by Paige Tyler
So she held his hand and let him lead her through the crowded club toward the doors. It was definitely nice having someone his size when it came to creating a path. Even though Remy was polite as could be, people naturally got out of his way.
Between the music coming from inside and the noise from the street below, it was still rather loud on the balcony, but the fresh air was a welcome relief. She hadn’t realized how hot it had been on the dance floor. Then again, that probably had more to do with whom she’d been dancing with.
Triana had no problem finding Remy’s three friends. Even when they were sitting at a table, as they were at that moment, they were easy to pick out of the crowd by their mere presence. Kim, Nora, Whitney, and Deanna, on the other hand, were nowhere to be found. She kept her curiosity at bay as Remy made introductions.
“Triana Bellamy, I’d like you to meet my friends and coworkers. Max Lowry,” he said, pointing out a hunky guy with brown hair, twinkling blue eyes, and one of those devious-little-boy smiles that made you think he was always up to something. “The one with the British accent is Zane Kendrick,” Remy added, pointing at a good-looking man with dark hair and eyes the color of chocolate. “He’s not really a stuck-up snob; he just sounds like one,” Remy said in a lower voice, as if he was trying to share a secret.
Zane chuckled and leaned forward to shake her hand. “Try to ignore Remy when he speaks. It’s not his strong suit.”
She laughed. Oh yeah, Zane had an accent for sure, and it was sexy as heck. No wonder Kim had taken an immediate liking to him. Those two had been slow dancing for most of the night, even when everyone else had been moving to a much faster beat. Triana worried about that for a second. Kim had recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend and it wasn’t a stretch to say that the girl was still in free fall. It was one of the reasons they’d gone out tonight—to make sure Kim didn’t sit at home and mope. Triana had always trusted her instincts about guys though, and right then, she wasn’t getting a bad vibe from Zane. Besides, she liked to think that Remy wouldn’t hang out with a guy who was a jerk.
“And this is Jayden Brooks,” Remy said, drawing her attention to a dark-skinned Adonis with the most amazing blue-gray eyes she’d ever seen. When he stood to shake her hand, she realized he was even bigger than Remy.
“Everyone calls me Brooks,” he said in a low, resonating voice she didn’t have any problem hearing over all the noise. “By the way, in case you were wondering, your friends made a run to the ladies’ room. They said they’d be right back.”
No doubt to figure out how they’re going to divide you three hunks between them, Triana thought—because Remy was definitely hers.
“I’m just taking a shot in the dark here,” Zane said as she and Remy sat, “but I’m guessing you guys know each other.”
Triana smiled. “Yeah, we do. We went to high school together here in New Orleans. I can’t believe we ran into each other.”
“Huh.” Zane’s mouth curved. “I never realized Remy went to school. We all just assumed he grew up in the swamps and learned how to read and write from talking with the animals.”
Remy snorted. “Funny.”
Triana was still laughing at that remark when Kim and her other girlfriends showed up. One look at their freshly applied makeup told Triana they’d disappeared to the ladies’ room to make sure they looked their best for Remy’s friends. Kim claimed the seat beside Zane, while Nora, Whitney, and Deanna gathered around Max and Brooks.
A little while later, a waitress came over to take their drink orders. While her friends flirted with the guys, Triana leaned in close to Remy.
“Last I heard, you were with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office,” she said. “Do you still work there?”
He shook his head, the neon lights from the streets below reflecting off his eyes and making them look like they were almost glowing. “I was at the JPSO for a while after college, but now I’m on the SWAT team in Dallas. The guys and I are in town for some cross-training with the local PD.”
She blinked. The Dallas SWAT team, huh? That would certainly explain why Remy and his friends were all so well-built. Considering how attractive they were, she could only guess the SWAT also went out of their way to hire hunks.
Triana sipped the rum punch she’d ordered. “How long are you going to be in town?”
She hoped it wasn’t only a day or two.
“A week,” he said with a smile that made her think he could read her mind. “We just got here this morning.”
She returned his smile. “As it turns out, I’m in town for the week too.”
He lifted a brow. “You don’t live in New Orleans anymore?”
She shook her head. “I moved to Houston after college.”
She was in the middle of explaining where she worked when Kim scooted her chair over and nudged her shoulder.
“Why don’t the two of you get out of here and go catch up?” her friend said in her ear. “It’s too loud to even think in this place.”
As much as Triana would have liked to be alone with Remy, she didn’t feel right bailing on her friends. “I promised you a girls’ night out. I can’t take off on you.”
Kim laughed. “Don’t be silly. It’s not every day you run into a friend from high school—not one like Remy anyway. Go! And don’t worry. I’m sure Zane can keep my mind off Shawn.”
Shawn was Kim’s ex, the jackass who’d dumped her two weeks ago. Triana leaned over and hugged her friend. “Okay, but call me if you change your mind.”
Kim nodded, then gave Remy a wave and slid her chair closer to Zane and the others. Triana had to admit, her friend looked comfortable with the Dallas SWAT officer. Kim was smiling more than she had since Triana had gotten back into town.
Triana looked at Remy, who’d been waiting patiently during the conversation. “You ready to get out of here?”
He gave her a sexy smile. “Lead the way.”
Chapter 2
Five minutes later, they were walking hand in hand down Bourbon Street, taking in the sights and finally able to talk without having to shout. It felt completely natural holding his hand, like they’d been dating for months.
“You were saying you work in the Houston crime lab?” Remy prompted, bringing her back to the conversation they’d been having in the club before Kim had interrupted them.
Triana nodded. “Technically, it’s called the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, but that’s such a mouthful that everyone calls it the crime lab. I do trace-evidence analysis there.”
It looked like Remy was about to say something, but he had to hesitate as an older couple came dancing down the center of the street wearing nothing but the tiniest of swimsuits. Triana would have liked to say that was uncommon, but it wasn’t. Bourbon Street brought out all kinds.
Remy steered her around the half-naked couple, not even batting an eye. “You went to LSU for chemistry, right? How’d you end up in Houston?”
“They have a great intern program, and I got a chance to go there during my senior year. One semester in the lab and I was hooked. It took a little while to get a job there, though. I had to end up going to Alabama to get my master’s in forensic science first, but I’ve been working there for four years now.” She tucked her hair behind her ear with an embarrassed smile. “You probably think it’s nerdy, but I love it.”
Remy shook his head. “Nah. I’ve worked with the people from the Dallas ME’s office a couple times, so I understand the hard work that’s involved in your job. I think it’s cool. I’m just surprised your mom let you go to Alabama. I would have never in my life imagined that.”
Triana laughed. “Yeah, it was a tough sell convincing her I needed to go there. She finally agreed, but only after I vowed never to attend an Alabama football game. I also had to promise to walk the other way if I ever crossed paths with Nick Saban.”
&
nbsp; Remy thought that was hilarious, but Triana wasn’t joking. Her mother had never taken kindly to Coach Saban leaving LSU, and then coming back into the college ranks and coaching for rival Alabama was an unforgivable crime.
“So you’re in town visiting your mom?” he asked as they passed by a trio of musicians playing jazz on the sidewalk. There was a crowd gathered around listening, and Remy leaned over to toss a five-dollar bill in the hat sitting on the curb, giving a wave to the performers in passing.
“Yeah,” Triana said. “I try to come back and spend time with Mom as often as I can. I don’t like her being by herself so much in that big apartment above the shop now that Dad is gone.”
Remy was silent for a while. “I was sorry to hear about your father. Sorry I didn’t make it to the funeral, too. I only heard about it through the grapevine months after the fact.”
Triana nodded, having to take a breath before answering. It had been over two years since her father had been murdered, but sometimes it still felt like yesterday.
“You don’t need to apologize. Mom was amazing, pulling everything together as fast as she did, but there were a lot of people she couldn’t reach. I wish I could have been more help to her, but I was a complete mess.”
Remy stopped and tugged her close, wrapping his arms around her right there in the middle of a throng of passing people. “Hey, you had every right to be a complete mess. You’d just lost your dad. I know how close you two always were.”
Triana rested her cheek against Remy’s muscular chest and closed her eyes. The warmth from his body seeped into her, comforting her down to her very soul. She had gotten most of the tears out a while ago, but his touch had a few more leaking out. Remy was right. She’d had a special relationship with her dad. He was so big and gruff that he’d frightened a lot of people. And yeah, he’d been known on more than one occasion to wade into brawls at his club and break them up all by himself, whether the people involved were armed or not. But he’d always been a gentle giant to her. She missed him like crazy.
Triana could have stayed in Remy’s arms just like that for the rest of the night, and reluctantly pulled away with a small smile. If Remy noticed she had to wipe a few tears from her face, he didn’t call her on it.
They started walking again, and she squeezed his hand a little tighter now than she had before. They strolled along in comfortable silence for a bit before Remy got around to asking the question most people usually brought up at some point.
“Did they ever catch the person who did it?” he asked tentatively, as if he dreaded continuing to talk about the subject. “Or even come up with a motive?”
“No. To both questions,” she said with a shake of her head. “At first the police thought it was a robbery gone wrong, since they found him on the floor in the middle of his club, but there was still money in the register behind the bar and in his office. They didn’t even touch his wallet.”
“I talked to one of my friends at the JPSO shortly after I got the news,” Remy said softly. “They didn’t want to get into the details, but they implied the attack had been very…violent. Was there any thought that maybe it was personal?”
Her dad had been shot multiple times, so yeah, violent was one way to put it. “That’s the current theory, not that it has helped much. Dad came from a rough background before he met Mom. There were probably quite a few people who didn’t like him. The police found a lot of blood at the club that wasn’t Dad’s, too, but they were never able to figure out whose it was.”
Remy looked at her in surprise. “They’re not working on it anymore?”
She shook her head. “One of the detectives calls my mom every once in a while and tells her they’re still trying, but I don’t expect much now.”
Which was why Triana had been paying a private investigator to look into the case for the past five months on the off chance he could find something to jump-start the investigation. She was tempted to mention it to Remy but decided against it. In her experience, most cops didn’t think much of private detectives, and she really didn’t want to get into an argument with Remy.
“Well, for what it’s worth,” he said, “I always liked your father. He loved you and your mother, and he didn’t take crap from anyone.”
She laughed, putting thoughts of the PI away for now. “That he didn’t.”
“How’s your mom doing?”
“She focuses on the business,” Triana said. “The shop is doing as well as ever, maybe even better than it’s done in years. I’m sometimes shocked at how much money people will spend on this voodoo stuff, but it seems to make her and her customers happy, so who am I to say anything about it?”
They were about to turn off Bourbon and onto Ursulines Avenue, which would ultimately lead them to her mom’s shop, when they came upon another scene that was unfortunately all too common in New Orleans and displayed the dark side of the city. Paramedics were pushing a skinny, young girl of about seventeen out of a club on a gurney toward an ambulance parked along a side street. There was an oxygen mask covering the girl’s face, so it was hard to see much in the way of features, but she looked drawn and gaunt, and her skin was unusually pale.
“What happened?” Remy softly asked someone in the crowd.
Triana didn’t need to hear the answer. She’d seen it often enough here and in Houston to have a pretty good idea.
“Drug overdose,” a woman told Remy. “Meth. The stuff going around lately is a lot stronger than some people are used to.”
Before she and Remy left, Triana heard three other bystanders talking about how dangerous the new crystal meth that had been flooding the streets lately was.
“The stuff used to be cooked up in bathtubs by mom-and-pop labs,” Remy said as they continued down the street. “But now the Mexican cartels have gotten involved with large-scale operations selling crap that’s ten times as pure. People don’t recognize the difference and end up overdosing. We’re seeing a lot of people winding up in the hospitals in Dallas from this stuff.”
“Houston too,” Triana agreed. “Between this new meth and the recent influx of heroin overdoses, it’s driving a complete shift in how our department is handling drug users. We’re finally doing more to get them into treatment, instead of just tossing them in jail. But sometimes it seems like it’s a losing battle, when there’s so much of the stuff flowing in.”
They walked in silence for a while, the mood somber after what they’d just seen on top of the earlier conversation about her father. This part of the street didn’t have as many lights as where they’d just been, and Triana subconsciously moved closer to Remy. If she’d been alone, she would have quickened her step, but she felt safe with him.
“What happened with your parents?” she asked, glancing at him. “They came to Dad’s funeral, but they weren’t together.”
“They split up when I was in college.” Remy shrugged. “I don’t know what the problem was. Neither of them would ever talk to me about it. Maybe it was empty-nest syndrome or something like that. They tried to get back together when I was working with the JPSO, but in the end they got divorced and moved to opposite sides of the country. Mom wanted to be closer to her family in New York State and Dad took a job in San Diego. It had gotten pretty nasty by that point, and I made the decision to stay the hell out of it. We still talk on the phone on holidays and birthdays, but I don’t see either of them too much these days.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “So did you move to Dallas and join the SWAT team because you wanted a change of scenery?”
He shook his head. “While I was looking for a change of scenery about that time, that’s not when I moved to Dallas. I was a U.S. Marshal for three years after I left the JPSO.”
Triana did a double take. “Talk about burying the lead. U.S. Marshals do witness protection stuff, right?”
“That’s one of their primary missio
ns, but I mostly hunted fugitives. Maybe it’s a Cajun thing, but I’ve always been good at tracking people down.”
“Okay, that sounds more than dangerous and exactly like something I could see you doing. Why’d you leave the Marshals?”
For a moment, something that looked like pain flashed across Remy’s handsome face, but it disappeared too quickly for her to be sure. When he looked at her, there was nothing but hunger in his hazel eyes. “It’s a long, complicated story best told while both of us are in a warm bed, preferably with our naked bodies twined around each other.”
Heat pooled between Triana’s thighs at the casual remark. While they’d gotten a little naughty dancing, this was the first time he’d given her any indication he hoped they’d end up in bed just as much as she did. The image made her whole body hum with anticipation.
That was what happened when you finally got another shot at a guy you should have made a move on over a decade earlier.
She gave him a sexy smile. “That might be arranged.”
It wasn’t until they were another two blocks down the street that Triana realized Remy had smoothly avoided answering her question about why he’d left the Marshals. She would have brought up the subject again, but she suspected he’d only sidestep it. Something told her he didn’t want to talk about why he’d made the career change.
So instead, they chatted about lighter topics such as the TV shows they watched, foods they liked, and places they’d visited since graduating from high school. Triana was having so much fun, she was disappointed when they finally reached her mother’s voodoo shop and the apartment over it. Even though it was after two in the morning, she didn’t want the evening to end yet.
“The shop hasn’t changed much, but do you want to come in and look around anyway?” she asked hopefully.