by Liz Talley
She knew. Something in his tone, his manner, his damned dented pride pulled her toward him rather than away. And there was that weird attraction thing between them.
She knew that he knew that she’d been naked beneath that robe… only because he kept giving her that look. The hungry one. The one she sometimes dreamed about but also feared. God, she was effed up.
But still. She wanted that zip, zing, and zap.
“Actually I’m having company tonight,” Addy grinned, enjoying stringing her friend along.
Shelia turned, her thinly drawn brows settling into a straight line as she eyeballed her. “Oh?”
“Yes, a big hunk of a man.”
“You watching 300 again? Or maybe something with the Rock?”
Addy laughed. “No, this hunk is real.”
“Really?”
Addy swept the stem trimmings into the plastic-lined garbage bin. “No. Well, not really. You know my neighbors?”
“The ones with that cute tabby that has white paws?”
“Yeah, and a proliferation of kids, lawn ornaments, and sticky fingers. The father deployed to Afghanistan but was injured. Courtney went to him in Virginia—I’m assuming Walter Reed—and left the kids in the care of Ben’s brother. Yesterday, the middle kid destroyed my new greenhouse. So-”
“The one you just had built?” Shelia’s eyebrows made an even tighter line of outrage. Leave it to Shelia to be pissed off for her.
“Yeah, they’re coming over on Saturday to repair it, but tonight I’m sitting down with the hunky uncle to go over the kids’ schedule to see if Flora and I can’t help him out a little.”
“Reeeally? Baby, I like the way you say ‘hunky uncle,’ and it’s nice you’re helping your neighbor out. Just tread carefully,” Shelia said, her wide, always-glossed lips curving into a smile. Shelia wasn’t one to push Addy to date, like some of her other friends, because she knew what it was like to have trust twisted and stomped upon. Her assistant had married an abusive man, a man who had beaten her so severely she’d miscarried their child and had been forced to undergo an emergency hysterectomy. After years of enduring the abuse, Shelia had left him, only to have him stalk her and torture her for many more years. The abuse and terror had ended when Alfred ran his car into a tree. A bottle of bourbon and a wet New Orleans street saved Shelia from the gun the man had in his glove box… the same gun he’d already fired at Shelia once before. So, no, Addy’s assistant didn’t trust easily.
But Shelia hadn’t given up on Addy finding love. She pushed gently, but she pushed. Just like Aunt Flora. And Addy’s mother. And her sisters. And… well, she could go on and on with the people who wanted to see her with a man at her side.
But Addy wouldn’t be moved until she was ready. She’d learned long ago to listen to her instincts and step carefully where men were concerned. It took her a long time before she trusted. Which is why she couldn’t figure out why there was a sort of auto-trust when it came to Lucas.
“He’s hunky, but it’s not a date.”
“But you’ve got weekend plans.”
“Yeah, we’re rebuilding a greenhouse… with three kids.”
“Who knows what can come of some innocent hammering, nailing, and screwing? Uh, huh.” Shelia bobbed her head and performed the wave… which was hard to do holding a floral box.
“Go, crazy lady.”
Shelia’s laughter trailed as she pushed out the back door. Addy twisted the lock behind her. Shelia had vacuumed the indoor-outdoor carpet and then locked the front door, but Addy scooted out of her back workstation and double-checked the lock.
Like she did every day.
Then she located her purse, cellphone, and pepper spray.
Like she did every day.
Fighting against fear wasn’t for the fainthearted. Addy’s nerves shredded every time she saw an unlocked window, a door left cracked, or a shadow falling over her when she was alone.
Most people never thought about their personal safety, but ever since the day in November eight years ago, Addy had thought of little else.
Being stalked and nearly killed by a crazy person did that to a gal.
Of course, Addy knew she was mostly safe in her little corner of the world. Tuesday evenings in St. Denis Shopping Center in Uptown New Orleans was busy enough with shoppers, diners, and looky-loos enjoying the early spring weather. No dark alleys or lonely stretches inviting violence. But none of that comforted her. After all, danger lurked on the sunniest of days, in the perceived safest of places.
Last night her thoughts had been haunted by Lucas and the feelings he stirred in her. Hungry, sweet thoughts claimed by the normal Addy, the woman who wanted to find love and peace with someone who completed her, a man who would feel like home.
But the other Addy had pulled her mind from that hopeful thought to the letter she’d received from Angola State Penitentiary. From some random inmate named Jim McDade. Some decoy who likely owed Robbie Guidry a favor and most likely had no clue why he’d been asked to send the missive. Probably didn’t even care.
The paper within the envelope had been a drawing, rather well done, of a field of brown eyed Susans. The cheerful yellow flowers with the wide brown center seemed to dance in the picture, their little faces turned toward the fading sun sinking against a streaked horizon. It had been folded carefully, a crisp trifold. Innocuous. Innocent.
But the image had caused Addy’s hand to shake so violently she dropped the paper to the floor.
Brown-eyed Susans.
A favorite flower for a brown-eyed girl.
Her father had sung that song to her when he strummed his guitar, winking at her, making her feel like the safest, most-loved girl in the world. Brown-eyed Addy. Daddy’s girl.
And Robbie Guidry, the twenty-five-year-old man who lived across the street from her family, three doors down on the left, had listened, smiling like the rest of their neighbors as he carefully absorbed everything about her life.
So the drawing wasn’t innocent.
It was a reminder.
An instrument of terror plied to take her back to that sunny afternoon years ago—the day Addy learned what fear was, the day the darkness settled into her bones and refused to leave her.
Before she went home, she’d drop the drawing she’d received with Lt. Andre who had worked her original case. The man kept a file of the “gifts” sent to her over the years, even though no physical evidence could tie the missives to Robbie Guidry. The nutso stalker wasn’t stupid and never, never allowed what he sent to be traced back to him.
Picking up the bouquet of spring flowers, Addy scooped up her purse, her thumb firmly on the fob’s alarm, and turned out the lights. Her heartbeat sped up, but she was accustomed to that reaction. She inhaled, exhaled, and became hypervigilant to the world around her as she pushed out the back door that led to an open parking lot used by the employees of the shops and the bank across the street. Open and in sight of a half dozen businesses. Safe. The rational part of her brain overrode the irrational.
Addy walked toward where her blue Volkswagen Bug sat against the high curb, noting her car needed a wash. Maybe she could get the kids next door to wash it. Kids loved to wash cars, and she could pay Michael and Chris fifteen or twenty bucks to give it a bath.
Three steps from her car, she froze.
Tucked beneath the windshield of her car was a single brown-eyed Susan.
The shattering of the glass vase made Addy jump and stumble backward. She hadn’t realized she’d dropped the flower arrangement. Instinctively she pressed the alarm on her fob, and the chirping wails of the system bounced around the near empty parking lot.
Breathing hard, Addy rifled through her purse for her cell phone. The purse-sized canister of pepper spray was already in her hand.
The owner of the monogramming shop stuck her head out with a questioning look, but Addy ignored her and instead focused on the innocent flower sitting bright against the blue of her car—another reminder fr
om a man who would never leave her alone, a sharp left hook of a message meant to do exactly what it had done—terrify her.
Addy sat down hard on the curb, clutching her cell phone, not bothering to stop the car alarm. The world tilted, and she concentrated on taking in deep breaths, rather than the short panicked ones sounding in her ears.
Breathe, Addy.
Think, Addy.
Robbie Guidry was still behind bars, and Addy sat in a safe area. No one was an immediate threat. She stood, head on swivel, and looked around the parking lot.
Who could have left the flower on her car? Who, either knowingly or unknowingly, could be aiding such a horrible man? She doubted she would get answers, but she would report it… not that it did much good. Without proof Robbie Guidry was behind the small gifts sent her way, she had little to stand on in prosecuting him for harassment. It had been almost six months since she received anything from him, and she’d hoped her lack of response had done its job.
But two things within twenty-four hours?
She shivered despite the sun pressing on her shoulders and turned off her alarm. The woman at the monogram shop closed her door, and Addy took her phone out and photographed the flower, sending it immediately to Andre’s email along with the date and time of the incident. She’d long since ceased bothering with calling the NOPD over the threats—the responding officers made her feel stupid for wasting their time.
Addy tore the flower from beneath the wiper and tossed it onto the pavement where it would wither and be crushed beneath the wheels of the vehicles going in and out of the parking lot.
If only she could toss away her fear the same way.
She looked down at the cellphone she still clutched in her hand and for some crazy reason, she wished she had Lucas Finlay’s phone number.
Lucas learned the hard way that taking three kids to Home Depot is living hell on earth. As soon as they waltzed in under the orange sign, Charlotte had to go to the bathroom. At first Lucas panicked. How was he supposed to take a little girl to a public restroom? Thankfully he spied something called a “family bathroom” and sent Chris in with her. Strangely, Michael disappeared before he could be nabbed.
After a full ten-minute wait while Charlotte did her business, Lucas met Chris’s demand—a sports drink as payment for wiping his sister in a place where “any of the hotties from my school could see.” The kid promptly drank three sips and wanted Lucas to carry it. Michael remained MIA while Lucas juggled trying to find the right wood screws and pushed Charlotte in some weird racecar cart. Charlotte insisted he make engine noises like her father. Lucas found the whole thing embarrassing, but if it kept her from climbing out and playing on the lawn furniture display then he’d gladly rumble like a NASCAR engine.
After an hour, he needed a drink… and it was only nine thirty a.m.
Not the ideal way to spend a Saturday morning, especially after Addy had canceled their Wednesday night dinner, sending over Aunt Flora’s gumbo without a word on why she couldn’t meet with him that night. Flora had taken Chris to karate on Thursday night, and outside of catching a glimpse of Addy wrapping her orchids in what he assumed to be wet newspaper, he hadn’t seen her at all.
So much for finding a haven in the chaos. He’d been in survival mode for the past four days, and now he only wanted to get the damn greenhouse repaired and focus on the spinning plates precariously balanced in an unfamiliar world.
“Where have you been?” Lucas asked hefting the lumber into the back of his truck as Michael finally appeared with earbuds in and a frown on face.
“I’ve been sitting on that bench.” Michael pointed toward the front of the store.
“With the smokers?”
“I wasn’t smoking.”
Charlotte skipped past the truck and climbed onto the cart return. “Jeez, Chris, pull your sister down. I told you to watch her. Chris?”
“He’s over there looking at lawnmowers.” Michael flung an arm toward the side of the store.
“Chris!”
The ten-year-old froze, looked around to make sure no one had seen his uncle bellow at him and jogged back toward the truck.
“Why did you have to yell at me across the parking lot?”
“Because you are supposed to be watching your sister while I load this lumber, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any ‘hotties’ at Home Depot on a Saturday morning.”
Chris shot him a withering look. “Girls are prisoners just like me. We get dragged everywhere by our parents… even Bed Bath & Beyond. No one cares what a kid wants. Besides, I’ve already seen Josie Dupont.”
“You’re wasting your breath, plague. She’s too hot for you,” Michael muttered.
Chris rolled his eyes. “This from the biggest social piranha at St. Marks.”
“Shut the hell up.” Michael reached for Chris, but Lucas caught his arm.
“Okay, I’ve had enough. Chris, fetch your sister and stop calling your brother an Amazonian fish.” Lucas heaved another load into the truck.
“What?” Chris asked.
“Look, stupid, if you’re going to insult me, at least use the correct terminology. It’s social pariah.” Michael’s voice dripped with venom… and a shade of hurt.
Lucas turned Chris toward where his sister dangled. “Go.”
Chris sighed and did as bid.
Lucas turned back to Michael who had fixed his gaze on the cars whizzing down Veterans Highway. “What did he mean by that remark? You having trouble at school?”
His oldest nephew stiffened. “What’s it to you?”
Lucas looked hard at Michael. Dark hair swooping low across a forehead that bore the hallmark of being thirteen. Acne also marred his cheeks and chin, but not so much that it took away from his handsomeness. He was thin and gawky, but so were many boys at that age. He looked like the quintessential young teen but with Ben’s smile and brown eyes. It was as if Lucas looked upon his own brother twenty-three years ago.
“Just trying to hel-” Lucas bit down on his tongue because that sounded lame. “Nevermind. But if you want to talk or if anything is going on that can’t wait until your mother gets home, you know where I am.”
“Yeah, I do. You’re sleeping in my parents’ bed. A virtual stranger who doesn’t know me or anything about my life.”
Lucas nodded. “True, but I’m here.”
“Yes. You’re here.”
Without another word, Michael turned and started unloading the shopping cart.
Such anger and frustration in the child, but that was to be expected when going through puberty. Lucas could remember how awkward the age was. One moment he wanted to hit his father, the next crawl into his lap and hide from the cruel world. He’d give Michael space. No doubt he dealt with some nonsense at school, but the boy didn’t trust him enough to seek help or advice. Lucas would keep his eye on his nephew… just in case he needed to intervene.
Finally, after loading the truck, he drove through a donut place and picked up a couple dozen to pacify the kids. Screw never rewarding kids with food. This was survival for Lucas, and he’d “pick his battles” like the article in the parenting magazine on the back of the toilet had suggested. Yeah, Ben and Courtney had no hunting, fishing, or sports magazines lying around their house, but obviously liked knowing the ten best snacks for a toddler.
The entire way back to Uptown, Michael was silent, noshing on donuts, earbuds in, as Chris and Charlotte sat in the backseat quietly working on a sugar high he knew he’d pay for later. Every time he glanced in his rearview mirror, he caught sight of the three-year-old who looked like a commercial for everything cute imaginable. At one point, she caught his eye and smiled, sugary donut gumming up her face, but looking so like her mother, he couldn’t help but soften.
Which was strange since he’d spent years angry at the woman who’d ripped his heart out and left her high heels embedded within the depths.
He remembered the first time he’d seen Courtney. She’d been eleven years old, a
ll legs and glorious blond hair, dangling from a branch of an old oak tree in the front yard of the house her parents had bought days before. Lucas had been cutting through behind his house on his way to his friend’s house to shoot hoops when he’d seen her fall from the tree. He’d scrambled over some bushes, hopped the low fence, and found her in a tangle, laughing like a loon. She’d looked up, grabbed the book that had fallen from her hand, and smiled. “This is exactly how these two met.”
“Huh?”
She pointed to the cover of a book that had a native American woman entwined in a cowboy’s arms. “These two, Small Dove and Colt. She fell out of a tree and he caught her. Crazy, huh?”
Lucas took several steps back wondering why a kid was reading a book that looked like it had sex in it. “I just came to see if you were okay.”
She beamed at him. “You were rescuing me. You’re my siuleehu. That means soul mate in Cherokee.”
He hadn’t known what to say to that… or to her every time she boldly rode her bike to his house, stalking him with sunshine and silly smiles, all skinny and browned by the sun. And then one day, she stopped following him. And six months later, he started following a new Courtney. One whose flat plains had developed into curvy wonderfulness, a girl who smelled like a meadow, wore lip gloss and tossed her golden hair over her shoulder. She’d been supremely gorgeous, still funny, and not so silly anymore.
For ten years they’d played tag with each other, giving each other their first kiss, accompanying each other to school dances, taking long walks down shady streets, sneaking in kisses, practicing moves on each other, and cementing the idea Courtney had offered up that day years before—that they were soul mates.
To be together and build a life with a home, children, and successful careers had been the plan… until his brother Ben had come home from college with a hard body and a charming smile. While Lucas had been busy studying for law exams, his brother had been sending out resumes and schooling Courtney around town. Lucas had actually felt gratitude toward his brother for taking care of his soon-to-be fiancée while he studied. After all, they would be family within a few years.