Take A Chance On Me (A NOLA Heart Novel Book 2)

by Maria Luis

  Brady rolled his eyes. “How about stop thinking that you’re second-rate? Jesus, Danvers, I’m not trying to stroke your ego, but you need to stop thinking that you aren’t good enough. You are—you’ve shown it time and again when your coworkers have needed you, and it wasn’t even your case. You’ve done more overtime than anyone else in the unit. Or, how about the fact that I’ve watched you literally spend hours working with veterans, both those living on the streets and those working with the VA.”

  Feeling uncomfortable with the praise, Nathan slouched in his seat. “It’s not like that, T. I owe my coworkers my help, and as for the vets . . . it could have easily been me in that position.”

  “But it’s not.” Brady said this quietly, as though giving Nathan time to adjust to the uncomfortable emotions rolling through him. “That’s my point. You spend every moment of your time helping everyone else that you rarely ask for help yourself. I’m not going to pretend to be a shrink, because God knows I’d be awful at it, but, Danvers, man, don’t you think it’s time to put yourself first for once? Wake up and realize that you aren’t sitting in second place, and the only one acting as though you are is . . . you.”

  His head snapped back at the words. Hadn’t Jade said the very same thing? Hadn’t she accused him of dooming their relationship from the start, from immediately assuming that she wanted nothing more than a hookup after learning about her ex?

  And the fact was . . . he was guilty of doing just that. How hadn’t he seen that before?

  She’d given him no reason to believe she wasn’t all in with him, and, hell, even Josh had expressed his own worry. His mother had spent years trying to make up for what had happened with his biological father, and . . .

  They weren’t the problem—he was.

  His hands grappled with the lip of his desk, shoving himself onto his feet. “I have to go.”

  Brady laced his hands behind his head and met Nathan’s gaze. “You going to stop being Eeyore behind all the laughs?”

  “I’m not—” Nathan scrubbed a hand over his jaw and then turned to grab his bag from the floor. “I need to find Jade.”

  “You giving up on the Zeker case?”

  Slinging the strap of his cross-shoulder bag over his head, Nathan growled, “Fuck no, I’m not. I’m going to find her and plead my case on why she shouldn’t write me off for good. And then, after that, we’ll work as a team and get a handle on the case. Like we’d be doing right now if I wasn’t too busy letting my past choke me into submission as opposed to focusing on what actually matters.”

  “Some women are into submissive men,” Brady quipped dryly. “I suggest you two check out The Dirty Crescent and see what they have to make your wildest dreams come true.”

  “Have I mentioned that I hate you?”

  “Not today, Danvers, not today, but damn, it feels good to have the tables turned for once. Is this how you feel being all-annoying and wisecrack-y all day long? I like it.”

  Nathan didn’t bother to reward his friend with a response. But he did make an incredibly rude hand gesture on his way out the door, and that would have to do for now. He had a case to solve and a woman to profess his love to . . . and then he needed to ask the one question he hadn’t the other day—whether she could love him for the long haul. Because if she said yes . . . he was never letting her go.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CENTRAL CITY, NEW ORLEANS

  Jade followed Shawna Zeker up the worn wooden steps of Ms. Hansen’s house. Early morning fog lent a hazy, mirage-like quality to the air.

  It matched Jade’s mood perfectly.

  After her argument with Nathan the night before, she hadn’t slept a wink. Her eyelids felt heavy with drowsiness and tears, and she swore her limbs creaked in protest as her shoes hit each stair. Her heart, meanwhile, felt as gray as the sky, as oppressed as the humidity frizzing her hair.

  Díos mío, she wished she didn’t hurt so much.

  Ignoring the squeezing of her heart, Jade trained her focus on the woman before her. If she was hurting—and she and Nathan had never even been in an official relationship—she couldn’t imagine how Shawna must feel, knowing that her husband was dead, and that she’d been blamed as the perpetrator. Especially when it seemed to be the case that the blame didn’t sit at her feet, but rather Miranda Smiley’s.

  “Thank you for letting me come over,” Jade said, stepping to the side so that Shawna could open the front door. “I know this must be very difficult for you right now, so I’ll make it quick.”

  Shawna glanced over her shoulder. “I’m surprised to find you without Detective Danvers.”

  How would she know . . .?

  Jade forced a nonchalant smile on her face, despite the fact that her teeth were clenched with nerves. “He’s at the office. Since this just required me picking something up, he didn’t think it necessary for him to come along.”

  “Interesting.”

  That was all Shawna said. And maybe Jade was overreacting, maybe she’d watched one too many crime shows on TV, but she couldn’t stop the worry that threaded down her spine.

  Stop being ridiculous. You have nothing to worry about.

  When Shawna stepped to the side for Jade to enter the house first, the worry inched up another notch. Which was stupid—because Shawna had already been proven innocent when it came to her husband’s death. If there had been any lingering doubt within the homicide department or the crime lab, she wouldn’t be walking free right now.

  Crossing over the threshold of the house, Jade’s gaze immediately latched onto Ms. Hansen, who was seated in the corner of the living room. Much like the last time Jade had seen her, the elderly woman had her thinning white hair pulled back into a top-knot, and had on another one of those sheet-dresses. This one was pink with what looked to be bananas printed all over it.

  The worry eased as a genuine smile pulled at Jade’s mouth. Ms. Hansen looked like the very picture of every grandmother in the world—though not Jade’s grandmother on her father’s side, who preferred to dip into modern-day fashions, including leggings, skinny jeans, and, God forbid, a crop top or two.

  Jade blamed Sammie.

  “Good morning, Ms. Hansen,” she said, inching farther into the room. “It’s Jade Harper—we met briefly a week or two ago?”

  “Don’t bother,” Shawna muttered, sparing a quick glance at her mother. “She’s been in a foul mood all day.”

  “I ain’t in no mood, girl,” Ms. Hansen said, her fingers twitching on the chair’s armrest. “I’m tired of them cops swingin’ on by here, looking to prove that you’re a murderer. You may have been angry at Charlie, but you never followed through on what you said you’d do. And I told you—I don’t want her in my house.”

  Jade’s gaze flicked from mother to daughter. “Mrs. Zeker, why don’t I wait outside? You can bring me the document out there. No harm, no foul.”

  Shawna shook her head. “Like I said, ignore my mom, please.” Once more, she looked to the elderly lady. “Mom, I told you that Ms. Harper is here to help clear my name for good. Don’t make a scene.”

  “There’s no scene to be made. You know as well as I do, girl, that she ain’t here to prove you innocent. They’ll choose that Miranda lady’s side, just like Charlie chose her. You’ll end up in jail by the time the day’s over, I promise you that.”

  Jade’s mouth parted and then clamped shut. As much as she wanted to argue the fact that Shawna Zeker had already been put through the ringer, and had been deemed not guilty, there didn’t seem much of a point in fighting with an older woman who seemed determined to paint her as the villain.

  Stepping back toward the front door, she motioned with her hand. “Ms. Zeker, I’ll be out front by the car.”

  “No, just wait a second.”

  Right, because she really wanted to wait around while the matriarch of the family looked ready to strangle her. Not.

  But she’d come this far already, and so Jade smiled politely and said, �
�Sure, no problem.”

  She watched Shawna head toward the back of the house. Rooted to the spot four feet from the front door, Jade cast a quick glance about the living room. The walls were blank, hospital-white; rickety furniture sat askew in various corners, but though they looked to be older than she was, pretty throw-pillows brought them back to life.

  The throw-pillows were the only difference since the last time she had been here. She couldn’t help but wonder if that photo of Miranda and Shawna was still stuck under those paper towels in the pantry.

  “You’re the one Detective Danvers is pining over, aren’t you?”

  Jade’s head jerked in Ms. Hansen’s direction. “Beg pardon, ma’am?”

  “You are.” The woman’s fingers tapped impatiently on the armrest. “It’s a shame.”

  “A shame?” she echoed, unable to stop herself from doing so. “I’m not sure that I understand.”

  Sightless eyes found Jade, focusing on her face with a spectacular accuracy. “Yes,” she answered, “it’s a shame that he brought you into this. It’s no place for a young lady such as yourself.”

  The worry from earlier returned, and it returned tenfold. Jade’s foot inched back. “Thank you for the concern, Ms. Hansen, but I’m sure that I’ll be fine—”

  “Got it!”

  The sound of Shawna’s shoes hitting the hardwood floor captured Jade’s attention. In the woman’s hand she held a sheet of paper, which she waved about in the air before thrusting it in Jade’s direction.

  With shaky fingers, she grasped the paper and looked down.

  It was a credit card bill dated to the previous month. Below the total of one-thousand dollars and some change was Zeker’s signature. Jade’s heart rate accelerated, her body warming with success. She’d need to line it up with the copy of the signature from the marriage license, of course, and perhaps with the signature they had on file for his driver’s license, but this . . .

  She squinted down at the letters, her trained eyes swooping over the characters. Without even doing a comparison, she knew that the signatures were not matches.

  Her instinct was to call Nathan, to let him know that they were on the right track. But as soon as the thought crossed her mind, the realization sank in that they were currently not speaking.

  Which was stupid, in and of itself, because why were they letting a petty argument stand in the way of their happiness? Sure, he’d let his insecurities take over. So had Jade—the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she’d hidden behind fear, too.

  Fear that her relationship with Nathan would be a near-replica to the one she’d had with John Thomas. Fear that her relationship with Nathan would be nothing like her relationship with John Thomas, and that her love for the detective was too much, too fresh, too scary.

  The tip of her finger slid over the black ink on the credit card bill.

  She needed to speak with Nathan. They needed to get over this—because, if this whole mess with Shawna had shown her nothing, it was that life was too short to live in fear.

  She loved him.

  Her chin kicked up as she lifted her face. “Thank you for this,” she told the mother and daughter duo. Sliding a plastic baggy out of her back pocket, she slipped the sheet of paper inside and sealed it shut. “I’ll have it back to you as soon as possible.”

  Ms. Hansen turned her face away, which Jade figured was as much of a dismissal as she’d ever seen.

  Time to go.

  Jade stepped back. “I’ll let myself out. Thank you, ladies.”

  With a shake of her blond head, Shawna said, “I’ll walk you out, Ms. Harper.”

  There was no time to tell her no. With a wave of her arm, Shawna gestured for Jade to take the lead, which she did happily. She hated to be the type of person who judged, but Ms. Hansen’s old house gave her the hibbie-jibbies.

  She crossed the threshold of the house onto the front porch.

  At least the fog had eased up—it no long swirled around the stairwell. The sun now peeked through the heavy cloud coverage, giving away promise that by mid-afternoon, New Orleans would return to its typical scorching heat.

  “It’s going to be a hot one,” Jade murmured conversationally, hoping she didn’t sound as awkward as she felt. Her foot hit the first stair rung, and she turned, just slightly, to look back.

  She didn’t have the chance.

  One moment she was standing on her own two feet, debating the proper way to assure Shawna that they would find her husband’s killer, and in the next, a cracking pain exploded in the back of her head.

  Stars burst before her eyes, much like in the cartoons she’d watched with Sammie as a kid. Her hand grappled for the porch railing as her knees buckled. But she missed, and her knees did give out, and the very last thing Jade heard was Shawna whispering, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter Thirty

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  “Where is my baby? Where is my pequeña pobracita?”

  Nathan’s head popped up at the sound of the panicked female cry, just before he saw an army of people cut around the corner of the hospital’s hallway. At the forefront was Lucia Harper—or, he figured it was Lucia Harper.

  She had the same dark hair as her daughter, and, in classic Jade form, Mrs. Harper’s hair was also pulled back in a ponytail.

  Nathan’s lungs threatened to give out as he rose to his feet.

  Right about now, he should be feeling victorious. He should be feeling like he could walk across the damn Mississippi River if he wanted—thanks to Jade, Zeker’s killer had been outted.

  But he couldn’t . . . Jesus, he couldn’t even think about that right now, because the blow that Shawna Zeker had leveled on Jade’s head meant that Jade had yet to wake up. Shawna had struck to kill. Thank God for someone walking across the street who’d witnessed the whole thing go down—thank God they’d thought to contact the police.

  Nathan ran a shaky hand through his hair, and briefly squeezed his eyes shut. He needed to pull himself together. For appearances’ sake with Jade’s family, even if he himself felt like crumbling.

  He watched Lucia Harper swing toward the receptionist’s desk. “Mrs. Harper!” he called out, moving around the chairs and low tables.

  Jade’s family turned to face him in unison. There were five of them. Sammie, Jade’s younger sister, he recognized off the bat from their Skype session. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she was dressed in jeans and a Hialeah High T-shirt. She looked young and scared, and Nathan wanted to wrap an arm around her shoulders and promise that her older sister would be okay.

  He prayed that Jade would be okay.

  Nathan didn’t have the chance to note the others, because, at Sammie’s urging, the flock swept toward him. They all spoke at once, a mixture of Spanish and English that flew right over Nathan’s head.

  “Enough!” a man at the back snapped. Immediately, Nathan figured that this had to be Jade’s police chief father. He stood too straight, his gaze was too hard, and when he put a hand on Lucia’s shoulder, she immediately reclined into his touch.

  Mr. Harper pointed a finger at Nathan. “Are you Danvers?”

  Tempted as he was to say no, Nathan nodded. “I am, sir. I was the one who contacted y’all earlier this morning.”

  “From Jade’s phone?” Sammie piped up.

  “They, uh”—he slid a finger into the collar of his work polo—“when NOPD showed up on the scene, they took her cell phone and gave it to me.”

  “Why would they give it to you?”

  Nathan’s gaze found the owner of that unfamiliar male voice. And, when he did, a sick feeling curled in his stomach.

  John Thomas, in the flesh.

  Wasn’t he a lucky son of a gun.

  Jade’s ex was exactly how Nathan had pictured him: styled black hair, clean-shaven face, dressed in tan chinos and a pressed blue shirt, even though the rest of the Harper family looke
d like they’d been through hell, as opposed to a two-hour flight over from Miami.

  “I’m Jade’s partner,” Nathan said.

  “He’s her boyfriend,” Sammie interjected right after. She glanced back at John Thomas. “I told you that, remember? I still don’t know why you’re here.”

  “Because he cares about our Jade,” Lucia jumped in. “But that doesn’t matter right now. I need to see my Jade. I told her that New Orleenz would be no good for her. She should have stayed in Miami, with me, with her papa.”

  No one had the chance to respond because at that moment, a door to their right swung open and the doctor stepped out, a clipboard tucked under his elbow. He pulled to a quick stop at the sight of them all hovering like buzzards, and then looked to Nathan. “Miss Harper’s family?” he asked, though Nathan doubted he needed confirmation for that.

  “Si!” Lucia exclaimed, launching forward to clasp a hand around the doctor’s forearm. “Are you the one taking care of my Jade?”

  The doc pulled back, but only got so far—Lucia’s fingers visibly strengthened their hold, and it wasn’t until her husband quietly told her to “let go” that she released Dr. Bentham.

  “In answer to your question, yes, I’m the one with Jade,” the doctor said. His gaze flicked to Nathan again. “She’s awake and asking for you.”

  Pleasure sank into his limbs. “She is?” He cleared his throat, wishing he didn’t sound so damn relieved. Nathan swiped his sweaty palms over his jeans. “I mean, I should let her family see her first. They’ve flown from Miami, and—”

  “She apparently wants to know what happened with the case, Detective.”

  The seedling of pleasure cracked.

  Damn, he shouldn’t feel upset about that. She still wanted to see him, right? So what if it was about the case, and not about wanting to see him.

  “If you step through the door and take a right, her room is the third on the left. She’s still drowsy, but mostly lucid. Why don’t you go answer her questions while I fill in her family about her prognosis?” Dr. Bentham tipped his chin toward the door. “Nurse is in there with her, in case she needs anything.”