A Younger Woman

“Forewarned is—”

“Not worth a damn if it doesn’t change the fact. In this case, it won’t. You need a local anesthetic.”

“I won’t whine and call you names, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Margo promised.

“If I do this, I’m going to expect a detailed account of what really happened.” His eyes drilled her. “What really happened, Margo? Not some damn story about a mugger in a hat bigger than his head.”

“It’s the truth,” she insisted.

He strode to the door, then turned back. “Do I look stupid?”

No, he didn’t look stupid. He looked big and strong, and dammit, as handsome as ever. Margo hated to admit that one very disturbing fact, but he was Texas tough and remarkably well built, and…

Margo’s gaze slid down his impressive bare chest. Further. Never one to mince words, she said, “No, Ry, you don’t look stupid. You look painfully uncomfortable. Do I still affect you, then?”

Her blunt assessment of his aroused condition was met with a frustrated, crude one-liner. Then he was gone.

Feeling a little better, now that she’d definitely won round one, Margo slumped against the headboard. Moments later she heard cupboard doors banging across the hall, followed by several colorful adjectives. He was angry, there was no question about that, but not so much so that he wouldn’t help her, and that’s all that mattered at the moment.

As his tirade faded, Margo sighed then closed her eyes. The soft patter of rain outside the second-story window became too obvious to ignore, and she soon began to listen to its hypnotic rhythm. Unlike her neighborhood, Ry’s was incredibly quiet. The tall hedge outside reminded her of a live castle wall with the power to shield and protect. There was no street noise, no glaring lights. Only an enormous amount of peace and quite.

Margo opened her eyes and glanced around the room. The dark navy color complemented the lemon-yellow in a way she hadn’t expected. Blending a feminine elegance with a masculine touch was perfect for a master bedroom.

It was nothing like what she’d grown up with. Her life had been all about secondhand clothes and cramped space. Glancing at the door, making sure there was no one to witness her weakness, Margo ran her hand slowly over the richness of the expensive, fat navy-blue comforter.

Again she closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the supersoft fabric. Guilt followed quickly, and, feeling a bit ridiculous for enjoying the finer things in life, especially at a time like this, she quickly turned her thoughts to Blu. Eyes still closed, she whispered, “Where are you? Did Brodie find you? Will you come for me tonight or in the morning?”

The dark pier flashed in her mind’s eye. Margo heard the gunfire, and suddenly she could no longer hold back the tears. A man had died tonight. Blu was wounded and missing. She worried that his thigh injury was more serious than he’d led her to believe, that the gunfire that had followed them into the water had hit its mark once more. Blu had abandoned her so quickly once they’d plunged into the water that she hadn’t had a chance to say anything to him. She’d heard a huge splash after he’d pointed her in the direction of the Nightwing, then more rapid gunfire.

It was almost as if he had purposely attracted the gunman’s attention to give her time to get away. God, if that was true, what had it cost him?

Margo had just finished wiping the evidence of her tears from her cheeks when Ry stepped back into the room carrying a bowl of steaming water, with a towel tossed over his bare shoulder. A threaded needle rode between his straight, white teeth. She glanced at the bottle of whiskey tucked under his arm and promptly asked, “Are you going to get me drunk?”

He placed the bowl of water next to the amber lamp on the nightstand, then set the bottle of whiskey and threaded needle next to it. “You drunk and my fingers oiled.” He eased his weight down on the bed beside her. “We’re going to have to get your shirt off. How do you want to do it?”

Their intimate past made a mockery of his question. Yet the thought of losing her shirt, exposing herself to a man who had made a fool out of her two years ago, made Margo feel insecure in both her body and her intelligence.

“Margo? Did you hear me?”

“I heard you, Ry, and I imagine one arm at a time makes the best sense. That is, unless you want to show me some new trick you’ve learned with your boot knife.”

“That smart mouth of yours is wearing thin, baby. It wouldn’t take much to change my mind and make a phone call to Charity Hospital. Don’t push me.”

The hospital threat was sobering. Margo realized Ry was wearing his mood about as close to the cuff as she was. She clamped her mouth shut and reached for the first button on her ruined denim shirt. The movement cost her. A sharp pain shot down her injured arm, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She forced the first button through its hole, but the second one, much to her disgust, turned stubborn. After the third try, Ry brushed her hand aside. “I’ll do it.”

He unbuttoned the last three buttons quickly, his blunt-tipped fingers grazing her bare skin only briefly as he eased the fabric off her shoulder and down her injured arm. With gentle care he slid his free arm around her waist and drew her away from the headboard. As she rested against his solid chest, he whispered, “Easy, now. Let’s take this real slow.”

His warm breath teased Margo’s ear, and suddenly all the pain and humiliation from the past came rushing back, along with an overwhelming amount of longing. She sucked in her breath at the same time a surge of poignant heat spread swiftly throughout her body. She knew it was normal to have some kind of reaction. After all, Ry had made her a woman, he’d been her teacher, her mentor—the man she had let strip her bare in body and soul.

But she’d also expected her anger would sustain her, that her pride would protect her. Now she realized it was too soon. Coming here, being this close to him, was the worst thing she could have done. It had been the mother of all dreadful mistakes, she realized, because as much as she wanted to deny it, the sudden desire she felt for this man was clearly branding her twice the fool. The feelings she’d desperately prayed would die were very much alive—a little tarnished and bruised, but still alive.

The rotten, disgusting truth was she was still vulnerable—vulnerable to his good looks, his voice, the musky scent of his skin. Every damn thing she had tried so hard to hate.

It was such a shock—like the resurrection of an old ghost—that Margo tried to pull free, refusing to be tortured and humiliated a minute longer.

“Margo?” Ry’s arms loosened, but he didn’t release her.

“I’m right here, Ry.” Margo returned from her walk down memory lane, the sour taste in her mouth burning her throat and making her voice sound raw and husky. “I felt a little dizzy for a moment, is all. You can let go now.”

“Not if you’re dizzy. I can hold you a little longer, if that’s what you need.”

What she needed was for Blu and Brodie to suddenly appear and tell her this entire night was all a mistake. That the stranger on the pier was alive and that none of tonight was real.

He eased her back against the headboard, then tossed her ruined shirt to the floor. When she saw his eyes stray to her chest and the bloodstains covering her white satin bra, she said, “The least you could do is be subtle, Detective Archard. Ogling a woman when she’s in need of help borders on disgusting.”

He shrugged off her words and reached out to trace her bruised rib cage, then locked eyes with her again. “How did that happen?”

The injury to her ribs could be easily explained, but detailing how Blu had slammed her to the pier in order to keep her alive was out of the question. Margo brushed his hand away. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t bruise easy, Margo. I know that for a fact.”

“I must have fallen.”

“Must have?” When she didn’t answer him further, he stood and strolled to the closet where he retrieved a clean shirt. As he came back to her, he said, “Do you want your jeans off before I get you drunk? I think it might be more comfortable sleeping in one of my shirts once you pass out.” Without hesitation, he ripped the sleeves out of his shirt to accommodate her injured arm, not to mention the heat outside.

“Pass out?” Margo lifted one dramatic black eyebrow. “From the whiskey or the pain you’re going to inflict on me with that needle?” She gave the needle a wary glance. “It looks awfully big Couldn’t you have found something a little smaller?” She looked back and saw him smiling. It was the first time since he’d burst into the room wielding his gun that he’d allowed himself to relax.

“Second thoughts, baby?”

He was waiting for her to turn chicken, she decided. Feeling the need to win another round, she popped the snap on her jeans and slid the zipper down. She could feel his eyes hot on her, feel her own body feed off those damn unrelenting memories.

Determined to get through tonight no matter what, she asked, “You haven’t acquired any kinky fixations I should know about before I pass out, have you, Detective Archard?”

Chapter 3

She had deliberately lied to him.

Oh, she hadn’t lied about everything, Ry reasoned. She’d been shot, all right. But how and where still had to be determined. It certainly hadn’t happened on her way home from the Toucan.

And the story she’d concocted about a mugger was no doubt a lie, as well. He’d seen plenty of gunshot wounds, and the bullet that had grazed Margo’s arm hadn’t come from a handgun a mugger would have pulled quickly and fired at point-blank range. No, Margo’s wound had come from a larger caliber weapon, fired from a distance; he’d say at least thirty yards, give or take a foot or two.

That ruled out a face-off near her apartment. And to confirm that, no one had reported a disturbance—he’d called and checked after she’d fallen asleep. Then there was the lie about work. She hadn’t been at the Toucan; he knew that to be true because he’d been there.

Ry’s gaze slowly drifted over Margo asleep in his bed, her pale face pillowed in navy-blue satin. Where had she been tonight? It had been fairly quiet in the city, as quiet as it could be for New Orleans. But it hadn’t been nearly as quiet across the river in Algiers.

The minute the thought entered his mind, Ry shook it off. No, Margo couldn’t be mixed up in the shooting on DuBay Pier. But even as he dismissed the idea, he remembered how he’d found the crime scene—the way DuBay Pier had been riddled into sawdust by a high-powered gun, and his gut twisted a little tighter. Was it a coincidence that the pier wasn’t far from the duFray Fish Market, owned and operated by Margo’s mother? Or that Blu’s fishing fleet was docked less then a mile away at River Bay?

Ry mulled over a dozen possibilities, then cursed out loud. So what if Mickey Burelly had stumbled onto the case of the century? And what if that case had involved Blu duFray?

Goddard had mentioned a turncoat, or someone possibly looking to make a fast buck. Everyone who knew Blu knew his financial situation. It wasn’t news that the duFray Devils were struggling, doomed to go under at any moment. The repair bills alone on the aging boats were staggering. Knowing the way Margo felt about her brother, all Blu needed to do was give her a sad song and dance and her damn duFray loyalty would rise to the occasion.

Ry honestly believed Margo would risk her life for her brother if she found it necessary.

Had it been necessary tonight?

“Dammit!” Ry focused on Margo’s proud, beautiful face. She had been a curious teenager when he’d first laid eyes on her, and so beautiful it had hurt just to look at her. They had met by accident. He’d come upon her and an overeager boyfriend one night behind her parents’ fish market—the boy testing his right to more than simply her company at the movies.

Ry had played the big bad cop that night. He’d chased the kid off, and promptly been swept away by the faultless beauty left standing in front of him all wide-eyed and obviously impressed by his white-knight antics. It had fed his ego—her admiration—and so it had begun, an older man’s obsession with a teenager twelve years his junior.

For the next three years Ry had kept his distance, though he did see Margo from time to time at the duFray Fish Market helping out her mother. It had all started out so innocently, so he had wanted to believe. Only he knew it had never been innocent—from day one, he’d wanted her.

The night her father died, Ry found her weeping in the alley behind the fish market. He’d wanted to console her. He didn’t even remember what he’d said, but suddenly she was in his arms, clinging to him as if he were her lifeline. And like a hungry old fox, he’d reveled in the fact that he had a legitimate reason to touch her and feel her body against his. She was jailbait; she’d just lost her father, dammit. What kind of bastard did that make him?

The guilt had driven him crazy, then it had driven him into the arms of another woman. He’d wanted Margo out of his head and out of his dreams; any woman would do as long as she made him forget his fantasy.

A year later he’d pulled over a carload of young people—the driver obviously intoxicated. He had motioned to the young man to get out of the car. When he did, Ry caught a glimpse of a shiny black head in the back seat. When he saw it was Margo something inside him snapped. He’d hauled her out of the car and into the squad so fast, the group of young people had fallen dead quiet.

On the way home she’d pleaded with him to let her out of the car. She hadn’t been drinking, she promised, not at all—she wasn’t going to go to jail, was she? He knew she hadn’t been drinking, and he told her he was just taking her home. Relieved that he believed her, that she wasn’t going to end up in jail, she’d leaned over and kissed his cheek. It had happened so fast, but just as fast he had pulled to the side of the rode and dragged her across the seat and kissed her the way he had always dreamed of kissing her. The next thing he knew, she was in his lap wrapping her arms around his neck offering him her hungry little mouth.

He’d done the math quickly. She was nineteen, no longer jailbait—no longer off-limits. And she was kissing him like she knew what she was doing.

He’d lost control after that, and before he had taken her home, they had stopped off at his apartment.

It had been the beginning of the end for them. A short month of heaven, and then hell had arrived in town and ripped their lives to shreds.

Ry’s gaze locked on Margo’s jeans where he’d tossed them to the foot of the bed. Immediately his body reacted to the memory of undressing her, stripping her long legs bare, exposing her slender thighs. If he was a man who believed in fate and happy-ever-after, he’d say Margo’s sudden appearance in his bed after two long years meant something.

Swearing softly, Ry walked to the window that overlooked the backyard. It had stopped raining, the night air as heavy as a flannel blanket and twice as warm. He closed his eyes, tried to chase the sight of Margo’s lithe body out of his head, but it was no use. Content to simply suffer, he relived each agonizing minute of easing her jeans down her narrow hips, then moved on to his fingertips brushing her satin panties, grazing her tanned, flat belly. And like he’d been doing for the past two years, he relived his own body going through its tortured ritual each and every time he allowed himself the pleasure of remembering how unbelievable that one incredible month with her had been.

The sound of her mumbling the word cold jerked Ry back to the present. Feeling the effects of the weather as well as his own physical frustration, he couldn’t imagine how Margo could be cold. Nonetheless, a sheen of perspiration covering his bare chest, he left the room and found a blanket in the hall closet. On his return, he spread the covering gently over her, then left the room again.

While he paced the hall, he went over everything she’d told him. He played back phrases she’d used, dallied with the what-if game and ten minutes later he was back inside, shedding his boots and socks, prepared to spend a sleepless night in the stuffed chair he’d pulled close to the bed.

Halfway through the night she started to babble incoherent phrases. Ry reached out and felt her forehead, expecting to find her burning up with a fever. To his surprise and relief, she was cool. When the babbling continued, he pulled the nightstand drawer open and flipped the switch on a sophisticated three-inch recorder. When she began to thrash and fight the visions haunting her mind’s eye, he leaned forward and placed his hand on her cheek. “Easy, baby. You’re safe with me.”

Still caught up in whatever it was, torturing the dark recesses of her mind, she cried out Blu’s name. And there it was. Ry’s greatest fear had just been realized—whatever dirty business Margo had fallen into tonight had been prompted by her brother—and he figured that could involve damn near anything, knowing Blu the way he did.

Ry dozed off an hour later, something he had fought hard against. How long he was out, he didn’t know. The sound of water running in the bathroom jarred him awake, and he slammed himself upright, his gaze locking immediately on the bed. When he found it empty, he jumped to his feet and headed for the open door.

The sight of Margo weaving slowly back into the room hauled him up short. “You should have kicked me awake if you needed something,” he growled, then hurried toward her.

She didn’t say anything, just stood there with her right arm drawn close to her side, her face ghostly pale. Afraid she would fall, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to bed. As he carefully laid her down on the soft mattress, he scolded, “No more getting up without my help. You could have fallen, dammit. If you break open those stitches, I’m taking you to the hospital whether you like it or not.”

“You can try,” she muttered, her voice half-strength.

He pulled the covers to her chin. “You still cold?”

“Cold?”

“You’ve been talking in your sleep.” Ry noticed his words gave her pause. “What’s the matter, Margo, you afraid you said something you shouldn’t have?”

“No,” she insisted.

Ry didn’t press the issue, though he damn well wanted to. He would get the truth out of her. That was his job, and he was damn good at it. “Go back to sleep, baby. You need to rest.”

She nodded, tried to get comfortable and winced in the process.

“I almost forgot, I’ve got some pills. I’ll get you a couple.” He started for the door, surprised that he had forgotten about the sleeping pill in the medicine cabinet.

“No pills.”

Her objection stopped him and he turned around. “They won’t hurt you. They’ll just take the edge off,” he promised, knowing that the prescription was potent as hell. A life saver when you needed to forget for a time and let sleep rescue you from your pain—pain of any kind; the pill didn’t discriminate.

“I don’t take pills.”

“More whiskey, then?”

“So I can do more talking in my sleep?” There was accusation in her tone, in her beautiful brown eyes.

He strolled back to the bed. “Afraid you’ll share your darkest secret with me? Afraid you’ll confess you still love me?” The comment was ridiculous of course, but Ry had always hoped she still cared for him, that even after he’d played the bad guy, he hadn’t destroyed everything they’d shared.

“I never loved you,” she insisted. “I only thought I did. I guess that’s what you get for robbing the cradle, Detective Archard—a girl too young to know her own mind.”

“Did a shrink convince you of that?”

“A shrink?” She frowned. “Why would I need to go to a shrink?”

Ry passed off her question with a shrug, then sat on the chair. “I thought it was the thing to do these days. Everyone has a shrink, right?”

“For what it’s worth, I think there are far too many shrinks out there advocating whining these days. They always say something stupid like, talk it out and you’ll feel better. What they should be saying is, you’re not the only one in misery’s boat, so shut up and paddle through it.”

Ry grinned, reminded of how refreshing he had always found Margo’s honest assessment about anything she had an opinion on. “Go back to sleep, and next time you need to use the bathroom, wake me up so I can help you.”

“So you can watch?”

Enjoying her sudden spunk, he teased, “A perk for rescuing you? I like the way you think, baby.”

She eyed him without saying a word.

“Come on, Margo, backing down so soon?”

“We both know the truth about you, Detective Archard.”

“And just what truth do you think we know?”

She hesitated only a few seconds before saying, “You taught me how to kiss dirty, old man? I was barely eighteen that first time.”

She knew she’d been legal. But Ry had to agree she’d still been too young for a jaded cop who kept a .38 Special in the bread saver in the kitchen. But just for the record, he said, “You know you were nineteen plus.”

She closed her eyes and muttered, “How long?”

“How long, what?”

“I met you when I was fifteen. How long had you wanted me?”

The question was unexpected. But she was right to imply it had been an on-going problem for years. He’d been crazy to have her, so crazy that when he had finally gotten her into his apartment that first time, he’d been a man on a single-minded mission. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he had ached to have her, that he’d made love to her virgin body three times the first night before he’d come up for air. Back then his ego had been the size of his libido, full-blown and hungry to be stroked. And when she had met him more than halfway, nothing could have stopped him from climbing inside her except her objection. But that hadn’t happened because she had confessed that night she had wanted him with the same crazy intensity.

But it hadn’t been just her body that had held him prisoner, though he knew that’s how it had looked at the time. Honestly, he’d fallen in love with the entire package; from her sexy smile to the way she combed her hair. He’d loved it all—her voice, her walk, the way she brushed her teeth.

And he had known from the beginning, and at the end, that his life had been made better by knowing her. That’s why walking away had damn near killed him.

“That long, huh.”

“Margo—” Ry paused “—maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“You’re probably right. I’m with Brodie now and you’re with…some blonde, I imagine. I read in Cosmopolitan that 75 percent of today’s men have a blonde in their bed, one at the office and keep a spare in the trunk of their car.”

“Margo—”

“Go away and let me sleep,” she insisted, turning her head away from him and closing her eyes.

The next time Margo opened her eyes, the sun was shining through the long narrow windows draped in sheer panels of pale yellow. She blinked out of her sound sleep, her gaze going straight to the occupied chair, a big, round, tufted half-circle in a yellow paisley on navy-blue.

“Good morning.”

Margo moaned and slowly pulled herself upward to lean against the headboard. Her head spun, her arm throbbed. She screwed up her face. “It feels like a dozen marbles are rolling around in my head.”

“And your arm?”

“Like you cut it off with a razor blade.”

“That’s what happens when you get yourself shot, then drink whiskey like a fish in a drought.”

“And this is something I volunteered for, right?” Margo leaned her head against the headboard and closed her eyes.

“I’m not going to apologize for the booze. It got you through the night.”

Margo opened her eyes, then her mouth, to offer a witty comeback. Thinking better of it, she fell silent and averted her eyes. She had already taken a quick inventory, noting that Ry was no longer bare above the waist. He looked refreshed and put together—no doubt he’d showered while she slept. He’d shaved, too. His clothes were a simple gray T-shirt and scruffy jeans. The rugged look suited him right down to his brown, street-scuffed Texas boots.