Black Moon Rising

by Ann Simas

  Being so close to her set off physical responses he couldn’t help and internal sensations he neither recognized, nor knew how to deal with. Clenching his jaw, he turned away, seeking a diversion. He went to the refrigerator, opened it and studied the contents for far too long before he withdrew the pitcher of lemonade. “Want a glass?” he asked.

  When she didn’t answer, he looked over his shoulder at her, only she wasn’t there. Like a wraith, she had disappeared without a sound. The comparison shook him, startling him into silence. After a moment, he slammed the pitcher back into the fridge, then turned and scanned the yard. No Libby, no kids, no Sunny.

  He bolted from the kitchen, calling Sunny’s name. Two cousins and a brother came running. “Where is she?” he demanded. They looked at each other in alarm and went in three different directions shouting her name. With the inside of the house scoured, he headed for the french doors leading out to the yard. “Sunny!”

  No answer.

  “Sunny, dammit, where are you?” He ran toward the fence that kept his mother’s garden separate from the yard. “Sunny!”

  He thought he heard a childish giggle, but couldn’t tell where it had come from. “Sunny! This isn’t funny, dammit!”

  The giggle came again and this time he pinpointed it. He tilted his head back and stared into the old maple tree his mother had insisted would remain when the property had been cleared to build their dream home almost forty years earlier.

  There, on one of the low-lying branches, sat two adult siblings, two child siblings, and Della. All grinned at him as if they’d had one over on him, and dammit they had, and he was thoroughly pissed about it. And what the hell were Sunny and Della doing, climbing trees, anyway?

  “Get your butts down out of that tree right now!” he shouted.

  “We would, but we need help,” Della called back, laughing.

  “You climbed up, so you can damned well climb back down.”

  “Easier said than done,” his sister said, unperturbed by his anger. “I think we need a ladder.”

  In consideration of the youngest ears in the tree, Luca dropped the f-bomb under his breath. “Stay put. If anyone falls off that branch, I’m not taking you to the hospital.” Of course, he would, and they knew it, but he felt better for having issued the warning.

  Within minutes, he was back with an extension ladder. He also had the assistance of two cousins and a brother, who he’d taken to task for not keeping a better eye on everyone.

  Della, Sunny, and Libby obviously didn’t have a lick of sense between them. He hoped the two kids didn’t grow up to be as irresponsible as their elders.

  Carmine and Angie held the ladder steady while he climbed up first and came back down with Maisie. The child patted him on the cheeks and said with a happy grin, “Tank oo, Wuca.”

  Nico went up next and brought Carson down. From his perch on the ground, Carmine chewed Della out for being an idiot as she descended. His cousin refrained from chastising Sunny and Libby, but Luca felt no such compunction.

  He waited until Angie herded the children inside before he let loose. “You do know that we are all here together because someone threatened you and you” —he pointed at Sunny and Della— “right? We can’t find you, we think something bad has happened. Pull this shit again and I will personally lock you in the house. Got it?”

  If only their expressions had shown a smidgen of remorse, or if they’d said, I’m sorry, but no. Three pairs of eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth and three sets of lips reverse-puckered, trying not to laugh. “Fuck this,” he bit out. “You and you” —this time he pointed at Della and Libby— “in the house. You” —he aimed his finger at Sunny— “sit your ass down right here and don’t move.”

  He spun around and planted his hands on his hips, watching to make sure his sister and Libby did as they were told. With linked arms, they laughed all the way back to the house.

  He turned around, expecting Sunny to be right where he’d instructed her to plant her cute little tush, but she wasn’t. “Goddammit, Sunny, where are you?” he roared.

  “Look out below!” she called from the branch, giving the ladder a shove, sending it directly toward him. He dodged right and it missed him by barely an inch.

  “Get down here,” he said, so steamed smoke was practically curling from his ears. How could she have transformed so quickly from a woman literally shaking in her shoes, to this…this child?

  “I’d prefer to talk from here. I don’t like being bossed around, especially when the person doing the bossing is being snarky about it.”

  “I am not being snarky.”

  “Well, you’re certainly not being nice.”

  “If I have to come up there and get you, you’re not going to like it when I throw you over my shoulder to carry you back down.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  After a moment of glaring at each other, he raised the ladder, succumbing to her taunt. Sunny scrambled to her feet and maneuvered over to the trunk and up to the next sizable branch.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No, I’m making a point. Apologize and start being nice or I’ll go all the way to the top.”

  “The hell you will!”

  She reached for another branch and boosted herself up.

  “Be sensible, you little fool. You’ve got a broken rib.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” she said through gritted teeth.

  That’s when he knew she was really hurting, but she wasn’t about to give in.

  From behind him, Trey said, “You gotta win every time, Luca. Is it worth it?”

  Luca snarled and whirled on him. “MYOB, partner.”

  Trey put his hands up, as if in surrender. “Okay. Just thought I’d deliver the news about the guy who hit Della in person, but I can see you have more important things to take care of” —he glanced upward and gave Sunny a friendly wave— “like harassing helpless women.”

  Sunny waved back with a big smile, which ticked him off all the more. “Helpless, my ass,” he muttered.

  Trey turned away and headed back toward the house. Luca dropped the ladder and went after him, grasping his arm. “Spill.”

  “Apologize to Sunny for whatever you said that ticked her off and when you get her down, I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  “Bastard,” Luca shot back, with no heat.

  “Takes one to know one,” Trey grinning.

  For the space of several heartbeats, Luca watched his friend and partner saunter back toward the house. He wasn’t even sure why he’d ordered Sunny around like she was some lackey. He only recognized that he’d gone into self-protection mode, but he couldn’t figure out for the life of him why he felt like he needed to be protected from her.

  Chapter 16

  . . .

  Sunny considered her options. Craving normalcy, she’d caved into a silly whim to climb a damned tree with her kids. That might have been acceptable when she was eight, but at twenty-eight, it was just plain stupid, and she’d overdone it.

  Her side hurt like hell and now she was two branches higher than she’d been before and she was experiencing a wee bit of vertigo. Should she tell Luca to call out the fire department and remind them to please bring their net so she’d have to something springy to land in when she passed out?

  The first time she’d seen him, she’d labeled him Detective Pure Male. Standing a good twenty feet or more below her now, his big hands planted firmly on his narrow hips, shooting daggers up at her, he fit that bill more than ever. Despite her pain, Sunny’s heart pitty-pattered.

  Dammit! Her heart had never, ever, gone pitty-patter. Being with Zach had given her a warm buzz, but looking down on the magnificent Luca Amorosi had the effect of an electric zap. Startled by the realization that she was attracted to him, Sunny let go of the branch above her and almost lost her balance.

  “Jesus, Sunny, be careful!” he yelled up.

  This time he wasn’t being bossy. She could hear the f
ear in his voice.

  He picked up the ladder, quickly positioned it against the lowest-hanging limb, and before she knew it, he stood on the branch just below her. “C’mon,” he said, “I’m here. I’ll help you down.”

  “I’ll have you know I was the champion tree-climber in my neighborhood growing up.”

  He gave her a crooked grin. “Of that, I have no doubt, but you weren’t recovering from a beating in those days, were you? Or a broken rib?” He extended his hand toward her. “Or a punctured lung.”

  “Rub it in.” Sunny bit her lip, partly because of pain, partly because of indecision. “I need to sit for a minute.”

  “Okay, just be careful.”

  She eased down onto her butt and let her legs dangle. That put her feet at about his belt level. He gave an audible sigh of relief. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “We may as well talk about the vision while I’m recuperating…and don’t deny that’s what it was.”

  He heaved another, much heavier sigh. “You wouldn’t need to recuperate if you hadn’t climbed the damned tree in the first place.”

  “Do you always have to get in the last word?”

  He heaved one last intentionally loud sigh, which she assumed was either one of resignation or disgust. Or possibly both. She flashed him an insincere smile.

  He rolled his eyes at her, then made sure he had a hand on either side of her hips, in case she took a tumble. He might be able to forestall it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, squirming.

  “Positioning myself to stop you from falling, if need be. Stop wiggling.”

  Sunny wasn’t quite sure how she felt about him being in such close proximity. Well, she did know, but she didn’t want to dwell on it. “The vision?” she prompted.

  “I’m trying to wrap my head around it, but I can’t quite grasp what I saw.”

  “You saw my parents being put out of commission so someone could steal my kids.”

  “All right, I agree. That’s what I saw. Only, I know I couldn’t have seen it.”

  “That’s what I thought the first time I had the vision about Della being hit.”

  “Which you saw five times.”

  “No. I saw five different versions of an event, and the final one allowed me to make the right decision when I stopped to help her. It was the only alternative that assured she and I weren’t killed on that curb that day.”

  “Tell me again about the visions that did get you…killed.”

  She related them in order, though since that was over and done with, she wondered why he wanted her to rehash them. Shouldn’t he be focusing on Carson and Maisie’s abduction?

  “Was there anything different about the vision today, than the one you had in the hospital?”

  Finally. “Yes. Today, Maisie was grabbed first as she slid down the slide and Carson was taken from the steps leading up to the slide.”

  “That seems like a minute difference.”

  “Yes, but really, weren’t the differences in my other visions minute? Just a variation in where I pulled over?” She squirmed on the branch again.

  Luca tensed his arms, ready to act if she lost her balance.

  “Do you believe in Fate?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really given it much thought.”

  “What about coincidence?”

  He barked out half a laugh “That I do not believe in.”

  “Me, either. That’s why I believe in Fate. I’ve never had a vision before in my life, and suddenly I have five of them. I was supposed to be there to help Della and I was supposed to be able to walk away under my own steam. Now, I’m supposed to be able to help my children, only….” She worked her throat convulsively, fighting back emotion and fear. “Do you think I’ll get five visions to choose from this time?”

  He studied her, his expression guarded, yet incredulous all at once. “I can’t answer that.”

  “You’re a big help. Let go of the branch and move over.” She scooched forward and maneuvered herself so that she could slide belly-first down to the next branch. She planted her feet beside his, grateful when she felt his big hand against her back, supporting her. “Let’s go hear what Trey has to say about the man who hit Della.”

  “Sunny?”

  She turned to face him. Only inches separated her chest from his. “What?” she said, surprised by the breathless sound of her own voice.

  He kept one hand secure to the branch and used the other one at her back to pull her toward him. He lowered his head and captured her lips in the sweetest, gentlest kiss Sunny had ever experienced. She slid her arms around his middle, pressing closer against him. Luca took it as an invitation to deepen the kiss.

  Sunny moaned.

  Luca’s tongue dove inside her mouth.

  Her tongue engaged eagerly in the battle. If Luca hadn’t been holding her up, she was certain her legs would have given way and she’d be on her way to the ground, or painfully straddling the branch on which they both stood.

  Sunny pulled away first, staring up at him with blue owl eyes. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I had to do it.”

  “Next time, maybe it should be on the ground, where we’re not in danger of falling off and killing ourselves.”

  He flashed her a sexy grin. “I’m glad to hear there’ll be a next time.”

  “Bank on it,” she said, her female parts still humming. “No guy kisses me like that and gets away with never doing it again.” She disengaged herself and dropped down to the main branch before he did the same.

  “Is your balance all right?”

  “I’m okay now.” Boy, was that a lie! “I was a bit dizzy for a minute earlier, but after I sat down, it cleared up.”

  “I’d feel better going down first, anyway. If you get dizzy again and fall, I can break it.”

  The warm tinglies shot through her again, like they had in the kitchen when he’d cradled her in his arms and later, when he used the pad of his thumb to wipe away a tear. Like they had when he’d glowered up at her in that undeniably, inexplicably sexy way of his. Oh, God, she was in deep trouble and it had nothing to do with visions.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Simple words from both of them, but Sunny knew that things were never going to be simple between her and Luca again.

  And it didn’t take a vision to make that clear to her.

  . . .

  “Turns out Toady doesn’t mind shooting at cops or dosing women with a roofie, but he draws the line at doing it to a single mom with two little kids at home,” Trey said.

  “Shouldn’t he have gotten the particulars before he put that needle in my IV line?” Sunny asked, disconcerted and way beyond peeved.

  Trey grunted. “You give him too much credit.”

  “Did he say who hired him, or was he working alone?” Luca asked.

  “Yes and no,” his partner responded. “Remember Bingo Harris?”

  Luca flexed his jaw in anger. “How could I forget that POS?”

  “Who is he?” Sunny asked.

  Luca scrubbed his hand across his face. “He and three other guys robbed a couple of banks several years ago. During the second heist, they shot and killed a security guard and a teller. They disappeared and we’ve never been able to find them.” He glanced back at Trey. “Are you saying Toady is one of his boys?”

  Trey nodded. “Apparently, they’ve been scoping out the bank across the street from the department store where Della works and they were convinced she’d been taking notes on their activities while she was doing the front windows.” He tapped a staccato against the table top with his fingertips. “He said she even came across the street a couple of times while they were inside the bank.”

  “What? Did you ask Della about that?”

  “No, I was waiting for you to quit playing Tarzan. I figured she’d like you here when I question her.”

&
nbsp; “You got that straight.”

  “I’ll go find her,” Sunny said. “I need to use the bathroom and I want to give the kids some smooches before they go down for their nap.” She pushed back her chair and stood, wincing. “Will I be able to sit in on the discussion, to find out how I fit in to almost being killed?”

  “Not a problem,” Trey said, “and if you want to ask Libby to join us, so you’ll have some sibling support, feel free.”

  Sunny grinned at him. “Your subterfuge needs some work, Detective, and in case you hadn’t noticed, Libby’s interested in you, too.”

  Trey’s face reddened furiously.

  Sunny immediately felt remorse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “You didn’t. Well, yeah, you did, but I’ll live.” Trey shot her a sheepish grin. “So, she likes me, huh?”

  “Try having a regular conversation with her and find out,” Sunny advised, putting a hand to her side.

  Luca stood, as well. “I’ll get you some ibuprofen. Looks like playing Jane did you in.”

  She smiled wanly at his joke, wondering if ibuprofen was going to do the trick. Her side hurt like crazy. What in the world had she been thinking, going up that tree?

  Still, the end result hadn’t been all bad….

  . . .

  Fifteen minutes later, the two detectives, the two sisters, and Della were seated at the round farmhouse table in the Amorosi kitchen.

  Della listened in silence while Trey repeated his interrogation of Toady Morgan. “I do make notes while I’m working,” she said, “and I do go across the street. I like to see how the windows are progressing, make sure they’re working like I’d envisioned, but I never noticed this Toady person, or if I did, I sure didn’t know what the heck he was doing.” She slumped back in her chair. “Wow. Someone tried to kill me because he thought I’d seen him planning a bank robbery? Talk about a freak encounter!”

  “So, Toady is the one who hit Della?” Sunny asked.

  “Yes. Then he pulled around into the parking lot to make sure he’d killed her. He planned to finish the job, if he hadn’t. By that time, you had arrived and screwed up his plans.”