by JoAnn Ross
"Thank you." A sheen that might have been tears brightened her eyes. Then she resolutely blinked it away. From a boombox down the pier, Jimmy Buffett and Alan Jackson were claiming it was five o'clock somewhere. "I went to the police station straight from the airport. Unfortunately, I didn't receive a lot of cooperation, but Detective Landreaux gave me your card and said you might be able to help... I tried to call before coming over, but I kept getting dumped into voice mail."
"That's because I turned the phone off."
There were a lot of things about this case that weren't adding up. Things Nick had needed to think about. Like how come LeBlanc would hire him to find Desiree if he already had a contract out on her. Something LeBlanc had sworn, when Nick had confronted him after watching her body get taken away, he hadn't done.
Not that LeBlanc was ever going to win any medals for truthfulness.
Since mindless labor always helped him sort things out, Nick had decided to spend some time working on the boat.
He also wondered if, considering how understaffed NOPD was, even after the recent reorganization, Remy had sent her here hoping that his former partner might be able to do an end run around Dubois and solve whatever crime might've occurred.
"Doesn't turning off your phone make it a bit difficult for prospective clients to reach you?"
"Gotta point there," he said agreeably.
Not that he wanted any clients, since this entire PI scheme was just for show. Something to do after getting tossed off the force.
But, of course, Remy didn't know that. Maybe his old friend didn't have any ulterior motive. Maybe he was just trying to help Nick drum up business.
"Well, when you didn't answer, I decided to take a chance on catching you at your office." She looked past him. "I didn't realize your office was on a boat."
"It's my office and my home. Makes commuting convenient." He glanced past her to the black-and-white cab idling on the street, meter ticking. "Why don't I pay your taxi, chère, then I'll pipe you aboard and you tell me why you're here."
And afterward we'll get naked and have sex. Get married. Sail off to Tahiti where we'll lie naked on the beach and feed each other juicy ripe passion fruit, and you can have my babies.
The crazy ideas had struck like a jagged jolt of lightning from a clear blue summer sky. The really weird thing was, they sounded pretty good to him.
Maybe the goons had given him brain damage.
"It's Detective," she corrected, not making a move. "I came here to discuss hiring you to find my sister's murderer."
Damn. That was what he'd been afraid she was going to say. Wasn't that just what he needed? A hotshot Yankee detective mucking around in Desiree's death?
She tilted her bright head, seeming to rethink her decision to come here. Apparently, she wasn't finding the bruises that had bloomed overnight as appealingly rakish as he'd hoped.
If he'd had the brain God gave a gator, he'd just let her go back to wherever the hell she'd come from. Unfortunately, from the stubborn set of her chin, and the way she'd squared her shoulders, Nick suspected the lady wouldn't go. And having Desiree's cop sister running around the city half-cocked would stir up a hornet's nest of problems that could make the other night's visit out to the bayou look like a Sunday-school picnic.
"Don't be put off by appearances," he said, imagining how he must look to her, with his banged-up face, ratty old torn T-shirt, and grease-stained jeans. "And, though I can understand it might be hard to accept, the police are calling your sister's death a suicide."
"They can call me the pope," she shot back in an intriguing flare of heat. "But that wouldn't make it true ... Look, if you don't want to help me—"
"Did you hear me say I didn't want to help?"
Let her go, the little voice of reason in the back of his head advised. Like your daddy always said, never get in the middle of someone else's quicksand.
Trouble was, Nick had never been real good about listening to his old man.
"No point in running up taxi fees while we stand here talking. I'll pay the driver off. Then we'll discuss it."
She glanced past him at the boat again. From her frown, he suspected she was viewing a flashing red sign reading "Den of Iniquity."
"Or, though it wouldn't be nearly as comfortable, if you're nervous about being alone with a stranger, we can stand out here all night."
"This isn't going to take all night. Besides, I'm a cop. There's no way you could make me nervous."
"That's a start," His grin pulled painfully at his puffy lip. "And don't forget I come highly recommended by New Orleans's finest."
She snorted. "From what I could tell, that's an oxymoron." He watched the wheels turn in her head as she made her decision. "I'll get my bag and be right back."
"Now what kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't carry a lady's suitcase and pay her taxi fare after she's come all the way from Yankeeland to visit?"
She tossed up a chin that somehow managed to be delicate and strong at the same time. "This isn't a visit. It's business. And if I do hire you, I expect you to put that fare on my bill."
Desiree hadn't been kidding. Kate Delaney was definitely Ms. Law and Order. But she also smelled a helluva lot better than any cop he'd ever met.
He skimmed a long, slow look from the top of her bright head down to narrow feet clad in a pair of sensible black flats.
To please himself, he mentally exchanged the white, buttoned-up blouse she was wearing beneath a trim black suit jacket for a lacy, scarlet-as-sin camisole.
Her gaze sharpened, letting him know she'd caught him looking at her breasts. But hell, he was a man. And, although she might be wearing more camouflage than a SEAL recon team out on maneuvers, he wasn't going to apologize for looking. Or for his imagination.
"We can work out the details later," he said as he pulled some bills from the front pocket of his painfully-too-tight jeans.
He managed to make it to the curb on a swollen knee without limping too badly, paid the driver, and as he watched her watching the cab pull away, Nick caught another fleeting moment of indecision, which he suspected was not Kate Delaneys usual state of mind. Then again, it couldn't be easy to learn that your twin sister—essentially your other half—was dead.
"Like I said, this place is a bit of both home and office," he said as he picked up her suitcase and, taking her hand, helped her onto the ketch.
God, she really did smell delicious. Unlike her sister, who'd always favored pricey, heavy French perfumes, Kate Delaney used a shampoo, or soap, or whatever it was clinging to her neat, trim body, that smelled fresh and clean. Like spring rain or freshly laundered sheets drying in the breeze.
"She's a beautiful boat," she said. A little grudgingly, Nick thought, as if she disliked approving of anything about him.
"I like her well enough."
He kept his tone deliberately casual, but she wouldVe had to have been deaf not to hear the pride in his voice. The Hoo-yah, which he'd bought at hurricane sale prices from a doctor at Charity Hospital who'd decided to move his family to arid Arizona, was the one good thing that had come out of his trip back home.
"You enjoy sailing?"
"I did." She tugged her hand free and ran it over the gleaming brass railing he'd just finished polishing. "I haven't been out on the water for a while, though. And speaking of water, aren't you concerned about living on the same lake that flooded the city? What if another hurricane hits?"
"Oh, one will, sure enough. But if you spend your life waiting for somethin' bad to happen, you'll never have any fun."
"And New Orleans is all about fun."
"Laissez les bon temps rouler," he agreed. "Let the good times roll. Things may have gotten more serious since Katrina came blowin' through town. But you can't keep a good town down. Meanwhile, most people are just taking things one day at a time."
From the stiff set of her shoulders beneath that trim and tidy black suit, he suspected it'd been a long time since the pretty cop
had allowed any good times to roll. He also expected that she had never taken things one day at a time. In fact, he bet she was one of those who made lists. Lots and lots of lists. Then color-coded and alphabetized them.
Not that there was anything wrong with lists, he amended, mentally making his own list of all the things he'd like to do with Kate Delaney. Beginning with his tongue in her wide, fuck-me-big-boy mouth and working his way down her naked body, sucking her polished toes.
"You want somethin' to drink, chère? Maybe a beer?"
She didn't look like a suds type of girl, but sometimes appearances were deceiving. He'd seen Desiree toss back more than a few Dixies.
"I think I've maybe got some Hurricane mix in the pantry."
Not that he was trying to get her drunk so he could have his perverted way with her or anything. Right.
"No, thank you. I'm fine."
No, she wasn't. She was wound as tight as a seven-day clock on the eighth day.
"My office is right down here." He took her elbow, leading her down the steps to the belowdecks salon. "It might not be as fancy as some overlooking the city from those glass towers of the CBD, but my hourly rate is cheaper."
"Money isn't an issue."
"I don't remember your sister telling me you were rich."
"What gave you the idea I was rich?"
"I don't know how it works up North," he said. "But down here in the swamp, the pay of your average law-enforcement officer fits somewhere between the guys who sweep up the streets after a Mardi Gras parade and a bouncer outside a Bourbon Street strip joint."
A redhead's temper—something she definitely shared with her twin—sparked in those emerald cat eyes.
Jesus, he had to get this woman into bed.
"Are you insinuating I'm a crooked cop?"
He lifted his hands, palms out, in a gesture of innocence, and tried to concentrate on the conversation while his rampant imagination conjured up a scenario involving a can of whipped cream, melted Hershey's bars, and Pop Rocks.
"Non, chère. It's just that most people want to dicker about price before we get down to the details of the case."
She sat on the leather chair he'd gestured toward and decisively crossed her legs. "I'm willing to pay whatever it takes. Within reason," she tacked on, as if to let him know right off the bat that she wasn't a pushover. Just in case he hadn't figured it out for himself. "I have some savings put away."
It was good she had a rainy-day fund, Nick thought. Since trouble would start pouring down like a delta storm if she actually started digging into her sister's cockamamie extortion scheme.
"One thing I've always been is reasonable. My usual rate's a hundred dollars an hour. Plus a flat thousand-dollar retainer and expenses."
Not that he'd made a dime yet. But the lady didn't have to know that.
"That seems high."
Hopefully high enough to make her go back home to Chicago.
"It also includes video, for surveillance cases. And you know what they say, chère. You get what you pay for."
Risking splitting his lip again, he flashed what more than one lover had assured him was a lady-killing smile. "And believe me, I'm worth it."
10
HIS TONE DROPPED TO A LOW, SEXY BARITONE. From the moment she'd caught sight of him as she'd walked down the long dock, all black tousled hair, face that even all those bruises couldn't keep from being movie-star handsome, ripped T-shirt, and raggedy jeans that cupped his sex in a way that had every female nerve ending leaping to alert, he'd reminded Kate of Marlon Brando steaming up the French Quarter in Streetcar.
What was she doing? Thinking about sex when her sister was dead?
Shaking off the unsettling sensation, Kate reminded herself that Lieutenant Landreaux had recommended this man. But that didn't necessarily mean he was any good. The good-old-boy network was definitely alive and well in Chicago; wouldn't it be the same, perhaps even worse, here in a city infamous for its corruption? She wouldn't be all that surprised to discover that Broussard was paying his former partner kickbacks for referrals.
"Did you get that black eye on a case?"
"I don't suppose you'd believe I walked into a door?"
She folded her arms. "Sorry."
"Okay. There was a bit of a misunderstanding. But hell, if you think I look bad, you should see the other guy."
He flashed her a slow, sexy smile she suspected had charmed its share of bayou belles out of their lacy thongs.
"I'd want you to keep your investigation confidential."
"That goes without saying," he assured her.
"Well, I, for one, would like to hear you say it."
This time his puffy lips barely quirked, just a little, at the corners, but his lake-blue eyes—fringed with long, dark, beautiful lashes that were wasted on a man— brightened as if lit by summer sunshine. Dammit, he was laughing at her.
"Do you find murder humorous, Mr. Broussard?" she asked in her stiffest just-the-facts-ma'am, Joe Friday tone.
"No, ma'am." He immediately sobered. "And I apologize if I gave you that idea. But I was just thinking . . . damn, you're beautiful."
The last thing Kate needed in her life right now was some hot Cajun player. Especially one who so easily scrambled her mind and had her thinking of tangling hot sheets with him beneath that slow-moving, paddle-bladed fan.
"Do you always come on to prospective clients?"
He shook his head. "Not that I recall. In fact, I know for certain that this is a first. But then again, it's not every day someone as classy as you shows up at the office. It land of reminds me of when Ruth Wonderly sashays into Sam Spade's office and gets him involved in that hunt for the jewel-encrusted black bird."
She just looked at him.
"You know." He smiled encouragingly. "From The Maltese Falcon."
"I've never seen the movie. And don't hit on me again."
"I'll try my best to refrain from giving in to my baser instincts. How about this ... next time I hit on you, feehi free to shoot me."
"I may just take you up on that. Now, about your credentials—"
"I served fifteen years in the navy, then six months working NOPD before going private last month."
"I can't see you in the military." If he'd radiated this much rebel bad boy when he'd been in the navy, she didn't know how he'd made it through basic training.
"Neither did I in the beginning. But SEAL teams allow for more, well"—he rubbed his jaw, which was sporting, along with the multicolored bruises, a sexy five-o'clock shadow—"let's just call it creativity."
This man with the shaggy poet's hair and lake-blue bedroom eyes had been a Navy SEAL? Well. That was a surprise.
Intelligent, physically fit, motivated, resourceful, and good with weapons went down on the plus side of the mental ledger she'd begun keeping the moment she'd first seen Nick Broussard.
Reckless was listed as a potential negative.
"If I hire you, you'd have to understand that you wouldn't just be working for me. We'd be full partners. I'd want to know everything you learn and I won't have you running off on your own, like some bayou Rambo."
That unshaven jaw stiffened. His eyes hardened. Brando had just left the building and in his place was this . . . well, warrior was the only word Kate could think of.
"Rambo was fiction. SEALs don't go charging machine-gun nests hell-bent for leather like some Hollywood director's idea of war. That's what the marines are for.
"SEALs work the margins, doing jobs other people don't want to do in places no sane person would ever want to go—the dark, jungles, swamps, deserts, you name it. If it's ugly and deadly, we'll claim it," he said in a brusque, take-no-prisoners tone that suggested she might just be an idiot.
"Individually, they're the goddamn best the military has to offer. But the thing is, if team members don't work together, they can end up pink mist, which, if you've ever been unlucky to see it, you'd know isn't all that pretty."
He folded his ver
y well muscled arms across his chest and looked down at her. "There's no I in SEAL team, Detective Delaney, and I can play damn well with others when my life—and the lives of others—and the success of the mission depend on it."
Okay. Kate didn't need any detective skills to realize she'd hit a hot button. If his glower hadn't tipped her off, the clipped, harsh tone definitely would've.
"Well." She cleared her throat. "Thank you for clarifying that."
His nod was quick and sharp. She'd always been good at reading people; cops needed to be, because often their lives depended on it. But it seemed she'd misjudged Nick Broussard; he definitely wasn't merely the laid-back, sexy southern charmer she'd first taken him to be.
He sat down behind a desk that was encouragingly neat, suggesting an orderly mind.
Then again, it could also mean he didn't get all that much business.
"So." The chair squeaked as he leaned back in it. He braced his elbows on the wooden arms and tented his fingers. "Did you talk to Detective Landreaux on the phone? Or have you already been to the cop shop?"
"Both. He called me last evening to tell me Tara was dead. Obviously I booked the first flight I could get out of Chicago to here, and the station was the first place I went after I arrived."
"How did Remy—Detective Landreaux—know to call you?"
"I wondered about that as well. He said Tara had listed me in her address book as her next of kin. I was surprised by that, especially since my sister and I haven't spoken for the past twelve years. Ever since I left home. Which was in Memphis at the time."
When she'd received the wedding invitation, Kate figured her mother must've run out of marks in Memphis and had decided to take her game back down to the Gulf.
"I would've thought she'd have listed our mother, but perhaps they weren't getting along."
"I hear that's often the case with mothers and daughters."
"True." It definitely was in Kate's case. "I was surprised that Detective Landreaux didn't know about the connection, though."
"What connection?"
"I thought you said this is a small town. That everyone knows everyone."