame.

  “I’m not angry with you,” he gritted out. He drew a savage breath. “I didn’t answer your call.”

  Again, the guileless blink of her eyes. “There was nothing you could have done even if you had.” After that cool logic, she turned away to stare out the side window, dismissing any further apology or explanation.

  His guilt boiled and thickened over a flame of impotent anger.

  The impact of his decision to take her home with him didn’t sink in until Jacques brought the Caddy to a stop outside his current residence. When he stared at the shabby construction trailer, his humiliation twisted into an unbearable knot.

  What was he thinking bringing her here?

  Susanna was a classy female, obviously from wealth and privilege. He imagined her horror at being cloistered in his dingy bachelor accommodations and almost put the car into reverse. But where would he take her? To his apartment in the Towers where most of his stuff lay under a tarp of ash soaked in smoke? To a hotel room he couldn’t afford? To Savoie’s big mobster mansion out on River Road? That last pushed his embarrassment out of the way of his pride. He didn’t need Savoie’s charity, nor did he think it would be cheerfully given to a woman he considered a danger.

  Susanna was his responsibility. She would have to make do.

  But that didn’t stop him from cringing when he opened the door and a potpourri of burnt coffee and overdue laundry rolled out to greet them. He decided grimly that it probably didn’t smell any worse than he did.

  “Welcome to my very humble abode,” he drawled, adding ruefully, “emphasis on humble.”

  She stepped around him and paused in the center of the main room to look around. His gut tightened as if for a blow but there was no sign of disgust on her dainty features, just curiosity.

  “You work here, too?” she asked, touching the stack of invoices he’d left on the stained Formica-topped table.

  “Yeah, it’s convenient. I like to be on-site so I can keep an eye on things.” He made a sweep of the office, loading his arms with beer bottles and coffee cups, carrying them to the tiny kitchen area where he survived out of the microwave, coffeepot and ancient, rattling, and meagerly stocked refrigerator. He thought about offering her breakfast but all he had were frozen bean burritos. Breakfast of champions and bachelors. There was a half inch of furry sludge in the coffeepot. He quickly dumped it into the dish-crowded sink before she noticed he was growing cultures of his own.

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nbsp; But Susanna wasn’t watching him. She’d set down her things and was moving about his living/working space as if it was some sort of museum of the single male animal. She picked up and examined the magazines scattered across his couch: Entrepreneur, Time, Bloomberg Business Week. Thankfully, Philo had five-fingered his latest pictorial issue to admire the tri-fold airbrushing. She studied the front of one of the magazines and with a lift of her brows, showed it to him. Chicago Magazine. He pressed his lips together, offering no explanation. He kept hoping something familiar within those pages would spark a memory. How pathetic would that make him sound?

  “You have interesting taste,” she commented, setting the periodical down.

  “My Metropolitan Home and Food and Wine come next week.”

  She smiled and glanced at the books he’d stacked on the floor. Titles on small business operation, time management, and a couple of embarrassing volumes on developing personal power.

  “When do you find time to read, working two demanding jobs?”

  “While I’m not sleeping.”

  There was no hint of mockery in the look she gave him. He wanted to think he saw admiration there. However unlikely, he still felt uncomfortable with it. He gestured down the narrow hall.

  “The bathroom and bedroom are down there.” As he said it, Jacques tried to remember when he’d last changed the sheets, hoping it was after the last time he’d shared them.

  “A shower sounds wonderful.” She glanced at her bloodstained hand and couldn’t quite catch the shiver that shook her.

  “It’s nothing fancy,” he told her, thinking of his generic toiletries and worn towels. He rubbed a palm over his shaved head. “Sorry, no hair dryer.”

  The sudden flash of her grin staggered him. Her eyes warmed with amused gratitude.

  “It’s fine. It’ll be fine, thanks.” Then, more earnestly, “Thank you, Jacques.”

  He swallowed hard, then muttered gruffly, “I’ll get you some towels and that toothbrush.”

  He rummaged through the tiny linen closet looking for the least threadbare offerings, then turned into the bathroom, staring in dismay at the uninviting fixtures. He usually showered at the club, using this cramped turnaround only to wake himself up after a night like the last one or when he was under the spray with a guest who wasn’t as interested in his cleanliness as she was in a form considered close to godliness.

  Which would be the better part of valor, letting her use the space as it was, asking her to wait while he did some furious scrubbing?

  He glanced over his shoulder to see her moving past the door. She looked ready to drop from fatigue. With a regretful sigh, he set the towels on the closed toilet lid and searched through the medicine cabinet for a toothbrush, finding a lone red one still in the package behind his shaving gear. He placed it on the freestanding sink and quickly tossed the used pink one it replaced into the wastebasket. He was careful not to meet his own reflection in the mirror as he dry swallowed four pain relievers, thinking a pistol would have been quicker and more merciful.

  Susanna was seated on the edge of his bed. The sight of her there gave him a hard jolt, until he noticed she had one shoe on and one off and was clutching her cell phone in shaking hands.

  “Susanna?”

  She looked up through eyes swimming with distress. “I was going to call my daughter and I couldn’t get any words to come out.”

  He dropped down onto one knee so they were eye-to-eye and rubbed his palms soothingly over the tops of her thighs. It was easier to touch her in these casual clothes, without the barrier of status between them. He made his tone low and quieting.

  “It’s all right.”

  Her eyes glistened, finally releasing tears to stream down her porcelain cheeks. Her words mystified him.

  “I hate being afraid all the time.”

  That awful clench of blame had him by the throat again. He managed to whisper, “I’m sorry,” before she cut him off with her stunning claim.

  “You make me feel so safe when I’m with you.”

  She leaned forward, her arms slipping about his waist, her head nestling beneath his chin as if his chest made the perfect pillow. Her scent overpowered him with a force the bourbon couldn’t match. Heat and urgency and a strange contentment flooded his system as Jacques encircled her with his embrace, careful not to crush her close the way instinct demanded. He brushed his lips across her tumbled hair, then let his cheek rest there with a familiarity that had him shaking almost as nervelessly as she was.

  To distract them both, he asked, “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Pearl.”

  “Pearl,” he repeated softly. “Unusual. Like the little girl in The Scarlet Letter.”

  She went very still for a moment, then asked, “Did you see the movie?”

  “I read the book. A great cure for insomnia, but it did have some interesting moral dilemmas. No one can make sex a dirty word like a Puritan.”

  He smiled when he felt a chuckle vibrate through her. Then his expression tightened as her fingers loosened their grip on his shirt and her hands began to make slow circles upon his lower back. He couldn’t mistake the way she nuzzled his throat as her head came up to rest on his shoulder. Her breath blew across his skin in a warm sigh.

  “You continually surprise me,” she murmured.

  “Why? Because I know what a moral is? Or because I have them?”

  He felt her smile against his neck. She freed one arm so her hand could cup the cap of his other shoulder. Instead of answering, she said, “You’re a good man, Jacques LaRoche.”

  A fierce bolt of desire shot straight to his loins. Not so good, apparently. He eased back out of the sweet entanglement of her arms. “You’ll feel better after a shower. Then call her.”

  Susanna rubbed her palms over her face and tired eyes. “She’ll be in school by then. I think I’ll just catch up on my sleep.”

  “I might have that copy of The Scarlet Letter around here if you need some help nodding off.”

  Her laugh did all sorts of crazy things to his insides.

  “I don’t think I’ll have any trouble.” She put her phone on his nightstand and levered out of her other shoe. Then she surprised him completely by pressing those soft palms to either side of his face, fixing him in place as she slid a light kiss across his lips, breathing a gentle, “Thank you,” over them before she stood.

  As the shower started running, Jacques turned to drop onto his backside, letting his hands lace over the top of his head as he slumped against the side of the bed. He closed his eyes but could still envision her naked body beneath that tepid spray, could feel the smooth, slick heat of her flesh against his. His hands following those intriguing curves. Her lips burning against his chest. And lower. His fingers clenching in her hair as his breath shuddered from him.

  The sound of his ragged inhalation had him blinking his eyes open, disoriented and dismayed, from the all-too-real fantasy.

  What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  It was more than the heat of the water that made Susanna’s tension swirl down the drain.

  She shouldn’t have hugged him. Kissing him had been madness. But the feel of him, the taste of him, revitalized all her senses.

  She’d never been so alive as when in his company. Surly or sweet, it didn’t matter. Even if she wasn’t still crazy in love with him, which she was, she would be falling for him all over again.

  As she toweled her hair dry, she eyed the grim surroundings, comparing them to the sleekly professional gleam of his nightclub office. Both were parts of him, the rough and reckless and the neatly organized. The first was inherent within him and the second had been a gift from her. Just as her sudden courage and embrace of emotions were hers from him.

  Only Jacques didn’t understand his preoccupation with learning and culture that had survived the purging of his earlier life, just as his territorial attraction to her had endured.

  There were so many things she could have
told him about his taste in music, his interest in books, his drive for self-improvement. She could have, but wouldn’t. Because in knowing those things, he might remember who had stripped them away from him.

  And then, even though he would never let her go, he would never forgive her, either.

  So she lusted in silence as she watched him move about the microscopic kitchen, just she’d ached at the sign of another woman’s toothbrush in his trash, where hers would soon be keeping it company.

  He’d changed his clothes after apparently washing up in the sink. The collar of his T-shirt was still damp against the back of his neck. She longed to sample him there, to suck at that wet skin, to cup his denim-clad butt in both hands and squeeze. Delicious, decadent thoughts circled like that water swirling down the shower.

  But as much as she loved him and yearned to be with him, there was one thing more important, the one thing created between them and holding them apart.

  The life of the child they’d made together.

  So Susanna backed down the hallway as quietly as she could and shut the door to the bedroom behind her. She shed her new clothes in favor of one of Jacques’s engulfing T-shirts and slipped beneath his covers.

  There she hugged one of his surprisingly comfortable down pillows, burying her face in the softness to breathe him in. Other scents entwined with his—musky female smells. Susanna blocked them out, refusing to blame him for seeking companionship where he could, envying those brief escapes of passion. He hadn’t chosen to leave her, to forget all they’d shared and dreamed together. That was her doing, her choice. She’d forced him into this new life and couldn’t begrudge him anything he did with it. Or who he did it with.

  “Susanna?” A light tap on the door. “I’ve got to get to work. You’ll be safe here.”

  “Okay.” Her answer was muffled by the emotions crowding about her heart.

  “Be back around six. I’ll be close by. Stay here. Find something to read.”

  She could picture his smile, and her own trembled about her lips as she suppressed an impossible wish.