Covert Cowboy

by Harper Allen

  He shrugged. “I went to boarding school and vacationed with relatives during holidays until I was about ten. Then I put my foot down and told Skip and Felicity I didn’t want to be farmed out to every far-flung aunt and cousin anymore. They had a married couple who took care of the New Orleans house, so that worked out.”

  “For your parents, maybe. I wouldn’t call it an acceptable environment for a child.” The words had rushed from her mouth before she could call them back. “I’m sorry, Con, I shouldn’t criticize your family.”

  “No harm, no foul, sweetheart.” His grin was swiftly amused. “You should hear my Aunt Jasmine on the subject. She’s a history professor at Tulane, as unlike Maman as two sisters can be. Never married, but in a long-term relationship with Jean-Claude, a jazz saxophonist in the Quarter. He’s the last of the cool cats and about as New Awlins as Mardi Gras, since he’s directly descended from one of the original Creole families that came to the city as free people from Haiti back in the 1790s, as he never fails to tell me.”

  “Did Jasmine take you in?”

  If he’d meant to distract her from her own less-than-satisfactory relationship with her family, he’d succeeded. Jazz musicians, cardsharps, intriguing females—Con’s background seemed as sprawlingly exotic and boisterous as the city he so obviously loved. Completely enthralled, she’d leaned slightly toward him over the table in a most un-Beacon Hill like way.

  “Yanked me by the scruff of the neck right out of an all-night game of Omaha stud, cher’,” he said in rueful reminiscence. “I was fifteen. Jasmine told me if I didn’t start applying myself I’d end up on the wrong end of a gun, or worse yet, living the same pleasure-seeking life as my parents. No one had ever rapped me over the knuckles like that before. I took it to heart.”

  “And ended up a police detective,” she’d finished for him. “Your Aunt Jasmine must be proud of you.”

  He’d shrugged off her observation and turned the talk to Tony Corso after that, Marilyn remembered now as Con, his upstairs inspection completed, came down the stairs again. He paused halfway, reaching out to lightly set the mobile in motion. Dark brows lifted.

  “I hadn’t realized.” An appreciative grin crept across his tanned features. “It’s scrap metal soldered together.”

  “Old silver spoons, some bells from the harness of the pony I had before Mother and I moved back to Boston, a whole lot of junk,” she said, feeling uncomfortable and not knowing why. “It’s just a hobby. Mother used to say it wasn’t ladylike, scrounging through secondhand stores for things other people had thrown away.”

  “What are these?” He was looking at a cluster of darker metal just out of reach.

  “Broken typewriter keys. I found a boxful in one of the storage rooms at work. They must be decades old.” She gestured at the hated shot-silk tunic. “I was going to make us some tea, but before I do anything else I’m determined to take this off. I’d drop it into a charity used-clothing bin tomorrow, except I don’t want to inflict it on anyone else.”

  As she spoke, she mounted the first few steps, expecting him to stand aside to let her pass. Instead, he blocked her way.

  “Truth. Beauty.” His tone was bemused. “Are there any others?”

  “Love.” Reluctantly she pointed out the third set of welded typewriter letters, swaying gently on the far side of the mobile. “You’ve got good eyesight.”

  “These things were all discarded,” he said, still looking at the ink-blackened keys. “Only you realized they were valuable. I’d say you’re the one who sees farther than anyone else, cher’.”

  Belatedly he stepped aside. “Put on your peony top, we’ll drink tea together and I’ll sit across from you pretending I’m not staring at those sexy ruffles. Go on, sugar.”

  Almost absently he gave her a swat on her derriere as she moved past him. Turning in shock, she saw he was already halfway to the open kitchen area.

  The words of protest she’d intended died on her lips, but as she stood uncertainly before her bedroom mirror a few minutes later, her eyebrows were still drawn together in an expression that was half-frown, half-confusion. Marilyn Langworthy, Mills & Grommett’s Ice Queen, just didn’t get swatted on the behind like that by a man, she told herself edgily. Marilyn Langworthy wasn’t the type to be teased, didn’t enjoy being touched, insisted on observing the proprieties. Her nickname had come about because everyone knew that was what she was like—just like everyone knew she would never wear anything as foolishly feminine as a plunging fuchsia blouse, just like everyone knew she would never do anything so outrageous as sleep with a man she didn’t know.

  And just like everyone knew getting pregnant had been the last thing she’d wanted. Her thoughts ground to a halt. In the mirror her gaze widened as comprehension flooded through her.

  She’d been living her life as if others knew who she was better than she did…but none of those people had ever really known her at all. It had taken a stranger to look past the protective casing of ice and see the real woman trapped within.

  Except Con Ducharme wasn’t a stranger anymore, she realized hollowly. Con Ducharme was the man she was falling in love with.

  “Dear God, you can’t be,” she whispered to her suddenly white-faced reflection in the mirror. “It’s too much of a risk. All you know about him is he’s a gambler and a flirt and a bedroom-eyed, sweet-talking—”

  She stopped. Unconsciously her hands crept to the rounded swell of her stomach.

  “A sweet-talking liar,” she said slowly. “The man’s been lying to me since the day we met, I’m sure of it. Maybe I can see the signs because I’ve been lying too, but whatever the reason, whatever he’s hiding, I can’t trust him. Not with my heart, and certainly not with the baby I’m carrying.”

  His hunt for Helio DeMarco wasn’t part of the lie, Marilyn thought as she descended to the living room a few minutes later, the yoga pants topped not by the fuchsia blouse but by a black tunic in a silky jersey knit. She was as certain of that as she was of the other, so continuing to work with him to find Tony and his mobster uncle was still on the agenda. Even as she acknowledged her decision she felt an illogical sense of reprieve, as if she’d managed to find a reason to stave off a moment she was dreading.

  And that was stupid, she told herself stonily. Sooner or later she and Con Ducharme would part ways. Just because it wasn’t happening tonight didn’t mean there was a chance it could somehow be averted.

  “It’s not chicory coffee but it’s hot.”

  He’d prepared the tea while she’d been upstairs. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so during the week and a half since the night he’d cooked dinner for her, but now it seemed unsettlingly symbolic of how at ease she’d become with having the man in her home. A strand of blue-black hair fell across his brow as he came toward her, two mugs in his hands.

  “And to a thin-blooded Creole far from home hot’s the important thing. You were shivering a little too, cher’, when we walked from the car.”

  “Despite my Boston upbringing, I never could take the cold.”

  Her voice betrayed none of the turmoil she felt, Marilyn noted thankfully. She curled up in the velvety club chair as he set her mug on the leather hassock, his beside it. Sitting down on the sofa with the economical grace she’d come to associate with everything he did, briefly he pinched the bridge of his nose, a quick crease appearing on his brow. He caught her watching him and let his hand drop.

  “Four hours of holding a gris-gris down on my cards,” he said wryly. “Like I told you before, that’s more work than winning.”

  She frowned. “What’s a gree-gree?”

  One side of his mouth lifted. “Dat’s juju, sugar. Voodoo magic.” A shadow passed over his features. “And if I did have access to a witchy woman and her spells I don’t know that I wouldn’t buy one off her, just to conjure up Tony Corso,” he muttered. “It’s taking way too long to flush him out and time’s running short.”

  Fear shafted through her, overrid
ing everything else. “What are you saying? Do you think Helio might already have made the decision that he doesn’t need Sky anymore? Dear God, Con—if he has I don’t know how Holly’s going to survive. I don’t know how I’m going to surv—”

  “That’s not what I meant, cher’.” He shook his head sharply, cutting off the rising flow of her words. “I meant that although we’re pretty sure releasing a virus is his intention, we’re not sure exactly when he’s going to do it. We’re not even sure where he’s going to release it,” he added, “although odds are he won’t choose Silver Rapids again. Apparently the small hospital there has developed a contingency plan since the last time.”

  What was that noise? Marilyn wondered faintly. It was like the waves of a mighty sea roaring around her, blotting out every other sound around her. Dimly she realized Con was still talking, but his voice seemed to be coming from far, far away.

  “Since the last time?”

  Now the faraway voice was her own. Carefully she formulated more words, her tongue feeling too thick to deliver them.

  “What last time? Are you saying that there’s been a viral attack on Silver Rapids in the past?”

  “Forget I said that, cher’.” Through the haze that seemed to be surrounding her she was aware that he was suddenly in front of the club chair. He reached for her hands and pulled her almost roughly to her feet. “That was told to me by the authorities on a need-to-know basis, and it’s nothing you need to know.”

  “It was in January, wasn’t it?” Her lips felt numb. “Late January. People got sick—two elderly patients actually died. The newspapers said it was a particularly virulent strain of influenza.”

  “Silver Rapids flu.” The emerald gaze confronting her darkened with an unidentifiable emotion. His hands came up to cover hers. “Like I said, honey, put it out of your mind. Right now we should be concentrating on—”

  “I was responsible for infecting her, wasn’t I?” She pushed his hands away, her own trembling violently. The roaring sound in her ears grew louder and she raised her voice.

  “Dammit, Con, tell me! A few months after I moved to Denver Corso persuaded me to invite Holly along with us to the Silver Rapids winter festival. Apparently he and she had met socially several times prior to that and he said she’d told him she wanted to get to know me better. Except the day of the festival he said he couldn’t make it after all. To show him I wasn’t hurt I insisted on going anyway—and even though Holly wanted to beg off too, I practically bullied her into accompanying me.”

  “You were trying to repair the relationship between you and your stepsister. You acted from the best of motives—” he began, but she cut him off, her tone thin.

  “My motives were about as despicable as they could be. She was six and a half months pregnant by then, and she hadn’t told anyone who the father of her baby was. Tony’s eagerness to have her with us made me wonder if they’d been closer in the past than he was admitting. I spent the whole time we were in Silver Rapids trying to trap her into confessing that he and she had been lovers, because I was jealous.”

  “You were that much in love with him?” Con drew an audible breath. She shook her head in quick frustration.

  “I never was in love with him, I realize that now. I was just lonely and flattered by his interest. But at the time the thought that he’d been with Holly first made me feel like I was his second choice.”

  Her gaze had been fixed on his. Now it wavered. “I just took it as one more instance of Holly getting everything she wanted—everything I wanted. I saw her pregnancy the same way, and what with my attitude and her defensiveness, that day in Silver Rapids convinced both of us we were never going to be friends. Shortly after that she fell ill, and for a while there was a possibility she was going to lose the baby.”

  She forced her eyes to meet his again. Sometime in the past few seconds the roaring sound had faded away, she realized. “It wasn’t the flu, was it?” she asked him. “It was a virus—a virus that was deliberately released in Silver Rapids as some kind of test. That’s why Holly had to be there. Someone needed to see how it would affect a mother-to-be and her unborn baby. Tony set the whole thing up and I carried it out.”

  “No, cher’—” His denial was automatic. Tears blurred her vision.

  “Don’t lie to me,” she whispered. “Not about this. If you have to you can lie to me about everything else, but not about this. Was I responsible for what happened to Holly? Was it an experimental virus that nearly killed Sky before he was born?”

  He was silent for so long she began to think he wasn’t going to reply. Finally he did, reluctance weighing his every word. “You’re right, the Silver Rapids flu wasn’t just a flu. It was a combination of a genetically engineered virus and Q-fever microbes and there’s a chance it was developed from stock meant for Mills & Grommett. But you’re not responsible for exposing Holly to it, Marilyn. You didn’t know it was going to be released in Silver Rapids that day.”

  He held her gaze. “From what I know of Corso, probably even he wasn’t aware of the full extent of what was going to happen. I think the original plan was to release a killed bug into the population—something that wouldn’t pose any real danger, but would stimulate certain trackable symptoms. Instead, a live one was substituted and people died, but you couldn’t have guessed any of that when you took Holly there that day, cher’.”

  “Just like I couldn’t have known I might have prevented Sky’s kidnapping when I let my pride get the better of me and drove back here, instead of continuing on to see Holly the day he was snatched.” Her smile was crooked. “Goodness, Con, I’m a regular saint, aren’t I? They should name a holiday after me. Of course, it would have to be held sometime in the winter—it would be more appropriate if the effigies of me were carved in ice, don’t you think?”

  “Stop thinking that way, dammit.” He clasped her shoulders, his grip tight. “You’re no ice queen, cher’, whatever the rest of the Langworthys think. If you were you wouldn’t be beating yourself up about all this. You wouldn’t be doing everything you can to bring Sky home safely. Your family doesn’t know the first thing about who you are—they never have.”

  “I was absolutely horrible to the woman my brother loves. Now they’re engaged, and I wouldn’t blame her if she never spoke to me. When news of the theft from Mills & Grommett gets out my father’s company will be destroyed. I’d say I’ve done more than enough to justify the nickname the family gave me, Con.”

  It would be so easy to cry, she thought. The tears were right there in her eyes, and with the first blink they would squeeze onto her bottom lashes, tremble for a moment, and begin to slide down her cheeks. Since Con, liar or not, seemed inexplicably to be on her side, he would hold her and comfort her and try to take her pain away as he’d done three months ago.

  But she wasn’t going to let herself cry in front of him. She didn’t deserve to be comforted. Somewhere out there was a child she hadn’t allowed herself to hold, and if Sky was never returned to his family again the blame for that would rest squarely on her.

  “I need to be alone.” She stepped away, forcing herself to ignore the sudden coldness that wrapped around her. He frowned, and she went on more forcefully. “I need to be alone, Con. Running into my father the way I did shook me badly enough. Now to find I put Holly into a situation that could have had tragic consequences for both her and her unborn child…” She took a shaky breath.

  “Please go,” she whispered unevenly. “I—I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

  “You’re sure you’re going to be all right?” Her tight nod did nothing to erase the worry from his features, but after a moment’s hesitation he turned toward the door. “If you need me, call, cher’,” he said quietly. “I’ll be down here before you can hang up the phone.”

  He would be, too, Marilyn told herself as she closed the door behind him, realizing from the sound of his ascending footsteps that he’d taken the stairs—an option she’d had to forego weeks ago
in favor of the balky and slow—but given her condition, more convenient—elevator.

  The man was an enigma, and not only because of her conviction that he was withholding something from her. From the first he’d seemed to ally himself unconditionally with her, a gesture of faith her own father hadn’t displayed, and yet his attitude toward Helio DeMarco was chillingly single-minded.

  Trying to figure out Con Ducharme was a luxury she couldn’t afford right now. Despite her incipient tears, falling apart wasn’t something she could afford, either. With the fate of a child hanging in the balance there were questions she needed to find answers to, and the most important of those dealt with Tony Corso’s involvement in Sky’s kidnapping.

  Her gaze clouded, Marilyn reached for the door’s chain-lock. As she did the unfamiliar gleam of gold on her finger caught her attention, jerking her abruptly from her thoughts. The pretend wedding band glinted mockingly at her, as if to underscore the shaky reality of her situation.

  It was the last straw in a nerve-racking evening. Seconds later, her lips firmed to a line, she was in the hall and pressing the elevator’s call-button. The man in the apartment above might have chosen to live a lie, she told herself edgily. That didn’t mean she had to do the same, especially in the privacy of her own home. As the too-angry protest ran through her mind she tugged at the ring, illogically unwilling to wear it for a moment longer, but to her frustration the thing wouldn’t budge.

  “Silky hair and glowing skin?” she said furiously under her breath, twisting the band to no avail as the elevator arrived and the doors started to open. “Why don’t they tell you about the swollen feet and sausage fingers?” Head bent to her task, as she spoke she took a step forward…