by Nancy Gideon
It didn’t help that her hormones were suddenly all over the place, spiking in crazy highs and dramatically weepy lows. All perfectly normal, Susanna assured. But not for her! She didn’t like losing control. It made things . . . messy. Though she missed the regimented order of life pre-Savoie, she wouldn’t return to it for anything.
But she was missing the way they’d been together.
A fact heart-shockingly affirmed when she saw his silhouette on the front porch swing, slowly rocking. Waiting for her return. How much better was that than just a pair of guinea pigs wheeking for their dinner? Max Savoie fed her soul to a fullness that scattered the darkness of her day. But tonight, she feared there were storm clouds on that horizon.
She left her car out front. Though he was no longer a servant in the household, Giles St. Clair, the big former thug turned attorney-in-the-making, insisted on fussing over it like a proud parent, putting it to bed in the carriage house as if practicing for the baby he anxiously awaited.
“Heya.” A greeting rumbled low and carefully neutral.
“Hey, yourself.” She climbed the steps as if approaching gallows strung with the noose of their tentative parting.
His slitted stare locked on hers, rising as she grew closer, flaring hot when she fit hands over his shoulders and stepped knees up onto the swing on either side of his hips.
“I owe you an apology.” Not the words she’d planned to say, but they leapt from her heart too quickly for her to catch. Apparently, they were the right ones.
“You owe me a kiss first, Detective.” He tapped his lips. “Pay up.”
She’d have surrendered everything for the luxury of his kiss, but what followed would be so much sweeter after the necessary humbling. Forehead resting against his, she vowed, “I love you, Savoie.”
“Yes, I was feeling that in my office. Should I expect MacCreedy to arrive for a kiss-and-make-up, too?”
She made a face. “Way to spoil the mood.”
Big hands cupped her bottom, giving a lusty squeeze. “Oh, I think the mood is just fine. Apology accepted. You know how I am when you get all squinty eyed and official with me.”
“I don’t squint!”
“I’ve felt knife blades less sharp.”
Cee Cee settled back on his lap to scowl. “You know I was just doing the job.”
“I do. But the job ends at those gates, sha. Agreed?”
Because his hands were getting all touchy feely, she was quick to nod. “Off the clock.” Until a cell phone buzzed. “You or me?”
Max’s hands dropped away from what they were doing. “Me.” He reached for it reluctantly. “Apology tabled, Detective. Savoie.” Then he sat up straight, nearly dumping Charlotte from his knees. “When? On our way.”
– – –
Colin’s conflicted thoughts regarding the Babineau matter lifted the minute he stepped into his brother Rico’s apartment. The essence of home and family embraced him as tightly as Evangeline’s hug.
“Hey, kiddo. Where’s everyone?”
“Out on the patio. We’re watching the storm roll in.”
They moved toward the sound of voices. His brother’s laughter mingled with two lighter tones, one of them tightening about his heart the way Evie’s arm cinched his waist.
His mate. The mother-to-be of his children, beginning with the son they’d made between them.
Her dark eyes immediately sought his for a gaze too hot for immature audiences. Mia Guedry now Terriot, small, deliciously curvy, and deadly to those who were fooled by the first obvious two. An instantaneous combustion of lust and longing fueled their fixed stare. A whole new purpose rose along with his welcoming smile.
“Ready to go? Some nasty stuff moving in, and I’d just as soon get home.” And into bed.
“Just been waiting for you.” My whole life, her small smile confided.
Rico groaned. “Take it behind closed doors, please. Preferably your own.”
Colin winked at Amber. “Good idea.”
The blissful trio walked the couple to the door. A perfect moment for both brothers. Damn, we’re lucky. Rico caught his look and gave a small, agreeing nod. Yes, we are.
As the couple rode down in the elevator, Mia noticed his turmoil.
“What’s wrong, Dreamboat? Is it Cale?”
A tug at his lips. “No. Something else that doesn’t need to concern us tonight.” Tomorrow was soon enough. He rested his cheek atop her thick dark hair and breathed her in, forcing his worries away on a lengthy sigh. “You’re my world, Mia.”
“Good.”
As the ’62 T-bird given to him by Max Savoie roared onto the street, those swollen heavens tore loose, sheeting the windshield despite aggressive wiper blades. A warm squeeze of Mia’s hand on his thigh coaxed a glance her way as they entered the Quarter. Every wish he’d ever made was answered in her adoring gaze.
Looking ahead both at the street and toward the pleasures to come, Colin noticed a mammoth sanitation vehicle in the oncoming lane moving at a damn fast clip. Nothing to concern him, since he was in a hurry, too . . . until it veered sharply across the centerline, lights blinding, speeding up just before impact.
Snatching his dreams away in a heartbeat.
CHAPTER SIX
Silas met Max and Cee Cee in the hospital corridor. “He asked me to call you first.”
“What’s happened, Mac?”
Threading fingers through crisp-cut brown hair, he couldn’t come up with an immediate answer to Cee Cee’s blunt demand. Silas MacCreedy wasn’t easily shaken. His expression revealed nothing, but his mate Nica’s presence and the way her palm stroked his arm, said everything.
“Whoever hit them was driving a stolen garbage truck. Didn’t call it in. Crossed the center line and shoved the hood and bumper all the way to the windshield. I don’t know how he got her out. Nothing but the Jaws of Life could’ve torn off that door the way he did. Ambulance brought them here. I called Susanna. She’s in with them now.” His words trickled down, forcing Cee Cee to ask the final question in a low and steady voice.
“How bad?”
Again, the subtle sidestep. “He asked me to call Rueben. He’s her . . . next of kin. He’ll be here as soon as he can charter a flight.”
“Not his brothers?”
“No.” He looked from her to Max. “Just you for now.”
Too stunned to flinch at the fierce squeeze of Cee Cee’s hand, Max asked, “Did he say why?”
“Said you’d know.”
Unfortunately, he did.
– – –
Colin Terriot sat beside the hospital bed, an IV-threaded hand clutched in both of his. As if trying to conjure up a djinni, he rubbed the polished steel of the ring she wore on her thumb. Registering Max’s presence, his attention changed focus, looking to him, instead, to perform that miracle.
The Terriot prince must have hit either windshield or steering wheel, brow recently stitched, and nose swollen. His stare, instead of welling with grief, struck like a blunt instrument. When he didn’t speak, Max’s followed from clenched fingers along tube-threaded arm to the still features of Mia Guedry Terriot, or what he could see of her beneath the bandages and mask artificially filling her lungs.
“Bring her back. Bring them back to me.”
Because he’d once been in that chair watching his own future ebb away, Max didn’t answer with what they both already knew. Colin’s mate was gone. Only machines preserved the tiny flutter of life within her.
Still, Max circled behind his chair, moving to the head of the bed. With hand to the base of her throat as the only bare skin available, he concentrated, sending a psychic search for a spark from that once-vibrant soul, reaching deep until his temples pounded and a thread of crimson trickled from his nose.
But nothing of her remained. Seeing that answer without him speaking, Colin closed blackened eyes.
Quietly, Max asked, “Did you try reaching her through your bond?”
“Until my ears bled.
I hoped . . . I thought maybe . . .” Colin took a steadying breath, damp gaze rising to the ceiling as if for some other divine intervention. “I know she’s not there,” came the final, heavy admission. “My son – Abel Daniel, after my father and her brother, he’s a fighter, but he’s so small. Sonuvabitch.” He fell silent except for quick, tight breaths that finally evened out. “Rueben’s her family, too. I can’t make the decision without him seeing . . .” a hard swallow, “how things are.”
Max squeezed a rigid shoulder. “Anything you need.”
Colin’s stare lifted, glittering not from grief but with vengeance as he growled, “I need to know who and why.”
“It won’t bring them back.”
Colin threw off both hand and gentle truth. “Would that matter to you if you were sitting here?”
If it was Charlotte and his child . . .
That thought tormented as he listened to the fateful beep of the machines. He’d been in that chair, in that same position once before. “No.” Max couldn’t argue. “You aren’t alone in this. Remember that.” When Colin didn’t respond, he added, “Do you want me to call your brothers?”
A quick emotional spasm breached those stoic features. “Not until after I talk to Rueben. Not until . . . a decision’s made.” He braced for argument but received an understanding nod. The breath sighed from him as he rubbed swollen eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”
“I’ll start asking questions. Stay strong,” Max nodded toward the motionless figure, “for their sake, and be wise for your own.”
A slight nod. “Send MacCreedy in. And keep me posted.”
Colin’s attention turned back to the study of features that would haunt his dreams and his conscience for the rest of his life, another shadow added to the substantial group already weighing upon his soul. His stepfather, brothers both Conroy and Terriot, his mother, and now his love and his heir.
The pull to follow them lessened with Savoie’s blunt words. He had work to do before that rewarding reunion. And it began with the figure now standing next to him.
“You’re sure it wasn’t an accident?”
Colin’s grim expression answered for him.
“Any ideas?”
“A few, but I’d like to hear yours first.”
MacCreedy didn’t waste time with delicacy. “My Top Ten.” He ticked the list off on his fingers. “Starting with the local clan resenting a Terriot presence and influence. Any number of folks wanting to distract you from uniting New Orleans. Your insane father and rogue brothers scared you’ll get to them first. Someone wanting to bring Rueben back to the city either to kill him or threaten him into compliance. Any Guedrey or Terriot wanting to eliminate a possible heir to either clan. Brady striking back at your family. Those in the North working to crush and conquer. Someone in the NOPD trying to bring Babineau and Charlotte to heel. As a warning to Savoie that everyone is vulnerable. Or Rueben himself, out to break the truce and take control. Depends on who the target was.”
Colin blinked. “That’s a long damned list.”
“I’ll start narrowing it down for you.”
His confidence gave Colin his first shot of encouragement since hearing metal rip and crumple. “But you’ll save the last one for me.”
“Oh, yeah.”
The firm press of MacCreedy’s hand on his shoulder brought wildly spinning moods under control. Then Silas asked softly, “What if you aren’t the only target? Shouldn’t everyone be warned?”
To lose more of his family, his friends . . .
A quick nod. “No details, just that there’s a prospective threat. Okay?”
Silas nodded and advised, “Don’t be a hero. Call if you need anything.”
Both knowing he wouldn’t, Silas left him to mechanical beeps echoing the clock’s tick down to the light extinguishing in his life.
Leaving only vengeance to sustain him.
– – –
The unthinkable happened. Sitting at Mia’s bedside, listening to the monotonous beat of her artificially maintained life, Colin slept.
He could have been dreaming.
Had a breath of movement behind his chair prodded him awake? Expecting one of the silent, bustling medical staff, he blinked heavy eyes open. No one came into view. His nape bristled.
“They can’t help you,” a soft female voice whispered behind him, “but I can.” As he straightened with a jerk, a hand fell upon his shoulder, grip small but firm. “Don’t turn around.”
He stiffened but didn’t look back. “Who are you?”
“Let’s say a friend of a friend.”
Annoyed by her riddle, Colin snapped, “What do you want?”
“It’s what you want. They can’t give it to you. But I can.”
As his breath stumbled then hurried on, her answer stroked against his cheek.
“I can bring her back.”
Gooseflesh erupted, making him shiver with cautious hope. Colin reined in the leap of his heart with a quick tug from a cautious nature. “What can you do? Resurrect the dead?”
“Is that what you want?”
No hesitation. “Yes.”
“There’ll be a cost.”
“Name it.”
“I do this for you and someday soon, I’ll ask you to do something for me. And you will, no matter what it is, without question or hesitation. Because I can take back what I give in a heartbeat. Are we agreed?”
A fool’s bargain, one he could never meet. But he’d worry about that later.
“Agreed.”
– – –
Something slipped through his determined slumber, a slight sound, a breath of movement. Instantly alert, Colin sat up straight, every muscle group in his abused body screaming as he braced for possible threat.
A tall, lean figure with his mate’s dark coloring bent over Mia’s bed, his hand resting over one threaded with tubes and wires. Without turning, Rueben Guedry murmured, “Didn’t mean to wake you,” in a soft Tennessee drawl.
Colin rubbed his eyes, mumbling, “How long you been here?”
“Just got in. ’Preciate the call.” Then he addressed the figure in the bed. “Hey, little lady, how ya feeling?”
As the fingers beneath his grip stirred, Colin jerked, hit by an electrocuting jolt of astonishment. Not real. Couldn’t be. Was he still dreaming? Rueben stepped aside, allowing Colin an answer too incredible to take in all at once.
Dark eyes were open, glazed by sedation but still aware. Animating color had seeped back into features drained to parchment finality.
Once his heart restarted, a name whispered from Colin’s lips like an answered prayer. “Mia.”
Alerted by the unexpected change in their monitors, medical staff swarmed in, pushing both visitors out into the hall. Rueben’s firm grip steered the dazed Shifter prince into a small waiting area. There, he dropped onto a convenient piece of furniture, senses spinning.
“Here. Self-medicate.” The Tennessean pressed a sleek flask into Colin’s hand, waiting for him to take a long swallow. “You up to talking? Looks like we got the time,” he presumed as the staff wheeled Mia past for tests none had ever guessed would be needed.
“Did you do this to her?”
The fierce demand set Rueben back in unprecedented speechlessness. Finally, he sputtered, “What? She’s my kin!”
“And a threat!”
“To what? A role I never wanted? You think I’m stupid enough to tear down all we’ve built when we got a bigger threat breathin’ down our necks?”
“Not unless you’re part of that threat.”
A low, rolling chuckle was unexpected. “You must be concussed if you think I’d just come out an’ tell you if I was.”
That Colin believed. Shoulders drooping, he blew out a shaky breath. “Sorry. Long night.”
A flash of sympathy touched Guedry’s expression. “Since you’re not going nowhere, I’m gonna check myself into that fine establishment ’cross the way and fetch us back something to e
at. Might as well hunker down an’ wait for news together.”
Alone in the suddenly quiet hallway, Colin leaned back and closed aching eyes, but thoughts refused to quiet. Refusing to revisit that dream, he let MacCreedy’s list scroll behind shuttered lids, seemingly endless in its thorough offering of potential suspects. Missing only one that, even though he hated it, he had to consider after their conversation earlier that evening.
Alain Babineau.
– – –
During their rainy drive home in silence, Max couldn’t ignore the wake-up call the other couple’s tragedy leveled upon his own situation.
He’d never asked to be a figurehead for his clan. The near celebrity attention sparked intrinsic fear, demanding a retreat to the anonymous shadows of his earlier years, where at Jimmy Legere’s back, nothing had been expected of him except obedience and unquestioning action. His opinions, his beliefs, his choices never entered the equation. A simple, linear existence well-suited to a sheltered upbringing beneath the constant whisper of unknown threat. Then Charlotte Caissie blew into his life like a Category Five. She’d uprooted his security, ripped away his self-protections to demand he choose between impossible opposites. Darkness alone or limelight together.
No real choice in the end. One he’d never regret making anyway.
He might not always agree with her path, but Max honored her right to boldly walk it, just as she’d cautiously embraced the knowledge of who and what he was. If they could overcome those obstacles . . .
A child was hardly an obstacle and a clan war no small threat. To handle either, let alone both, they needed a united front, a single purpose. Considering all they’d survived together—the sacrifices, the triumphs—why hadn’t they found that common ground?
He breathed her in, seeking the comfort of her scent to ease his worries as she sat silently beside him. It usually worked. Not this time.
Her badge a shield to hide behind, it wasn’t the job, though she might pretend it was. Her work distracted from something deeper, something that scared her more than their varied commitments and causes. A faceless, nameless enemy was impossible to defeat.