Then There Were Three

“Thank you.” Megan propelled herself into action, suddenly infused with purpose—mania most likely—but she’d take whatever she could get.

Striding across the living room of the rental that had been their home for over a year and a half, she headed into her closet and dragged out the bag that was never far away.

Marie was right. She’d have plenty of time on the flight to obsess about the mess she’d made of all their lives.

At least Violet was safe now. With him.

Megan might not have spoken with the man since the summer after her high school graduation, but she knew in her heart he would never hurt their daughter regardless of whether he’d known of her existence or not. Of course, finding out he even had a daughter would knock him back a few steps.

That thought overwhelmed her again, forced her to grab the doorjamb to hang on. Squeezing her eyes shut, Megan tried to manage the sensation that things were impossibly out of control.

It wasn’t only him or the idea of him being sandbagged by an unexpected daughter after so many years. As if that wasn’t enough. She was also struggling with memories of a time in her life when she’d felt so powerless and alone, so betrayed.

But not by him. There’d never been any doubt he’d assume responsibility, none at all. She’d felt betrayed by her parents, by their refusal to accept that Megan didn’t want to give up her daughter for adoption.

Nor had they prepared her for any life but the one they’d deemed acceptable. They’d sheltered her so completely that Megan didn’t have the first clue about how to cope when an unplanned pregnancy had turned her life upside down.

She was a much stronger and better person for learning how to stand on her own, and for that she was truly grateful. But she’d tried to rear Violet differently, to embrace life to the fullest, to be responsible for her actions. She’d always wanted Violet to have the skills to cope with whatever came up, to roll with the punches and trust herself to make good choices.

This choice had not been good. Her daughter had been clever enough to track down her father, but she didn’t know the whole story, wouldn’t understand why Megan had chosen to keep her a secret.

A memory of the sweet little girl who’d loved to chatter about everything, always trusting her thoughts to her mom, suddenly brought tears to Megan’s eyes. Those sturdy little arms would wrap around her neck and cling so tight.

Clearly, Violet didn’t trust her thoughts to Megan anymore.

If she had only asked… Of course, she shouldn’t have had to. Megan should have been honest, instead of choosing to wait until Violet asked, which would have signaled she was old enough to handle a truth that would rock her world. But there had been no perfect solution to the mess Megan had made. None.

There had only been damage control.

Throwing open the closet doors, she stared blindly at the neat row of clothing. Formal wear. Suits. Business casual. Casual casual. Purses and belts hanging from a unique hanger that Bonsom, their maintenance man in Ghana, had fashioned from akasa, a local wood. Shoes lined neatly on a three-tiered shoe rack for easy access. Orderly.

Exactly what her thoughts weren’t right now.

Megan hoped with her whole heart and soul that he had handled the shock of finding out about his daughter well.

Violet had sounded okay, but Megan knew her daughter, and meeting her father must have been the most important thing in her world to prompt this titanic mutiny.

If things didn’t turn out well, Violet would be so hurt. And he hadn’t had a chance to prepare. He would have been blindsided by the news. Who knew what was going on in his personal life? She could only learn so much on the internet. What if Violet had to not only contend with her father’s reaction, but the reactions of his loved ones? Given his position in the NOPD, what if an illegitimate daughter was not only a shocker, but an embarrassment?

Megan had almost placed Violet for adoption. She’d learned all about the process. She knew children sought out birth parents all the time, but reunions didn’t always yield fairy-tale endings.

If only they’d have had the one all-crucial conversation, they could have come up with a solution to deal with this mess together. A solution that would have prepared Violet and not left him unexpectedly facing a daughter who looked so much like him.

Megan’s thoughts raced with a plea—Please, please, please don’t let Violet be heartbroken. Or…Nic.

There, she’d said his name. In her head at least.

CHAPTER THREE

“NOW WHAT IN HELL IS this problem you couldn’t tell me about on the phone, Jurado?” Dominic DiLeo, newly installed Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, demanded when he caught up with the night’s shift commander.

“It’s a juvenile, Chief.” Deputy Chief Emile Jurado cast a scowling glance around the operations center as if afraid half the duty shift might overhear them. “Picked her up last night in the Quarter for curfew infraction.”

Nic stared at the short powerhouse of a man, clearly missing something. “What’s the problem?”

Another glance around the room. “Not here.”

“Let’s go to my office.” Nic led the way through the rank and file of New Orleans’s finest, inclining his head in silent greeting whenever he made eye contact with any of his men.

Keeping the benign expression on his face proved to take some effort. He was in no mood to play twenty questions this morning. Not after a near-sleepless night spent dealing with his younger brother Damon’s latest drama.

No one in the family was remotely unhappy Damon’s girlfriend had dumped him and run. No one was even surprised—except by how long she’d hung around. If Damon ever listened to anyone, he wouldn’t have been shocked Roxy had vanished from the apartment they’d shared with no more than Ciao scribbled on a napkin and the contents of their joint checking account.

Nic was damned tired of cleaning up Damon’s messes. And everyone else’s for that matter. Nic had put his own life on hold after his father had died. As the oldest, it had been his responsibility to see everyone settled.

Vince’s residency at Charity Hospital should have been the end of the line for Nic. He’d gotten his youngest brother through med school. Marc traveled as a bounty hunter. Anthony had a life with Tess and the twins. Damon was a train wreck, but Anthony had given him space for a dojo above the auto repair shop, so at least Damon could teach martial arts whenever he wasn’t getting involved with the wrong kind of woman.

His baby sister, Francesca, had blown out of New Orleans the day after she’d graduated from high school, so there wasn’t much he’d been able to do there. Except blast her for not keeping in touch. On voice mail, usually, since she didn’t bother picking up his calls.

Everyone was as settled as they were going to be. But no sooner had Nic started looking forward to a life that didn’t involve taking care of someone named DiLeo than he’d been derailed when the new mayor had appointed him as the new superintendent, a glorified title for the chief of police.

“We’ve got to clean up this department, Nic,” the mayor had said. “We’ve got to earn the community’s trust again. I don’t care what the good old boys around here say. They’re part of the problem. You’re the right man for this job and the Feds agree.”

What was Nic going to do except trade his title as commander for superintendent and postpone living a while longer?

In the corridor to his office, he reached for the door—

“Wait a sec, Chief. You don’t want to go in yet.”

Nic paused with his hand on the knob and glanced over his shoulder. “Why not?”

“She’s in there.”

Nic shook his head, unsure he’d heard correctly. “Let me get this straight. You picked up a minor in violation last night and she’s not at the curfew center, but in my office?”

Jurado shrugged. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because she refused to talk to anyone but you.”

“Help me out here, Jurado. Where’d you pick her up?”

“Big Mike’s place on Iberville.”

That got Nic’s attention. He’d taken a stroll to Big Mike’s place on Iberville last night, and since he didn’t believe in coincidences… “You want me to start guessing wildly?”

“Got the call after midnight. Ever since we received that anonymous tip Busybodies Massage Spa was a front for prostitution, we’ve been keeping an eye on the place.”

“That much I already know.” He’d still been Eighth District commander when Big Mike, proprietor of Insane, Ink, had leased space to Busybodies to keep his doors open in the down economy.

“Disturbance in the massage spa. Customer allegedly got handsy with one of the therapists,” Jurado explained. “The owner called in because she thinks we’re looking for some reason to shut her down. She was afraid this customer would cause trouble if he didn’t get what he wanted.”

“Let me guess…Dubos.”

“Good wild guess.”

Not so much. An informant from Nic’s days as commander had tipped him that Busybodies was Judge Hugo Dubos’s new massage joint of choice. Nic had been keyed up after a dinner with the mayor and U.S. attorney last night, so he’d hit the streets like in the old days, walking to take the edge off.

Might have worked, too, until Damon.

“Get anything?”

Jurado snorted. “Statements from the therapist and the owner. That’s about it. Apparently, there was an argument. Dubos left before the duty officers got there. Couldn’t get a statement out of Big Mike. Said he didn’t see or hear anything. Details are in the incident report.” He held up a lumpy folder.

No surprises here. Big Mike had been around long enough to be a French Quarter institution. He’d weathered Katrina when many businesses had gone under or relocated and wouldn’t want attention given to the way he skirted legalities to make ends meet. His infractions were small potatoes in this city.

Until Hurricane Katrina.

When New Orleans had emptied out, the crime had gone with it. That’s why the U.S. attorney and his federal buddies had come to town—to make sure the new mayor and police chief got a grip on the city as it filled back up. That would take some doing because they weren’t only cleaning up the city but cleaning inside the department.

“This juvenile see something?” Nic asked.

“Told you, Chief. She won’t talk to anyone but you.”

Obviously, Nic wasn’t going to get this on his own. He tightened his grip on the door handle, ready to end the suspense. “Anything else?”

“Good luck.” Jurado handed him the file folder containing the incident report. With a sigh, he headed toward Operations. “You know where I’ll be.”

The instincts that had kept Nic alive for so long on the streets suddenly revved into gear. He didn’t know what was on the opposite side of this wall, but Nic knew that whatever—whoever she was—would rock his day.

Not bothering to glance at the report, he opened the door to find a teenage girl dozing in his chair, sandaled feet with brightly polished toes propped on the corner of his desk.

She jerked awake at his entrance. Her head snapped back, and she glanced at him, blinking away sleep.

Nic had been with the NOPD for years. Before the new mayor of New Orleans had appointed him police chief, he’d been commander of the high-profile and highly pain-in-the-ass Eighth District, which included the French Quarter, Central Business District and Harrah’s Casino. He’d seen it all. Nowadays it took something really good to surprise him.

The young girl staring at him through unfamiliar eyes surprised him. Probably because the only thing unfamiliar about her were the eyes. The rest of her, from the top of her tawny head to those brightly painted toenails, was pure DiLeo.

Nic blinked, but the girl was still there, staring up at him from a face all-too recognizable to deny a blood connection.

If the tawny hair and olive-skinned features didn’t give her away, the look in her eyes did—a mix of curiosity and attitude and a little too much pride.

This girl was a DiLeo, no question.

He wasn’t going to catch a break, was he? And here he’d thought he was done cleaning up family messes.

With a mental sigh, Nic calculated her age, trying to guess which one of his brothers might be responsible.

Fourteen, he decided, early high school. She seemed to be poised right on the brink of becoming a real have-an-answer-for-everything, demand-the-car-keys teen. Nic knew the look. Knew it very well, in fact, as the oldest of six siblings. Which took his youngest brother, Vince, out of contention straightaway. Too young. That left Marc, Anthony or Damon.

Nic’s money was on Damon. But to be fair, Marc could have done the deed. He would have been knee-deep in his rock-star phase about the time this young girl became more than a twinkle in her daddy’s eye. Marc’s band had practiced in the garage behind the family house and no matter how often Nic and his mother had patrolled the premises, the groupies marching through those practices rivaled a Mardi Gras parade.

Definitely not Anthony. His girlfriend of the time had spent more time at the DiLeo house than Anthony. Still did. No way could she have kept a pregnancy secret.

So Nic was going with Damon. Just because he was on Nic’s shit list today.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” the girl announced before he’d gathered his wits enough to begin the interrogation. “I didn’t know about the curfew. And if that disgusting old pervert hadn’t been yelling at those women, the police wouldn’t have even come at all.”

Nic noticed a few things straight off. Her accent for one. There, but distinctly not there. As if no one place had taken root, yet many had left an impression. For some reason he wanted to say European, but knew that wasn’t right.

Then there were the glaring flaws in her reasoning. Namely, she would have still been breaking the curfew ordinance even if she hadn’t been caught. So unless there was parent or guardian in possession of a notarized letter in the folder he held, that fresh piercing on her nose also contradicted the part about her not doing anything wrong, too.

Nic was back to his original question.

Opening the folder—no parents or guardians in here—he glanced down at the incident report and…a passport. A few more facts clicked as he snapped open the booklet one handed. The girl was a U.S. citizen, a traveler.

Croatia. Africa. Thailand. He’d been right about the accent. The most recent custom stamp came from Chile, South America.

Raking his gaze over a photo taken a few years ago, when she’d been ten maybe, he glanced at the name—

Violet Nicole Bell.

The hair on the back of his neck crawled, and for a blind instant, he could only stare as every shred of reason rebelled.

Violet Nicole Bell.

The name jolted him from the present and filled his head with a memory from long ago…a memory of the beautiful girl he’d once been involved with.

Megan Bell.

He might not have thought about her in years, hadn’t seen her in even longer, but Nic didn’t have to close his eyes to pull up a vision of her face. Heart-shaped with a delicately pointed chin. Porcelain skin and a full mouth, a kissing mouth if ever there had been one. A mass of silky chocolate hair and eyes so deeply blue they looked almost violet.

Violet Nicole Bell.

With a quick shake of his head, he tried to dispel the image of that face, tried to shock himself back to the present where a young girl was staring at him, a young girl who couldn’t…shouldn’t exist. Nic shook his head again, determined to get control of himself, of the memories and speculations and facts that were paralyzing him. He needed to get a grip, so he could figure out what to think, what to feel.

Fingers trembling over the remaining papers, he forced himself to focus on the documents—a visa, some sort of permission form, a photo.

He knew this photo before he could bring himself to look at the smiling young faces. He fingered the paper frame that had yellowed over time, cartoon gravestones and grim reapers with scythes, a keepsake from a French Quarter ghost tour.

Unable to stop himself, he glanced at the back of the photo at the inscription.

Always, Nic.

At the time, he’d meant it.

Now, he had to force himself to flip the photo over, to look at the image, to shock himself with the knowledge that always hadn’t lasted a month after this photo had been taken.

And there they were. He and Megan sitting together on the curb, so close they might have been fused at the hips, his arm around her shoulders, her hand resting casually on his thigh. Their heads were pressed close. Their expressions revealing no clue of what would be in store for them. They were immortalized in a way that couldn’t have been any more permanent than the young girl in front of him.

Nic was suddenly aware of her gaze, tense, expectant. She was waiting for something.

His reaction?

He didn’t have one. Megan had disappeared shortly after this tour, though she hadn’t intended to leave for her pricey private university until August. Nic had refused to believe she would walk away from him without a word, but Megan had never contacted him again. Not even to explain why she’d left so suddenly.

Nic’s shock must have been all over him because suddenly the girl—Violet—laughed and said, “I know. Crazy, isn’t it? I just found out myself.”

Her laughter finally penetrated his shock. Megan’s laugh. He hadn’t even known he remembered.

It took every ounce of his not-inconsiderable willpower to keep a poker face as he lifted his gaze to face this beautiful young girl with unusual blue eyes.

One glimpse of the uncertainty she was trying so hard to hide, and he knew his reaction mattered. He could see it all over her. He could feel it in the tight knot in his gut.

Somewhere in the back of his brain, the gears started grinding, and the only thing Nic knew for sure right now was that he couldn’t give over control of this situation.

It didn’t matter that a levee had collapsed and the past flooded in. It didn’t matter that his head was buzzing and long-ago memories and resentments were colliding inside. Not when Violet—his daughter—stared at him expectantly.

So Nic forced a smile. Then he said the only thing he could think to say, “Crazy works for me.”

Her expression melted, all the expectation evaporating into relief. He could see amusement, too, uncertain amusement, true, but it was still there.

A place to start.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WE’RE BEGINNING OUR descent,” the captain announced.

Thank God! Of all the flights Megan had taken over the years, forgettable and memorable, smooth and turbulent, these flights would hold the distinction of being the worst ever.

Nearly seventeen hours in the air, out of contact with Violet, angsting about everything from her daughter’s physical and emotional well-being to what the future might hold for their family. Nearly seventeen hours of imagining scenarios of what the meeting between Violet and Nic had been like and stressing about the potential long-term consequences. Nearly seventeen hours of revisiting every decision she’d ever made regarding Violet and analyzing why she’d made it.

And gearing up to face this mess she’d made.

Once in the States, she’d sent Violet a text message:

Boarding in Atlanta. You have three choices. Pick up your phone. Text me your address. Or be at that gate when I arrive. I expect to see or hear from you. I trust you’ll make a good decision. Love you very much. Relieved you’re okay.

An understatement to say the least, but now the ball was in her daughter’s court.

Would she be at the airport? Or would Megan have to track her down? No, Violet may be fiercely independent, which was a trait she’d had since she’d been old enough to form the words, “I do it.” She may have gone berserk on this quest to find her father, but she was still an intelligent, good kid.

No, Megan wouldn’t have to chase her.

But when Megan emerged from the gate with her carry-on over a shoulder, she didn’t find Violet, but him.

She could have spotted him in the middle of the Rex Parade crowd on Fat Tuesday. He stood taller than most of the people, his light hair cropped close. The chiseled features were the same, yet different. Weathered by life. Damage had been done to the once-straight nose. A fight, most likely, as there was a small but deep scar she didn’t remember marring his eyebrow.

She recognized the boy she’d been wildly in love with so many years ago.

Nic.

A man now. A stranger.

The uniform he wore only added to the impression. All sparkly brass and knife-creased edges.

Her daughter wasn’t anywhere in sight, and her absence combined with Nic’s presence rattled Megan. She didn’t even realize she’d stopped until someone bumped into her.

“Excuse me.” A man brushed past so fast all she saw was the back of him as she steadied her bag, which was suddenly swinging her off balance.

She hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing, either, until she tried to respond. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out because Nic had spotted her. His gaze swept over her in an assessing glance, taking in everything at once.

But giving nothing in return. Nothing to make her brace herself. Nothing to reassure her. Nothing but grim recognition on that still devastatingly handsome face.

Sucking in a deep breath, Megan propelled herself into motion. The burden of this meeting was all on her shoulders, and she wouldn’t shirk it. Holding his gaze, she strode toward him, determined to deal with this mess head-on. She would not make a difficult situation any more difficult.

If that was even possible.

“Nic, I am so sorry.” The words gushed out. “I don’t even know what to say. Is she okay? She said she was, but—”

“Seems to be.” He inclined his head curtly.

Megan tore her gaze from his, glanced around, suddenly needing to look anywhere but at him. “She didn’t come with you?”

“She’s with my mother. Thought it would be best if we talked alone first.”

That made sense. A very good idea, in fact. She was glad someone was thinking, because despite her best intentions, she was overwhelmed: by the stranger he’d become, by the realization that fifteen years away from this man didn’t make one bit of difference because they were still connected through their daughter.

“Do you have a suitcase?” he asked in that stranger’s voice.

“I do.” Spinning on her heel, she took off in the direction of baggage claim.

What was wrong with her? She’d known this day would come, but right now all her rationality, all her carefully planned explanations didn’t seem so rational as she faced that guarded look in Nic’s eyes.

Betrayal?

He had every right to feel however he felt. Every right. She’d made all the choices. And he hadn’t known he should have had an equal say until their daughter had popped into his life out of the blue.

There was no way for Megan to sugarcoat her mistakes or the consequences, no way to miraculously avert this train wreck.

He was suddenly beside her, and she could practically feel him, a physical sensation. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, either, which surprised her. Fifteen years hadn’t diminished her awareness of him. It was ridiculous, the absolute last thing she needed to notice right now.

He was working hard to stay calm and controlled. It wasn’t obvious in his expression or in the way he strode silently at her side, so she wasn’t sure why she thought that. Maybe it was the silence. Heavy. Accusing. It didn’t matter that there was an entire airport filled with people, noise and chatter filtering through the place in tidal bursts. The silence between them was deafening. Or maybe she was projecting her anxiety.