The Bennett Family

‘What do you see?’ asked Jake.

‘The back of my eyelids.’

Jake sighed. ‘Focus.’

‘I know. I know. I’m on it,’ said Luke. ‘I’m moving my mind out into the flow.’

‘Good. What do you see?’

The face of a woman, bright against the darkness. Shoulder-length honey-blonde hair styled straight with a full fringe. Moss-green eyes flecked with brown and framed by sable lashes. A wide mobile mouth made for laughter and kissing. She would kiss very well; he knew it instinctively. She could make a man believe there was good in the world.

Madeline Delacourte.

Luke snapped his eyes open and sat up fast, never mind the pain coursing through his side or the thorn of desire lodged deep in whatever passed these days for his soul.

‘Anything?’ asked Jake.

Luke shook his head. ‘Nothing you want to know.’

CHAPTER TWO

MADELINE made a habit of following up on her rehomed street kids the day after she’d dropped them off at their new abode. Nimble-fingered Po had many survival strategies and scams in place, most of which would be calling for his attention right about now. If Jake could manage to keep Po around the dojo for the next forty-eight hours or so…if Jake could offer the boy something to work towards, something he wanted more than his old way of life…then Po had a chance at staying off the streets. That first step away from the old life was always the hardest, Maddy knew, but it could be done.

All Po needed was the right incentive.

Jacob was fronting a kick-boxing class when she walked into his dojo. He scowled when he saw her and jerked his head towards the back rooms, the half a dozen tiny rooms where guests and visiting students stayed, along with the occasional wayward boy.

She found Po in the kitchenette, kneeling on the round table, his attention firmly fixed on an odd assortment of kitchen appliances that had been placed dead centre of the round. Luke Bennett stood opposite Po, fully clothed this time, which was something of a disappointment, his voice a low rumble and his head bent as he too focused on the stuff on the table. Some sort of rolled-out cloth-bound toolkit lay between boy and man, only these particular tools weren’t like any other implements Maddy had ever seen.

‘Nearly done,’ Luke’s voice rolled over her, low and soothing. ‘Steady. Steady. Just a li-i-ttle bit more. Okay, Po. Now.’ Po’s hands moved quick and sure as he wielded a tiny pair of wire cutters over a mass of wires, Luke’s fingers just as nimble as he unwound a silver spring and shoved a piece of what looked like Blu-tack in its place. Moments later both boy and man leaned back, their grins wide and white. ‘You’ve got good hands, kid. I’ll give you that,’ said Luke.

Po beamed. Maddy stared.

‘Is that—’ she couldn’t believe her eyes ‘—a bomb?’

‘Of course not. What kind of question is that?’ Luke finally deemed fit to look her way, laughter lurking just around the corner. Maddy felt the force of that vivid amber gaze clear down to her toes. ‘It’s a makeshift detonation mechanism attached to a toaster.’

Maddy opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Where to begin?

‘Luke’s got it set up to burn toast unless we can disable the detonator in time,’ added Po.

‘And the wallet in the toaster?’ she asked acidly. ‘What does that do?’

Po suddenly found the cracked linoleum floor pattern fascinating. Madeline stifled a groan. ‘Po, who owns the wallet?’

‘Jake,’ said Luke. ‘Po liberated it from him this morning and I liberated it from Po. Po’s currently planning to put it back where he found it. He’d appreciate my silence on the issue. The main problem being that once I set the wallet to toasting, Po has approximately a minute to disable the detonator without jamming the toaster. Any longer than that and I’m pretty sure Jake’s going to notice the scorch marks.’

Still nowhere to begin. Anywhere would do.

‘Okay, debatable disciplinary measures aside, you don’t think it slightly unwise to be teaching a child how to build and dismantle a trigger mechanism for a bomb?’ She’d started the sentence with her voice low and controlled, the better to avoid shrieking by the time she got to the end.

‘Maybe under ordinary circumstances, yes, but look at it this way,’ said Luke, using that same soothing voice he’d used earlier. Unlike earlier, when she’d been reluctantly charmed, it made her want to strangle him. ‘Po’s a pickpocket. A career that values steady nerves and nimble hands is a natural progression for him.’

‘Exactly how,’ she said, with a generous dollop of sarcasm, ‘is a career in bomb disposal progression?’

‘Well, for one thing it’s legal.’

‘Did you mention how if you stuff up, you die?’

‘Happens I did,’ said Luke. ‘I’m all for full disclosure.’

‘There’s so much to admire about you, Luke Bennett. Pity about the rest.’

‘Oh, that’s harsh,’ he murmured without an ounce of repentance. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he said to Po. ‘Lesson cancelled. I suggest you think hard about whether or not you’re prepared to live by my brother’s rules because I’m telling you now, you won’t get a second chance with him. If it’s easy money you’re after, go back to picking pockets. Then when you grow up you can join the real thieves and be an investment banker.’ Luke slid Maddy a sideways glance. ‘Or you can always try the minimal-effort, time-honoured method of improving your lot in life and marry someone with money. Happens all the time.’

Maddy took the hit as she was meant to take it.

Personally.

‘Now I know why your brother enjoys beating the daylights out of you,’ she murmured.

‘Trying,’ corrected Luke helpfully. ‘He enjoys trying to beat the daylights out of me. There’s a difference.’

‘Po, will you excuse us for a moment, please?’ said Madeline.

‘Can I get the wallet first?’

‘Maybe later,’ said Luke. ‘And if you steal anything else of Jake’s I swear you’ll be cleaning the dojo floor with a toothbrush.’

Po grinned and disappeared.

‘Is your room locked?’ asked Madeline sweetly.

Luke cursed and headed for the door. ‘Stay here,’ he told her and pointed towards the table. ‘Guard that while I escort Po to a kick-boxing class.’

‘Ah, the masculine mind at work,’ murmured Maddy as he swept past her, all hard and determined male. ‘It’s a wondrous thing.’

‘It’d help a lot if you didn’t actually speak,’ he said.

She blew him a kiss instead. ‘Is that better?’

‘No.’

She smiled her commiseration.

Only when she was sure Luke Bennett was out of sight did Madeline give in to curiosity and turn her attention to the device on the table. Five minutes later she thought she had the simplicities of the detonation mechanism figured.

‘You should ask for permission before you start playing with a man’s toys,’ said a chocolate-smooth voice from behind her. ‘They might not be harmless.’

Luke. He of the steady hands, stupendous body, and small brain.

‘What would happen if I cut this wire here?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘What about this one?’

‘Cut that one and life gets interesting,’ he said. ‘Jake said you and he were just friends.’

‘Aw-w-w. You’re still concerned about poaching? Aren’t you sweet?’ Best to turn and face danger head on—the better to know when to run. Madeline hadn’t learned that in any fancy Swiss finishing school but the lesson had stood her in excellent stead over the years nonetheless. She braced herself as she turned her head to look at him in an attempt to lessen the impact of that clear golden gaze. ‘But Jake’s right. I consider him a friend. I’m glad to hear that he considers me one.’

‘You didn’t know that he thinks of you as a friend?’ asked Luke with the lift of an eyebrow.

‘Your brother’s not an easy man to read,’ she offered with a slight smile. Madeline pitied the woman who set her sights on Jacob Bennett, she really did. ‘He doles his smiles and his welcomes out sparingly. You, on the other hand, don’t.’

‘Is this a bad thing?’ The smile Luke bestowed on her held more than its share of wicked charm.

‘For you? No.’ For the women on the receiving end of those easy smiles, she thought it might be. Time to stop gazing at that arresting face and concentrate on something else, decided Madeline. Like the stretch of a grey T-shirt over a chest wide and muscled. Like the play of veins from his elbows to his wrists as he leaned in beside her, his forearms on the table and his attention on the toaster.

Luke’s shoulder brushed hers, ever so briefly, and ever so deliberately. No way did this man not know where every millimetre of his was at any given time. He turned his head towards her and his gaze skated over her face and came to rest on her mouth with a focus that made Madeline’s breath hitch somewhere in her throat and stay there.

Madeline’s gaze slid helplessly to the sensual curve of his lips. Passion abundant, yet underscored by a firmness that hinted at iron control when Luke wanted control. Laughter in the grooves around the edges of those lips.

‘Seen enough?’ he murmured, and she who never blushed felt warmth creep up her neck and along her cheeks.

‘I think so.’ Cursing his appeal and her blatant reaction to it, Madeline turned her attention back to the apparatus on the table. ‘Where were we?’

‘No idea,’ he said. ‘But I think we should get it over with. It’d speed things up and, seeing as I’m only here for a week…’

‘Get what over with?’

‘Our first kiss.’ They were side by side, shoulder to shoulder, as he picked up the tiny wire cutters and carefully turned the detonator over to reveal another half a dozen wires. ‘One of them will disable the detonator without jamming the toaster. Question is, which one?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You want to hazard a guess?’

‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘I like to know what I’m doing—and why—before I do it. Take kissing you, for example.’

‘Good example,’ he said.

‘Happens I do know my way around a man’s mouth,’ she murmured. ‘Thing is, I’m not altogether sure why I’d want to kiss a man who despises me.’ She needed to see his face for this next question. She needed to think she wouldn’t get lost when she looked his way. ‘Is it the money you despise or the way I acquired it?’

‘Maybe you didn’t marry for money,’ he said, his eyes not leaving her face as he threw down his own question. ‘Maybe you loved your late husband.’

Maddy stared into those warm tiger eyes for a very long time, wishing her answer could have been different. Wishing she could have said yes, yes, she had. But the one thing Madeline had never been was a liar and she didn’t intend to start now, no matter how strong the temptation. ‘I married William Delacourte for security and for the lifestyle he could give me. He was a good man. I respected him and never cheated on him. But if you’re asking me whether I loved him when I married him the answer is no.’

Luke Bennett didn’t like that answer. She could see questions in his eyes—so many questions she didn’t know how to answer—and behind the questions, condemnation.

‘Did you sleep with him?’ he asked.

‘Have you been in love with every woman you’ve ever slept with?’ she answered coolly.

‘No,’ he answered, equally cool. ‘Did he know you didn’t love him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Poor bastard,’ murmured Luke. But he didn’t move away, and neither did she.

‘Any more questions?’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ Luke’s lips twisted into a wry smile as his eyes grew intent. He still had his elbows resting on the Formica table. So did Madeline. But their faces were close, close enough that it would only take the tilt of her head and a slight forward movement to make their mouths meet. ‘Are you sure you don’t want that kiss?’

‘Now why would I want to kiss you,’ she murmured, ‘when you don’t even like me?’

‘Beats me,’ he said. ‘Do it anyway.’

He had the knack of making Maddy want things she shouldn’t. Like lips against hers, firm and knowing. Like being cradled in the arms of a warrior who could make her see only the moment, and to hell with the life choices that surrounded it. How did one approach desire when they weren’t intending to exploit it? Maddy didn’t know.

She wanted to know.

With her elbows still firmly resting on the table, Madeline eased closer and set her mouth to Luke’s.

She didn’t rush to taste him, content for the moment with the feel of firm lips barely touching hers. Such fleeting contact. So blindingly perfect. Luke’s scent wrapped around her and the heat in him shuddered through her as she closed her eyes and touched the tip of her tongue to that firm upper lip the better to taste him.

He didn’t rush her. He simply let her play at exploring his lips, the shape and texture of them. A man of patience and timing, Luke Bennett, as finally, when she was just about to pull back, he turned his body towards her, and opened the way to deeper exploration. The slide of his tongue against hers, savouring and sensual. The hitch of his breath as she savoured him in turn. Then a ragged curse as his hand came up to sink into her hair and cradle the back of her head as he deepened the kiss.

Focused, so utterly focused on the moment and on her. Reckless with what he gave away. Passion to savour, passion to burn, as reality faded away beneath the radiance of this man making love to her mouth.

‘How old were you?’ Luke murmured as his lips finally left hers, rendering her bereft and craving more of him. More kisses, more contact, more pleasure. ‘How old were you when you married him, Maddy? Did you even know what you were giving up?’

‘Old enough.’ She kissed him one last time, slow and deep, craving oblivion. Wishing she could be what this man so obviously wanted her to be. Young. Naive. Innocent. But she’d never been any of those things, she’d never had the luxury, and he needed to know and accept that.

If he could.

Slowly, reluctantly, Madeline pulled out of the kiss and put some distance between them. The table for starters. And then the truth. ‘And, yes, I knew full well what I was doing when I forfeited love and passion for wealth and security. I’ve never regretted paying the price.

I wish…’ How she wished she could have brought a bright and shiny past to this man’s table. But she couldn’t. Pointless to wish that things could have been different. ‘Never mind.’

Madeline watched in silence as Luke cursed and turned away.

‘I can’t,’ he said, and shook his head as if to clear it. ‘I don’t…’

‘Don’t what? Don’t even like me?’ She tried to make light of it. ‘I get that a lot.’

‘Don’t put words in my mouth.’ He sent her a searing golden glare. ‘I like you plenty.’

‘Maybe. But you wish to hell you didn’t,’ she added, and her smile was one she’d perfected over the years, cool and mocking, mocking them both. ‘I get that a lot too.’

CHAPTER THREE

LUKE didn’t try to argue against her second statement, and Maddy gave him points for honesty. She gave him more points for staying right where he was as he fought to bring the rawness of their encounter back into line with what was civilised and polite and socially acceptable.

‘Here’s the thing, Luke Bennett,’ she said softly. ‘You think you know what I am. Well, I know what you are, too. An adrenalin junkie; a man who’s come to terms with an early death in the service of others because what else is there? It’s in your eyes, in the way you move. You don’t care for life and you know nothing of love. It’s never claimed you. You ask for a kiss but you’d take a heart and never even notice what you’d done. So don’t you judge me, Luke Bennett, and I won’t judge you.’

That was twice now in as many days that Luke had been called to task for errors in judgement. He was trying to give Madeline the benefit of the doubt, heaven help him he was trying, but every time he thought he had a handle on her she showed him otherwise.

The information on Madeline Delacourte wasn’t all bad, certainly. There was his attraction to her—surely that had to count for something, for he wasn’t usually prone to wanting hard-hearted women. Easy-going and light on commitment, yes. Heartless, no. That Jake valued Madeline’s friendship counted for more. And then there was this huge gaping hole in Madeline’s conscience when it came to marrying for wealth, and that was the bit he couldn’t stomach.

‘Are we interrupting?’ said a voice from the doorway, and, with serious effort required on his part, Luke broke free of Maddy’s shuttered gaze and looked towards his brother. Jake stood there scowling at him and he wasn’t alone. Po stood beside Jake, his scowl equally well presented. ‘Because we can come back later,’ said Jake, heavy on the sarcasm.

‘We should stay,’ said Po to Jake in rapid Mandarin that Luke could only just follow. ‘If we go they’ll probably kill each other or something.’

‘I get that feeling too,’ said Jake.

‘Nice to see the two of you bonding so fast,’ said Madeline. ‘And just for the record, I wouldn’t have killed him.’

‘I probably wouldn’t have killed her either,’ muttered Luke.

‘The week is still young,’ said Jake dryly. ‘I recommend distance and denial, but since when has anyone ever listened to me? As for Po here, we’ve yet to decide if his staying on is an arrangement that will suit us. Come back tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow’s not good for me,’ said Madeline with a careless shrug. ‘It’s a distance and denial thing.’

‘Don’t mind me,’ said Luke. If Madeline could pull back from the earth-shattering kiss they’d just shared and put the carnage that had followed behind her, then so could he. ‘I won’t be around. Things to do.’

‘So that’s settled, then?’ Jacob’s gaze cut to Maddy. ‘Come by around midday and we’ll feed you.’

For some obscure reason that Luke really didn’t want to think about, tomorrow’s happy-family scenario didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t look at Madeline and he sure as hell didn’t look at Jake as he shouldered roughly past him and stepped out into the corridor. It wasn’t until Luke hit the street that he realised he had company. Po skipped alongside him, keeping up but only just. Minding his distance, but only so much. Luke stopped. So did Po, hanging back. Not afraid of him—at least Luke hoped he wasn’t—just cautious in the way of all halfwild things.

‘Did Jake get you to follow me?’

Po shot Luke a wary glance. ‘No.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I wanted out too. Needed to walk. Go get some stuff.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

‘My stuff.’

‘Stolen?’

Po just looked at him.

Time to rephrase. ‘Stuff that’ll get you jailed if you’re caught with it?’

‘No. Some clothes, some Sing.’ Sing being Singapore dollars. ‘I won’t bring anything else.’

Luke really didn’t want to know what else the kid had that he wouldn’t be bringing. ‘Where do you have to go?’

‘Bugis Street.’

In years gone by, Old Bugis Street had been the traditional home of every vice known to man and then some. Redevelopment had sanitised the area but, like rats in a city sewer, you could never silence sin. ‘Maddy said you worked Orchid Road.’

‘Yeah, but I live on Bugis Street.’

Live. Not lived. Luke didn’t like the present-tense inference. ‘You know, kid? Po? If you’re even half serious about making a fresh start, going back to Bugis Street won’t help.’

Po just looked at him. Dark eyes in a pinched face and a body that was decades too small for the soul that resided within.

Luke didn’t want to get involved—he was only in Singapore for the week. But, ‘You need some company?’ was what he said.

‘Do you?’ said the boy, and fell into step beside him.

A couple of blocks went by in silence. Po clearly didn’t see the need for conversation. ‘How did you meet Madeline?’ Luke finally asked the kid.

‘She looked rich,’ said Po. ‘Her handbag was Prada and her shoes were Chanel—the real deal. So I marked her.’

‘You stole from her?’

‘Tried to,’ said Po. ‘But she knew all the moves. It was like she could see inside me. She asked me if I was hungry. When I said yes, she took me to a street stall and she knew the owner. She gave him five hundred Sing and told him to feed me for a month. He did.’

‘Did you stop picking pockets after that?’

‘I stopped trying to pick her pocket after that,’ said Po piously. ‘She’d come to the street stall every Monday. I used to sit with her sometimes.’

‘And after your month of free meals was up?’

‘It was never up. Grandfather Cheung said she’d paid for another month and that I could hang around in the shop overnight so long as I helped him get the shopfront ready for business the next morning. He has three grandsons but they don’t move fast. I do.’

‘Sounds like a sweet deal,’ said Luke. For a homeless child thief. ‘What went sour?’

‘Old man Cheung got sick and sold the shop. A couple of weeks later a street boss offered me a job I didn’t want to take. Maddy said it was time for me to move on and that she knew of a place.’

‘You trusted her?’

‘She said there was this sensei who took students and he was like this warrior monk or something. She said we could walk there and that I could leave any time.’

A monk, eh? Luke shook his head. Maybe there were some similarities between Jake’s dedication to martial arts and the celestial path a spiritual man might walk, but Jake a monk? Hardly. ‘So Jake takes you in on Madeline’s say-so, gives you food and a room and you steal his wallet? Where’s the sense in that?’

‘I wasn’t going to steal anything from his wallet. I just wanted to know what was in it.’

‘Why?’

‘So I could find out more about the sensei.’

‘How?’

‘From his cards and his receipts. From driver’s licence and the picture he keeps behind it.’

‘Jake keeps a picture behind his driver’s licence?’

‘Of a woman,’ said Po. ‘Could be Singlish. Chinese hair, western eyes.’

‘Ji,’ said Luke curtly. ‘Jake’s ex.’

‘Ex what?’

‘Wife.’

‘Monks have wives?’ said Po.

‘No.’ Jake didn’t deserve the responsibility that went with having a curious child thrust upon him, thought Luke grimly. He really didn’t.

It took them twenty minutes to get to where Po wanted to go, a set of garbage bins in an alleyway beside an allnight noodle bar. There was a drainage grate set into the wall behind the bins, big enough for a hand and elbow, but not a boy. Hell of a moneybox.

‘Can you keep watch?’ asked Po as he slipped behind the bins.

Curiosity over what might lie behind the grate warred with Luke’s need to protect the boy and his doings from the eyes of others. Every kid had a cupboard, he tried to reassure himself. This was Po’s. No need to know what else was in it apart from clothes and the money the boy wanted to retrieve. Trust was a two-way street and had to start somewhere, right?

Madeline had seen something in the boy worth rescuing.

Jake had trusted Madeline’s judgement enough to take Po in.

Judgement.

Madeline.

Po and his cupboard.

Cursing himself for a fool, Luke strode back to where the alleyway met the street and leaned against the wall, a bystander or a player, it didn’t matter. Just another tourist watching the show.

Ahead of him lay five more days in the vicinity of Madeline Delacourte.

Behind him lay a tiny thief with his hand up a drain.

Madeline didn’t linger long in Jacob’s presence after Luke and Po had disappeared. Long enough for a question or two from Jacob that she hadn’t wanted to answer, that was all.

‘You want to talk about what you’re doing to my brother, Maddy?’

‘No.’ Talk was overrated.