Dare to Love Again

by Julie Lessman

  His finger absently glided across the glass of the frame, tracing each face in the picture until he paused on Alli’s, heart cramping over the pain Nick Barone had caused. “We’ll get you through this, sweetheart,” he whispered, vowing to investigate any man in the future who even looked at her cross-eyed. “And so help me, if I ever get my hands on Barone—”

  Whoosh! The door flew to the wall, along with Miss Peabody, face flushed and eyes as round as the knob gripped in her white-knuckled hand. “I tried to stop him, sir, truly—”

  Logan shot to his feet. “What the . . . ?”

  Nick Barone stormed in with his typical tight-lipped scowl, expensive suit rumpled and Italian leather shoes buffed to a shine. He tossed a ruler he’d obviously snapped in half onto Logan’s desk, the jagged pieces as sharp as his tone. “What is it with women and sticks, anyway?” he muttered, hurling his Homburg onto one of two leather chairs. Slapping massive hands on Logan’s desk, he leaned across with fire in his eyes. “I’d sit back down and get real cozy if I were you, Supervisor, ’cause you and me? We’re gonna have a chat.”

  A tic pulsed in Logan’s cheek. “So you’re back to finish her off, are you? What—ripping her heart out the first time wasn’t enough?” His cool gaze shifted to Miss Peabody with a stiff smile. “Thank you, Miss Peabody. If you’d be kind enough to call security before you go, I’d appreciate it immensely.”

  “Y-yes, s-sir,” she stuttered, palms and back flush to the wood door as if she thought Barone might charge at any moment. “W-would you l-like me to call the p-police too?”

  Barone whirled around, causing Miss Peabody to jerk so hard, the poor woman’s body rattled along with the door. His glare pinned her in place, obviously cauterizing her to the spot. “I am the blasted police,” he shouted.

  “Yes, Miss Peabody,” Logan said with icy calm, “please ask Captain Peel to send two officers over immediately to escort Nick Barone to a cell.”

  “Freeze!” Barone’s command carried the weight of authority, paralyzing the terrified receptionist against the door. He jerked a badge from inside his jacket and practically rammed it at Logan. “Lieutenant Detective Ryan Nicholas Burke, Chicago P.D.”

  Logan’s smile was as steely as the badge beneath his nose. “And just why should I believe you, Barone? Because you flash a tin badge you probably lifted from some cop?”

  “It’s Bur-kee,” he snapped, enunciating both syllables through clenched teeth, “long e, you blasted bigwig, and after the bald-faced lie you told Allison, you can bet your sorry tail I have proof.” He shoved the badge in his jacket and pulled out a folded letter, flipping it on the desk.

  “M-Mr. McClare—do you still need me to call Captain P-Peel?” Miss Peabody hadn’t moved a muscle except her lips, body pasted to the door like she was sweating glue.

  Logan scanned the letter from the district attorney of Cook County and expelled a heavy breath, almost irritated that Barone was legit. “No, Miss Peabody, it appears our intruder, no matter how obnoxious, has credentials, so no police or security is required, thank you. Have a good weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday. And close the door, if you will.”

  “Yes, sir, good night.”

  The latch clicked and Logan pitched the letter across the desk to Barone . . . or Burke—or whoever the devil he was—before leaning back in his chair, elbows propped and hands clasped. “It appears you have explaining to do, Lieutenant Burke, as to why you would lie to my niece, me, Captain Peel, and his aunt.” He glanced at the clock before he pierced him with a cool gaze. “I have a prior commitment, so I will give you exactly five minutes before I throw you out.”

  Burke’s facial muscles flickered, as if he were reining in a temper Logan knew all too well that he had. Massaging his temple, the detective finally released a weary sigh, an unexpected humility replacing the temper in his eyes. “Tell me, Supervisor,” he said quietly, “have you ever kept the truth from someone you love to protect them as well as yourself?”

  Logan froze, the query a bull’s-eye as surely as if Burke had fired a gun. Drawing in a halting breath, he released it again slowly, the tension in his face relaxing along with it. Unfortunately, yes, he thought with keen regret, surprised that he and Burke shared any common ground at all. Giving a slow nod, he appraised the officer with a solemn gaze. “I repeat, Detective Burke—you have five minutes. State your case.”

  ———

  A long, tremulous breath seeped from Nick’s mouth along with the rest of the anger he’d carried all the way from the station when Harmon had attempted to lock him up. And all because Logan McClare stuck his nose in where he didn’t belong. Sucking in more air, he slowly expelled it again as he eased into one of the cordovan chairs, finally allowing his body to relax for the first time all day. He stared at the Supervisor’s granite jaw and cold, slate-gray eyes and wanted to rail at Alli’s uncle and call him every foul name in the book. For lying through his teeth about who Nick Barone was when no such person even existed at all. But the truth was, he couldn’t. Not after the soul-searching he’d done while he lay in a hospital with a bullet in his chest, mere inches from his heart. Because had he been in Logan’s shoes, he would have investigated Nick Barone too, and done everything McClare did and more to protect his niece.

  His niece. Nick swallowed hard. And God willing, my wife. A connection too strong to continue a battle with Logan based on misconceptions and anger. Bitterness had skewed his perception of both Alli and her uncle from the start, distorting his mind and hardening his heart. But for all his wealth and political influence, Logan McClare was no more like Aiden Maloney than Alli was like Darla Montesino. Nick absently rubbed the side of his chest where the bullet had lodged, right next to an arsenal of bitterness just as hard. A bitterness that had prompted him to condemn both Alli and Logan on the spot. Grief pierced his heart. Just like Maloney had with my parents and uncle. He closed his eyes and kneaded the back of his head, where the gash from the butt of Neil’s gun still throbbed as much as his guilt.

  “You have three minutes left,” Logan said in a dispassionate tone, and Nick peered up, hardly able to believe what he was about to do.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wish I’d looked out for my family half as well as you look out for yours. But the truth is, Supervisor McClare, I did too little, too late, and it made me a very angry man.” Inhaling deeply, he sank back in the chair and started at the beginning in a low drone, from the murder of his parents to the robbery and subsequent murder of his uncle, a man who’d been a key cog in the corrupt and merciless hierarchy of the Irish mob.

  He talked about his vendetta against Aiden Maloney and a political machine so corrupt that Nick had vowed he would make them pay as an officer of the law. Fueled by revenge, he’d risen in the ranks quickly until he joined forces with the district attorney to bring down as many of the Irish mob as he possibly could. They’d struck pay dirt when his own uncle—Aiden Maloney’s attorney—had finally had enough and begun feeding Nick proof of Maloney’s extortion. His uncle had meticulously duplicated file after file, one by one, willing to turn state witness against Maloney and other members of the mob. Until they silenced him.

  “They murdered your uncle in his own house?” Logan whispered, his shock evident.

  Nick nodded. “Gunned him down, right before they tore the place up, apparently looking for missing records they were tipped off about.”

  Ridges popped in Logan’s brow. “By whom?”

  Nick’s jaw hardened to rock, the roiling of his stomach clear indication he still had some soul-searching to do. “My ex-fiancée, a scheming debutante my uncle introduced me to.”

  Logan leaned in, expression calcifying along with his tone. “Wait—she wasn’t pregnant with your child, was she?”

  “What?” Heat swarmed his neck like fire ants swarmed the bodies of dead rats in the sewers and alleys of the Barbary Coast. “What the devil kind of question is that?” he ground out, jerking hard on his ear.

&
nbsp; “A legitimate one, considering the real Nick Barone abandoned a pregnant fiancée in New York’s Little Italy.” Logan’s lips went flat. “Right after he robbed her blind.”

  Nick’s jaw dropped. “Pardon me?”

  Logan folded his arms on his desk, eyes in a squint. “Tell me, Burke—how the devil did you pick your phony name anyway?”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed to razor-thin. “DeLuca, the assistant D.A., wanted an ethnic cover, so I used my middle name with an Italian surname I picked from city records.”

  “And you never bothered to check if anybody owned it or not?” Logan’s tone rose several octaves, suggesting Nick was clearly an idiot.

  Blood braised Nick’s cheeks, his lips as flat as McClare’s face was gonna be if he continued this line of questioning. “The-city-records-confirmed-it,” he bit out, “no Nick Barone, either in New York or Chicago.”

  Shaking his head, Logan sloped back with a chuckle. “Well, apparently Andrea Nicolo Barone—thief, murderer, and con man on the lam—preferred his middle name to his first.”

  Nick blinked, staring for several seconds before the faintest of grins tugged at his lips. “So that’s who Allison thinks I am—some lowlife who’d abandon his pregnant fiancée?”

  “In the flesh,” Logan said with a flash of teeth.

  It was Nick’s turn to shake his head, the grin breaking free. “Well, then heaven help me if she has a stick in her hand when I see her.”

  Logan rested his head on the back of his chair, his smile fading as he studied Nick through pensive eyes. “What happened then—with the fiancée?”

  Fiancée. The very word sucked the humor right out. “Seems she had an old family friend I didn’t know about—a stinking sack of dung by the name of Aiden Maloney. Didn’t discover she’d double-crossed me until one of my uncle’s files disappeared—the one I’d been working on in my study, hidden in a secret compartment of my bookcase.” He nodded toward the letter on Logan’s desk. “DeLuca is a paranoid type who suspected a leak in both of our departments, so he didn’t want the records stored either place. Especially since they required extensive decoding on my part based on a formula from my uncle. So I worked on them one at a time, hiding some beneath the floorboards in my grandmother’s attic while DeLuca kept the rest at his place.”

  Nick sucked in a stabilizing breath and eased back in the chair like Logan, palms limp on the arms of the chair while his eyes trailed into a hard stare. “I thought I loved her,” he whispered, the pain of betrayal still raw. “But right after the file disappeared, Maloney’s thugs leveled Gram’s house with a pipe bomb in the middle of the night, obviously hoping to destroy me and any files I had.” A harsh laugh erupted from his lips while his vacant gaze wandered back to that night. “Blew me and the walls of the outhouse clear into the neighbor’s yard, where I watched Gram’s house go up in smoke.” His voice sounded lifeless to his own ears. “Just like any love I thought I had for Darla, leaving me nothing but cold, dirty ashes and a shell of a house that smoldered as much as my hate.”

  “So you were forced to hide.”

  Nick peered up, facial muscles taut. “I didn’t want to—I wanted to go after Maloney right then and there, but DeLuca was right—we needed time. The few records that had survived at his house were enough to maybe slap Maloney’s hand, but not to cinch him up, and basically worthless without my testimony and translation. And it was pretty clear Maloney wanted me dead—the one man who could put him away forever if we could dig up even a shred of evidence linking him to the murders.” He exhaled a wavering breath while he gouged the socket of his eye with the pad of his thumb. “So DeLuca wanted me as far away as possible. And since I’d promised an army buddy from San Francisco I’d pay a visit one day, it seemed like a safe bet while he scoured Maloney’s district high and low for the one thing that could put him away.”

  “And did he find it?” Logan peered up with an intensity that told Nick he’d won an ally.

  A hard grin curled on Nick’s lips as satisfaction surged through his veins. “Oh yeah, got that arrogant son of a viper bragging about the murders in a phone conversation via wiretap, compliments of the D.A., who prewired Darla’s parents’ phone the night before. Led that scum right down the path to his own personal noose.” His smile slanted toward dry. “Right before his thugs pumped me full of lead.”

  Surprise flickered in Logan’s face. “And you survived?”

  Nick grinned, rubbing the permanent knot on the back of his head. “I have a hard head, sir, and DeLuca had police swarming the place mere seconds after the first shot was fired.”

  A genuine smile eased across Logan’s face as he stood. “Well, that’s good, Lieutenant, because a hard head will come in handy if I agree to let you court my niece.” He glanced at the clock before extending his hand. “If you hurry, you’ll catch her at the school before she leaves, Nic—” He paused, a wedge between his brows. “I’m afraid this name thing won’t be easy, Ryan.”

  Nick reached across the desk to shake Logan’s hand. “I’ll just stick with Nick, sir—it’s my middle name and easier all around, and heaven knows I’ve caused you and your family enough problems.” He turned to go.

  “Uh, one last question, Nick.” Head cocked, Logan stared, brows jagging low as he leaned forward with a sniff. “Do I smell animal crackers?”

  Heat ringed Nick’s collar. “Gastric ulcer,” he said with an awkward grin, “exacerbated, I might add, by you and your niece. They settle my stomach.”

  Logan nodded slowly, eyes in a squint as he issued a reflective grunt. “I’ll have to give it a try. Her mother does the same thing to me.”

  Nick paused at the door, hand on the knob. “So . . . before I risk getting whacked with a stick, Supervisor, I need to know—do I have your blessing?”

  “Hard head, guts, good taste in shoes, and Irish instead of Italian?” Logan slid his hands in his pockets. “Other than being a penniless cop, sounds like a match made in heaven to me.”

  “Uh, not exactly penniless, sir.”

  “No?”

  Nick exhaled. “Sole heir of my uncle’s estate, which is considerable, but I never wanted to touch it because it’s tainted money.” He peered up, his decision made. “But I think I may have a way to redeem both it and my reputation with Alli, her mother, and Miss Penny.”

  Logan’s smile slid into a grin. “You’re a shrewd one, Detective—I like that in a man.”

  “So I have your blessing?” Nick held his breath, suddenly wanting Logan’s approval almost as much as Alli’s consent.

  The supervisor made him wait while he appeared to mull it over before finally expelling a weary breath. “After all Alli’s been through, Nick, I’m sure you’ll understand I need time to know you better before I make my decision. But at the moment, Lieutenant, it’s not my blessing you need.” He strolled around his desk to sit on the edge with a fold of arms, lips flat in a show of sympathy. “After four broken hearts, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alli’s written off all men.”

  “Good.” Nick’s smile was dry. “She won’t be needing them anymore.” He opened the door and squinted at Logan, a mock scowl on his face. “And pardon my French, sir, but just when in the devil am I going to know if I have your blessing or not?”

  Logan laughed and absently scratched the back of his neck. “When you find a huge crate on your front door, Detective.”

  “Yeah? Containing what?”

  A twinkle lit Logan McClare’s eyes for the first time since Nick had known the man. “Animal crackers, Lieutenant,” he said with a faint smile, “and I suggest you use them wisely.”

  30

  With a less-than-graceful hop, Alli boarded the California Street cable car, the shiny wood benches that once promised adventure leaving her surprisingly flat. “Thank you for the escort, Mr. Bigley,” she called, turning to grip the steel pole. Several questionable men boarded behind her, the strong stench of alcohol almost enough to make her tipsy.

  “You’re welcom
e, Miss McClare.” The school janitor fidgeted with a battered fedora, brows bunched in concern. “You’re sure you don’t need me to accompany you home, miss?”

  “Absolutely not, Mr. Bigley. This is the only leg of the journey on which I need help, I assure you, especially with sunset still an hour away. And I actually enjoy the solitude to reflect on my day.”

  Her smile went stale. Ha! Reflect on your miserable life, you mean. Hand gripped to the pole, she flailed her reticule in a one-handed goodbye, its black-beaded fringe dancing with an excitement she’d once felt herself before Nick Barone. “Have a good weekend, sir, and my best to your family.”

  Digging in her pocket, she handed the needed fare to the driver, then made her way to the end of the outside bench, as far as possible from several seedy-looking men eyeing her with interest. She dusted the seat with her hankie and shimmied in with her purse on her lap, back square and eyes ahead, never seeing the faces milling on the street for the one in her head.

  Nick “Pain-in-the-Brain” Barone. The man whose image followed her everywhere she went. She blinked to clear the sudden moisture in her eyes, jaw suddenly clenched as tightly as her fingers on the pole as the cable car pulled away. She hadn’t heard from him since the night of the attack three months ago, but then she hadn’t really expected to after Uncle Logan had divulged what a rat he’d turned out to be. She issued a shaky sigh.

  Rats shouldn’t be this hard to forget . . .

  Eyes sinking closed, she found she was no longer interested in the sights along Montgomery that once fascinated her so. But that was the key problem with rats. Not only did they break your heart, they robbed you of the very essence of life itself—the passion to live it, the spirit to explore it, and the ability to enjoy it.