A Younger Woman

She had one of those refined Southern accents, the kind that easily attracted men. And Char had attracted plenty—the primary reason the judge was taking ulcer medication and seeing a shrink twice a week, Ry determined. “Shouldn’t you be home? Your daddy—”

“Thinks you’re wonderful.” She reached out and ran a manicured finger over the back of his hand where it rested on the bar. “For the first time in just ever, Daddy and I agree on something.” She giggled and leaned close. “You’re our favorite detective, Detective Archard.”

What she said about the judge approving of him was true enough. But Ry also knew there was a simple explanation behind that approval—if Char was seeing a big bad cop, the rest of the men making a nuisance of themselves might think twice. Judge Stewart was a shrewd old Creole. Ry didn’t blame him for scheming to keep his wild, scandal-seeking daughter out of the newspaper. Only, he had no intentions of being her baby-sitter or anything else. They had already settled that months ago.

Char ran her finger further up Ry’s arm. “You look like you’ve lost your dog and best friend all in one night. I can be anything you want, Ry. A lap dog suits me fine. You can stroke me or I’ll stroke you. You name the game and I’m willing to play.”

“You’re wrong, as usual, Char. Tonight all I need is a hot meal and a few extra hours of sleep.”

At Ry’s mention of food, Tony came to the rescue with a plate of shrimp and a tall beer. “There you go, mon ami. Seconds are on the house. Jus’ holler.”

Ry shed Char’s warm touch and picked up the fork next to his plate. He stabbed a plump shrimp, shoved it into his mouth and chewed vigorously. Unwilling to be ignored, she inched closer. “Remember the night I slipped through that hole in your hedge and found you asleep in that big hammock on your veranda? Remember how I woke you? The day’s heat was nothing like what we sparked, and nothing has compared since, I’m not ashamed to say.”

“Remembering that night doesn’t do either of us any good,” Ry drawled, reminded that when she’d arrived that night he’d been deep into one of his favorite dreams, a dream so potent and real that he’d almost made love to Charmaine Stewart thinking she was someone else.

She leaned closer and whispered in his ear. “If you’re tired I’ll do all the work. Promise and—” slowly she traced an invisible X across her chest with a hot-pink manicured nail “—cross my heart.”

Ry didn’t doubt Char would be good at her word, she’d had enough practice. His gaze drifted to her full breasts, then lower to the rounded curve of her hips beneath her pink silk T-shirt dress. A man would have to be crazy not to take what she was offering.

He stood, dug two twenties out of his back pocket and laid them on the bar beside his half-eaten food. Out of habit, he glanced toward the stage where the piano sat idle. He still thought it odd Margo wasn’t there. A creature of habit, she was as dependable as she was loyal. The only thing that would make her take a night off was if she was sick.

Ry’s gaze went back to Char. “Want me to call you a cab?”

“I take it that means you’re turning me down again.” She wrinkled her nose. “You’re a stubborn man, Detective Archard. But, lucky for you, so am I.”

It was still raining when Ry left the Toucan and turned his green Blazer toward the Garden District, and his thoughts back to the Burelly case. It went without saying he was committed to finding Mickey’s killer. Even though there wasn’t much to go on at the moment, the crime hadn’t been perfect. Along with Mickey’s body, he’d found evidence that someone else, possibly two other people, had been with Mickey at the time of the shooting. A blood trail leading to the end of the pier suggested that they had attempted to escape by jumping into the river.

Would the Harbor Patrol find their bodies in the next few days? Or had their escape been successful? The odds were slim that, wounded and fighting the river’s current at night, a person could survive. That is, unless their wounds weren’t serious and they were good swimmers who knew the area. Ry had learned that a slim chance was better than none. Until he explored every possibility, he would assume there were witnesses out there who could shed some light on his case.

He punched in the cigarette lighter, again recalling Mickey boasting about getting his picture on the front page of the newspaper. Well, he was going to make the front page, all right. Cursing the waste, then reminded that he was out of cigarettes once the lighter popped, Ry gunned the engine and sped past the Lafayette Cemetery. As he turned onto Chestnut Street, the red brick two-story came into view, and he hit the remote and watched the lacy iron gate open.

The rain had diminished to a fine sheeting mist, Ry noted as he killed the engine and climbed out of his Blazer. As he walked toward the rear entrance of the house, he could smell the night-blooming jasmine that grew tight to the veranda. He walked past a towering oak dripping with Spanish moss and strolled up the concrete steps. The iron railing felt warm to the touch—the day’s incessant heat still evident after midnight.

On the veranda Ry passed by the rope hammock, gave it a push, then opened the back door that he never bothered to lock.

Back in Texas the ranch house had always been left open to friends and neighbors, the coffeepot full and hot, along with a radio playing as a form of welcome. When Ry had moved to New Orleans, he had promised himself that once he’d gotten his own home he would keep the same tradition alive. And though no one ever came around much except for Jackson, he’d kept his promise.

Inside, he switched on the light, then pulled his sodden blue shirt from his jeans and tossed it over a chair at the kitchen table. The tape playing softly in the boom box was a blend of flute and guitar, a Native American arrangement that fit his somber mood as well as his Texas roots. He left it on and turned off the automatic coffeemaker and emptied the two inches in the bottom. Efficiently he prepared tomorrow’s brew, reset the timer, then turned the light off and left the kitchen.

A stairway just before the living room led to the second story. Tired, anxious to get some sleep, Ry climbed the steps, loosening his belt to remove his .38 Special from the compact holster tucked into the small of his back. At the top of the stairs, he turned left once more and stepped into the bathroom, his hand finding the wall switch a second later.

“What the hell!”

Ry quickly flipped off the safety of his .38 as he surveyed the room. There was blood in the sink and bloody fingerprints on the mirror. The closet door stood open. A small trail of blood led to the shower.

He eased into the room, checked behind the door, then warily crept to the shower and shoved open the slider. The white marble shower stood empty except for a white towel stained red that lay next to the drain.

Back in the hall, aided by the glow from the bathroom light, Ry took inventory of his surroundings. His closed bedroom door drew his attention and he arched a knowing brow—he never bothered to close doors in his house. Why should he? He lived alone.

The floorboards beneath his boots barely creaked as he took his position outside his bedroom. Then, silently counting to three, going in low and fast, Ry burst into the room.

The door hit the wall with a resounding boom, and in one fluid motion he flicked on the overhead light switch, then did a fast spin-around on his boot heels—his gun-hand outstretched, ready for whatever moved.

The force of the door smacking the wall brought the sleeping beauty lying on his bed awake. She jerked upright, at the same time her eyes went wide—familiar velvet-brown eyes that complemented sleek black hair and a pair of overripe, full lips. Ry’s heart slammed against his chest as he remembered what it felt like to kiss those lips, how he had loved running his fingers through all that thick silky hair. Not wanting to go there, he quickly drove the memory out of his head and focused on the blood-stained towel wrapped around Margo duFray’s arm.

Before he could speak, she said, “This isn’t the usual way to ask a favor, I’m aware of that, Ry, but under the circumstances…” Her words stalled. She rested her back against his mahogany headboard. “I know what you’re thinking. I know I swore I’d never ask anything of you ever again. They say you should never say never, and now I know why.”

She looked beautiful as ever. Her voice a bit shaky, but her chin was up, which meant whatever had happened to her hadn’t gotten the best of her.

“Say something, Ry. You know I was never any good at reading your thoughts. You’ve always been more complicated than yeast. I’m a simple girl, remember? And right now, simple is all I can handle. So answer me, dammit. Have I humbled myself for nothing? You wouldn’t turn me away. Or would you?”

Chapter 2

“What the hell happened, Margo? There’s blood everywhere in the bathroom.”

She had been waiting for him to speak. Now that he had, Margo hardly recognized the man behind the volatile voice. Louder than normal, with a biting edge to it, this was in no way the cool, collected detective she’d known a few years ago.

“Does that black look mean you’re going to turn me out into the street, Detective Archard?”

“Cut the detective crap.” He disengaged his gun, and in four long strides stood next to the bed, his jaw set as hard as granite.

Margo ignored the intimidation and braced herself against the headboard. She didn’t want to reveal the degree of pain she was in—her pride stung enough, having given in to Blu’s suggestion to show up on Ry’s doorstep had taken every ounce of courage she owned.

Somehow she’d made it to the Nightwing after she and Blu had jumped off the pier, but what had happened after that was pretty much a blur. All she remembered was Brodie hauling her into the boat, then swearing crudely the minute he laid eyes on her arm. Seconds later they were on the move, the Nightwing flying across the river to New Orleans as if it had grown wings.

Margo’s gaze drifted over Ry’s handsome face. She had always loved looking at him—appreciated the mix of both hard and soft features sculpted over leather-tough Texas skin. He had the bluest eyes of anyone she knew, and the intensity of those magnetic eyes and his rich smoky drawl were a deadly combination. Never mind that his drawl wasn’t as smoky just now, or his eyes as gentle as they could be.

She flinched as he sat down beside her. “The blood in the bathroom suggests this is more than a scratch, Margo. I need to see what we’re dealing with.”

“Sorry about the mess in your bathroom. I thought I could doctor myself. When I almost passed out, I gave up and went looking for a bed.”

“You were never any good at dealing with blood, especially your own. How did you get here?”

Margo hesitated, not sure what to say.

He looked up. “Margo? Who brought you here?”

“No one,” she lied. “I…I took a cab.” She broke eye contact, feeling uncomfortable under his intense gaze. Absently she studied the generous bedroom decorated in navy and yellow. She’d heard he had moved into a house of his own, but it hadn’t registered just how nice a place until Brodie had delivered her to the two-story Creole cottage in the Garden District. The rumor she’d heard of him selling his share of the family ranch back in Texas must have been true. It would certainly explain the influx of money that would allow him such a beautiful home.

“I’m going to remove the towel now,” he told her.

His tone had softened, reminding Margo of the old days. His touch, too, brought back memories she had worked hard to forget. To someone who knew the history she and Ry shared, it would seem unlikely that she would seek refuge in his home. But Blu’s idea had been ingenious. Well, she hadn’t thought so at first, but later, when she’d had time to consider the few options left open to her, she’d had to agree with her brother. Who would ever think to look for her in the home of one of the most respected homicide detectives in the city of New Orleans?

And they were looking for her. Brodie had pointed to several spotlights combing the river as they fled Algiers.

It had been more than four hours since she’d slipped into Ry’s house like a thief, squeezing through a hole in the hedge Brodie had stumbled on. Once she was standing at the door, supported against the iron railing that wrapped a wide veranda on all sides of his home, she’d urged Brodie to go back to the Nightwing and search for Blu. Of course he hadn’t wanted to leave her, but they both knew Blu needed him at that moment more than she did.

Left alone Margo had taken a deep breath and knocked on Ry’s back door. When he didn’t answer, desperation had forced her to try the door. Relief had rushed through her veins on finding it unlocked, and she’d crept inside like Goldilocks, all wide-eyed and cautious. And then surprised and impressed shortly thereafter—Ry’s home was any woman’s dream come true.

“Why the hell didn’t you say you’d been shot?”

Margo expected a reaction of some kind. She hadn’t been so foolish as to think she could pass a gunshot wound off for anything else but what it was. “That’s very good detective work, Ry. You certainly know your job.”

Her sarcasm wasn’t appreciated. He swore, offered her a black look, then turned his attention back to her arm. She felt him probe the wound, and she sucked in her breath and held it. She wouldn’t moan, she promised herself, and she wouldn’t cry out, either.

“You’re lucky,” he sighed a moment later. “The bullet missed the bone. The excessive bleeding is caused by a flap of skin that needs to be stitched.”

Margo had already gotten a damage report from Brodie. She would have let him patch her up before she got to Ry’s, only, for a big, tough fisherman, Brodie had as weak a stomach as she did when it came to blood.

Ry leaned closer, eyeing the scratch on her cheek. To Margo’s surprise she realized he still used the same unpretentious cologne she had associated with him years ago. Everything was familiar. He still wore his hair short and carefree for ease’s sake. Even his day-old scruffy jaw was typical. She remembered how he used to complain about how much time it took to scrape off his healthy growth of whiskers.

She should hate him, and most days that’s what kept her going—the outrage and the humiliation and the determination to rise above it. Ry had not only crushed her spirit and scarred her heart, but he’d done it in such a manner that she had looked like a naive little fool. Of course he hadn’t wanted a permanent relationship. What had she expected two years ago, marriage? He was older than her by twelve years. What man at age thirty-one would want to marry a nineteen-year-old, starry-eyed girl?

Oh, she hadn’t wanted to believe that she’d been used, or that she’d been that much of a fool. But it was the truth—Ryland Archard had enjoyed the chase and the victory prize in the end, but he had had no intentions of sticking around for anything more—least of all a permanent relationship. She should have recognized the type—after all he was now thirty-three and still single.

Margo wanted to tell him he looked old and haggard. She would like to make a snide comment in reference to a soft belly or a sudden receding hair-line. Only there were no visible signs that he had aged. In fact, Ry Archard, much to Margo’s annoyance, had improved over the past two years much like a superior bottle of Chardonnay.

Then, too, she supposed needling him right now wouldn’t be very smart. She was in his home, asking for his help. If she’d learned anything in her twenty-one years it was when to run, when to stand and fight, and, most important, when to keep her private thoughts private and her mouth shut. Tonight, the third applied without question.

“Come on, I’ll help you up.”

“Up? Why would I want to get up?”

“Because I’m taking you to Charity Hospital.”

Margo’s eyes widened. She had no intention of going to the hospital. Gunshot wounds had to be reported. There would be a dozen questions to answer; a report would be filed. And what if the men chasing Blu were checking out the hospitals?

“No doctor. I won’t go!”

The quicksilver change in his eyes told Margo her hasty words had triggered his suspicion. “Why no doctor, Margo?”

She didn’t answer.

“Come on, baby. Why no doctor?”

Margo cleared her throat, and this time she was careful with her tone, as well as her choice of words. “I hate men in white coats, that’s why. They smell too clean and smile too much when there’s nothing to smile about. I don’t feel like playing twenty questions, either. The man who shot me is long gone by now.”

“Tell me about him.” It wasn’t a request, but a solid demand.

Margo raised her chin. “I didn’t get a good look at him. He wore an oversize hat that hid his face. I shouldn’t have fought with him. I know that now, but when I saw the gun I just reacted. I’ve been walking home every night since I started working at the Toucan. I guess a year without a confrontation made me careless.”

“So you were attacked? Mugged?”

“Yes.” Margo slipped into the lie easily. As often as Blu had schooled her in the art of swimming and fishing, he had lectured her on the value of a failsafe lie. That didn’t mean she enjoyed lying, or that she did it on a regular basis. But she was confident that, in the right situation, she could keep her eyes from blinking and her voice rock steady while she attempted to cheat the truth. “He wanted my purse. Ah…my money.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Near my apartment.”

“One block? Two?”

“Does it matter?”

He raised his thick brows. “You worked tonight, right?”

Margo hesitated. Ry hung out at the Toucan on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This was Wednesday. Feeling confident, she said, “Yes, I just said so, didn’t I?”

He stared at her a long minute. “So this happened walking home from work around ten?”

“Are you losing your hearing? I just told you that.”

He ignored her smart remark. “So it was ten o’clock when you left work?”

Margo glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Quickly calculating the hours, she said, “I guess so.”

“And you were shot within fifteen minutes of leaving the Toucan? Or was it more like twenty-five? Could it have been forty minutes? Fifty?”

Annoyed by his relentless questions, Margo said, “I didn’t get up, look at my watch and say, oh my, I’ve been mugged at 10:20.”

“Was it 10:20?”

Margo rolled her eyes. “No, I think it was 10:23.”

“Dammit, Margo, this is important!”

“I don’t know the time, all right!” Margo’s voice wasn’t as loud as his, but just as angry.

“Well, then, what the hell do you know?”

“That I’m going to have a headache if you keep badgering me like I’m the criminal here.”

He stood and buried his hands deep in the hip pockets of his jeans. He appeared almost telepathic, Margo thought, as he stared down at her. Did he know something she didn’t? As quickly as she asked herself the question, she reminded herself to stick with her story. Ry couldn’t disprove a word she’d said, not unless he knew for a fact that she’d asked for the night off. And he wouldn’t know that unless he’d questioned Tony, which she was pretty certain he wouldn’t do—Ry was no gentleman, but he had kept their brief affair quiet. The only people who knew about it were her own family members and a few close friends.

“Why didn’t you call Blu? Or Hewitt?”

“Brodie?”

“Come on, Margo. I know you’ve been seeing him.”

Margo didn’t disagree. Let him think whatever he wanted to. She said, “I couldn’t get a hold of either of them.”

“But you tried?”

“Yes, I tried.”

“You really need to move out of that damn neighborhood. It makes no sense you living in that dump and surrounding yourself with those kind of people.”

It made perfect sense to Margo, and because it did, she felt like arguing. “It’s close to work, and ‘those kind’ of people are my kind of people.”

“That’s crap. You have a job, take a bath regularly and don’t sleep with a bottle. I hardly think they’re your kind of people. What you mean is, they’re Blu’s kind of people.”

“The rent’s cheap.” Margo refused to let him win a single round. He had won far too much from her already.

“So the rumors are true, then. You’re giving half of every dime you make to Blu so he can throw it away on that worthless fishing fleet your father left him.”

“The fleet isn’t worthless. How dare you call it that!” Furious, Margo fisted the bed with her good hand, then gritted her teeth as a sharp pain shot into her injured arm. Gasping for air, she said, “The fleet was my daddy’s whole life. And Blu wants it to be his. One day it’ll be back to being the best fleet on the Gulf. It was once, it can be again.”

“Take it easy. You’re going to start bleeding again.”

Margo leaned back and rested her head on the headboard and closed her eyes.

“You should be more concerned with your own life. Your own future, not Blu’s.”

“My life’s perfect.”

“This is perfect?”

Margo opened her eyes. “This could have happened to anyone, anywhere in this city. Where have you been? The crime rate here is double to anywhere else, maybe triple. Now, are you going to sew me up or not?”

He made a rude snort, then crossed his arms over his bare chest. “That’s the favor? Stitch you up?”

“I haven’t asked anything of you. Nothing since…” The words lodged in Margo’s throat. She tried again. “This isn’t a whole lot worse than the time I got that fishhook in my leg. You cut the hook out and sewed me up, remember? Good as new, is what Mama said when she inspected the job you’d done. Don’t pretend you can’t sew me back together because I know different.”

A long minute ticked by.

Margo jerked her chin up a notch higher. “Fix my arm good as new, old man. You owe me that much. And by most standards, I’d say you’re getting off cheap.”

He flinched at her none-too-subtle reference to the past, then promptly got mad. “This isn’t some damn fishhook accident. Hell, you’ve been shot! Damn lucky to be alive by the looks of it! Another inch or two and—”

“When did you take up shouting?”

“What?”

“I thought you hated irrational behavior. Doesn’t shouting and ranting fall into that category?”

“I never rant!”

“Never say never,” Margo taunted. “Tonight I had to eat that word.”

“You could have died!”

“If that’s true, and you care even a smidgen, I’d think you would be willing to help me out.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“No,” Margo argued, “the point is, you owe me and I’m here to collect. Now are you going to be a bastard and deny me, or sew me up so I don’t bleed all over this expensive comforter?”

He didn’t move.

Loath to be reduced to pleading, Margo forced herself. “Ry, please. I don’t have anywhere else to go. If I go to Mama’s, she’ll fly into a panic and start crying and praying both at the same time. She has high blood pressure now, and…” She could see he was weakening. “I suppose I could pay to have it stitched up on the street. I never thought about that, and I know this guy on the waterfront who—”

“The hell you will!” He raked both hands through his hair.

Margo curiously watched him start to pace back and forth at the foot of the massive bed. She had always admired Ry’s ability to remain calm even in a crisis. Now she wondered what could have happened in the past two years to have changed that. This was not the same overconfident, almost cocky cop she’d known two years ago. No, this new up-tight version appeared to be more human, even a bit vulnerable. And damn him, more likeable than the old version—that is, if she didn’t hate him so much.

She held her breath, watched him wear out the thick rug. Suddenly he stopped pacing and faced her. “It’s going to hurt like a son of a—”