Covert Cowboy. Harper Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ there, Con thought, guilt rippling unfamiliarly through him. And the lady wasn’t buying them, he realized as he saw that heaven-blue gaze focus and begin to harden.

      She was going to ask him how he’d gotten past security and into her locked office. He needed to plant other questions in her mind, and fast.

      “New Orleans P.D.” He slipped two fingers into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and extracted a leather identification case, complete with gold badge. Deftly he flipped it open in front of her. “Detective Connor Ducharme. I’m investigating—”

      “Is he safe?”

      Under his open jacket he was wearing a waistcoat—what those unfortunate enough to be born north of the Mason-Dixon line and west of the Missouri River called a vest, he supposed. Before he’d known what she intended she’d grabbed its lapels. Slim fingers gave a surprisingly strong tug and she repeated her query, those perfect features of hers etched with strain.

      “Is he safe? Have you found him? Dear God—New Orleans? Why in heaven’s name did they take him there?”

      He’d needed her to ask questions. He wished now she’d asked the one he’d been trying to steer her away from.

      “Cher’, I’m not here about the little one,” he said, as gently as he could. “The case I’m working involves a certain Tony Corso, wanted on fraud charges in Louisiana. I wish I had news of your nephew for you, but I don’t.”

      She closed her eyes. When she opened them again he saw the urgently hopeful light in them had disappeared. Her fingers slid from his lapels.

      “I—I thought maybe it was all over. The nightmare, I mean. I thought Sky might be on his way home right now.”

      She took a deep breath. Letting it out, she sat up on the couch. Her head bowed, she swung her legs to the floor. Looking up, she met his look with a suddenly flinty one of her own.

      “How did you know my nephew had been kidnapped? Since it’s not common knowledge in Denver, I can’t believe every last man-jack on the New Orleans force has been alerted.”

      “Probably not.” He shrugged easily, more sure of his ground now. “But when I discovered Corso’s trail led here the local law brought me up to speed.”

      He flicked a glance at her still-white face. Something prompted him to add, “From what I hear, the rest of your family’s sticking pretty close together these days. Why aren’t you with them?”

      He’d gone too far, he realized immediately. She stiffened, and when her gaze locked on his he could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.

      “My personal life can’t be part of your investigation, Detective, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that question.”

      She smoothed her skirt down her thighs and stood, and despite the perceptible chill emanating from her Con felt sudden heat slam into him. Not everything he’d told her had been a lie, he thought, trying to school his features into impassivity. He had asked questions before coming here, and the answers he’d gotten had all been the same. Marilyn Langworthy was a bitch. She was an ice queen. Nothing touched her—not the kidnapping of her tiny nephew, and certainly not the breakup of her relationship with Tony Corso.

      Maybe some of what he’d heard was true, but he’d already seen enough of the woman to put the lie to at least two of the labels that had been pinned on her. She cared about the child—cared enough that she was being torn apart by Sky’s abduction, judging from what he’d witnessed moments ago. And if she was an ice queen, it was only because the right man hadn’t come along to melt her yet.

      You gon’ be the one who does that, Cap?

      The jeering voice inside his head held the same skepticism he’d heard from the late-night denizens of the Canal Street clubs he’d trolled when he’d been young enough that even hardened gamblers had felt a momentary pang of conscience before dealing a tough Creole urchin in on a game of five-card stud. He’d taken them and their consciences to the cleaners, Con recalled without regret. But back then all he’d been risking was money.

      The stakes were higher here. And the odds were more overwhelmingly against him than they’d ever been in his life.

      F’sure. One of these days I’m gonna come back here and give it my best shot, he answered the jeering voice with a determination that disconcerted even himself. But whether she knows it or not, tonight the lady just needs someone to be with her. And maybe if that someone gets her good and angry it’ll ease her pain for a few hours. Before I leave I can do that for her, at least.

      “Let’s get back to the matter you say brings you here, Detective.”

      Her voice was like everything else about her, he noted—crisp and unemotional on the surface, but shadowed with a hint of vulnerability that the casual observer wouldn’t catch. He wasn’t a casual observer, Con thought. Not when it came to Marilyn Langworthy. With no enthusiasm he took advantage of that vulnerability.

      “Tony Corso,” he agreed. “Word is he was your—how did I hear it?—your good right-hand man, cher’,” he drawled insinuatingly. “That true?”

      If she’d stiffened before, now her posture was rigid. Two warning flags of color flew high on her cheekbones, and when she answered him, five generations of Beacon Hill aristocracy on her mother’s side came through in every clipped word.

      “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re just referring to his position at Mills & Grommett, Detective—” She made a show of frowning in forgetfulness. “I’m sorry. Your name again?”

      “Ducharme.” He deliberately took a step onto thinner ice. “But call me Con, sugar. The other’s a mouthful.”

      Even if he hadn’t been trying to goad her he wouldn’t have been able to resist letting his gaze linger on the mouth in question, he admitted. Those lips weren’t Beacon Hill at all. They didn’t go with the prim white blouse and the straight skirt she wore, and they didn’t go with the smoothly brushed hairstyle. Those lush lips went with black fishnet stockings, half-undone bustiers, bed-messy tangles of hair obscuring a gleam of blue eye. They were lightly and invisibly glossed—another Beacon Hill legacy, Con guessed. He wondered what that mouth would look like slightly smudged from his kisses.

      You’re wondering way too much here, Cap, for a man who doesn’t intend to do anything about it, the voice inside his head warned. Maybe you better back off a little and—

      “What is it about me, Detective?” The lips he’d been fantasizing about thinned. “Why do I seem to present a challenge to men of a certain kind, like you and Tony Corso?”

      He blinked, feeling obscurely outraged. “Me and Corso, cher’, we’re not two of a kind. I’ll let you take a look at his file sometime and you’ll see just what—”

      “His references were solid and when he left he certainly didn’t abscond with the company’s payroll. Whatever you’re trying to charge him with, you’ve obviously made a mistake,” she interrupted him. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I wasn’t Tony’s type, I know now. But just the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in him when we met made him determined to get some response from me, whatever it took. Even so, his approach was nowhere near as fast and crude as yours, Detective,” she added coldly.

      She СКАЧАТЬ