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It had always been so easy to prick Holly’s perfect little bubble, she’d thought with a flash of irritation—easy and satisfying and…and justified. Except now it seemed her half sister’s lifelong lack of self-confidence where their father’s first daughter was concerned was gone. Incredibly, that smile seemed to indicate that Holly felt sorry for her.
“It’s beautiful, Marilee. Thank you.”
The use of the foolish pet name that had been the closest a baby Holly had been able to get to pronouncing “Marilyn” had set her teeth on edge. Her half sister had enclosed the solid-silver baby rattle in its nest of tissue paper and ribbon.
“Aren’t you going to let him play with it?” Her usual tone when speaking to Holly was a bored drawl. It had been disconcerting to hear a touch of sharpness in her voice, and she’d modulated it with a laugh. “It’s never too early to develop good taste, and hallmarked silver beats a chewed-up terry cloth toy any day. Take that disgusting rabbit thing away from him and give him the rattle.”
“That disgusting rabbit thing is Bun-Bun, I’ll have you know,” Holly had replied with a smile. “Sky frets when he can’t find him. And besides, Marilee—” Her smile had faltered. “—he’s just a baby. The rattle’s exquisite, but it’s far too heavy for him to lift.”
She’d dropped a quick kiss on the top of her son’s downy head. “I never imagined I’d feel like this,” she’d said softly. “I could just sit here all day and inhale him. Are you sure you don’t want to hold him for a minute?”
“I think I’ll pass on that thrill, sweetie.” She’d barely been able to get the words out. “I’d rather inhale something a little more fragrant, like a dry white wine, and I’m late for my lunch at Zenith with Tony.” As she’d kissed the air near Holly’s cheek the sight of her discarded gift had prompted her to add, “Next time I come a-callin’ on Mama and baby I’ll ask him along, shall I? A little boy should have at least one male figure in his life besides his uncle and grandfather, don’t you think?”
As soon as she’d launched the barb some part of her had wished she could recall it…and some part of her, she remembered now with shame, had felt a surge of satisfaction as Holly’s complacent smile had given way to a stricken look. Her half sister’s back had curved slightly, as if to protect the baby in her arms from the words that had just been uttered.
“You were jealous.” Marilyn stared sightlessly at the glittering panorama that was Denver at night. Her voice rang out too loudly in the shadowed office.
“You wished he was yours. Never mind that either his father didn’t want to stick around or Holly decided she and Sky were better off without him. You only used that because you wanted to hurt her, and you wanted to hurt her because you envied her. You were terrified of holding that baby—terrified of showing how you really felt, terrified Holly would somehow guess that you’d give anything in the world to have one of your own.”
Her reflection wavered darkly in the window in front of her, and she stared at the woman she saw standing there as if she were looking at a stranger. Pale blond hair brushed the woman’s shoulders. An expensively plain blouse tapered in at the waist and then slightly out again to skim a pencil-slim black skirt. Longish legs ended in narrow, elegant feet shod in narrow, elegant heels. She looked pulled-together, businesslike, attractive.
Marilyn flinched. The illusion shattered. The woman in the glass was a fraud and a bitch. The woman in the glass didn’t exist at all, except as a collection of possessions and poses.
The only real thing about her was the dread in her eyes.
“Holly’s out of her mind with fear,” her brother Joshua had told her curtly when he’d called to notify her of their nephew’s abduction a few hours after it had occurred. “She’s sitting by the phone clutching that damned stuffed rabbit of his, waiting for the kidnappers to call.”
“Sky frets when he can’t find him…” More than anything, that had haunted her over the past weeks, Marilyn thought—a tiny baby snatched away from everything and everyone familiar, not even allowed the comfort of a beloved toy. Trivial as it was, that knowledge had brought home to her the ruthlessness of the people who had taken Sky.
The people who had taken him, and who perhaps by now had panicked and—
The pain that had been building in her burst forth in a terrible, keening cry that felt like it was splitting her asunder. A nightmarish jumble of images flashed through her mind and her hands flew up reflexively, as if by pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes she could turn off her imagination. Still the pictures, each one more horrible than the last, seared their way into her soul.
There was only one way to blot them out. Marilyn stopped fighting the blackness and let it overtake her. Her knees buckled. The floor rushed up to meet her.
And the man who had been standing in the shadows the whole time strode forward to catch her as she fell.
HE WAS GOING to have to lie to her, U.S. Marshall Conrad Burke told himself as he carried Marilyn to the couch in the corner of her office. Against the creamy pallor of her cheeks her lashes stirred, and his self-disgust intensified. Merde. The lying was going to have to start now.
Me, I was born to hang, sure. Despite the situation he found himself in, a corner of Con’s mouth twitched upward as he remembered his great-uncle Eustache’s oft-repeated boast. But you were born to lie, boy, so make sure you do it like a Creole gentleman. Steady eye contact, and with the ladies, a small smile, no?
Dark lashes fluttered open. Eyes as blue as heaven gazed blankly up at him, and for a moment Con forgot everything Eustache Ducharme had ever taught him. He recovered smoothly.
“Not the way I meant to introduce myself, sugar,” he said with a quick, and he hoped, reassuring, smile, his gaze steady on her suddenly widened one, “but it seems I walked in just as you fainted. You feeling all right now, cher’?”
He hadn’t planned on introducing himself at all and he certainly hadn’t walked in only minutes ago, so even if you didn’t count the fact that he needed no introduction to Marilyn Langworthy, those were lies number one and two right 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 tipped her head to one side. “The innuendoes, the barely veiled insults. Tell me, do you ever get results with them?”
He’d given in to a reckless impulse by coming here in the first place, Con told himself tightly. He’d compounded that recklessness when he’d revealed himself to her. About the only admirable urge he’d acted upon was his hasty decision to take her mind off her nephew’s disappearance by rousing her ire, and that mission, it was all too obvious, had been accomplished.
He’d always known enough to fold his cards and get up from the table when logic and reason told him his run of luck was about to expire. Right now logic and reason were telling him it was time to walk away from Marilyn Langworthy.
Fast and crude? he thought, a tiny spark flaring inside him. Hell, I could have left you thinking anything else of me, sugar, but not that.
“You bet I do,” he said easily. “And if you were honest, you’d admit that sometimes you wish you could slip out of that ice-water manner of yours and into a little Big Easy fast and crude yourself. If you ever feel a lapse in good taste coming on, look me up, cher’.”
“And you’ll what?” Her tone was edged. “Be my—how did you put it?—my right-hand man? I don’t see my taste lapsing that badly.”
Her gaze lasered him. “But I guess I can understand how you work it, Detective. Some women probably just see a big man with dark eyes and black hair when they look at you. Some women might go for that drawl and the riverboat gambler air you put on.”
“I was born in St. Tammany Parish, honey. We all talk like this where I come from,” Con interjected. “And I put myself through college relieving high rollers of their cash on the riverboats, so that’s legit, too. I’m not the one pretending to be something I’m not.”
He smiled into her furious eyes. “Those shoes. Killer heels, sugar, and barely-there straps. They’re your secret sexy vice, aren’t they? They’re the real Marilyn. And deep down I think the real Marilyn could go for a big man with black hair and gambler’s hands if she wasn’t so damn scared of letting loose.”
Shrugging, he turned away. “Too bad for both of us that you’re such a coward, cher’. If Corso contacts you, try to set aside your fears long enough to let me know, will you?”
He felt suddenly angry with himself. If anyone had been a coward here it had been him, Con thought as he strode toward the door. He hadn’t meant to walk into her life this way, had always known there were reasons why Marilyn Langworthy’s path and his should never cross at all. And still he hadn’t been able to resist this encounter. That was bad enough.
But lying about who he was had been worse.
Didn’t have the guts to watch your dreams die right in front of your eyes, did you? the jeering voice said. Letting her think you’re a cochon is preferable to what you know she’d feel if she ever found out who you really are.
“Is it so obvious?”
Her question was so low he almost didn’t hear it. He turned and saw she was still standing by the couch, but that was all that was unchanged from a moment ago.
The self-possession she’d exhibited during their barbed exchange was no longer in evidence. Her cool demeanor had fled. And something had replaced the anger in her gaze with total and absolute devastation.
“I keep telling myself it wasn’t my fault, Con.” She didn’t seem to realize she’d used his name. “But it was.”
“What are you talking about?”
Frowning, he crossed the distance between them and stood before her. There was something wrong here, he thought—something badly wrong. Lightly he grasped her shoulders.
“What’s your fault?”
“I should have been there the day he was kidnapped.” Her whisper was raw, her words more directed to herself than to him. “If I had been, maybe I could have prevented it. But I turned around and came home again, because I was too afraid.”
Under his palms her shoulders trembled. She turned haunted eyes to him. “It’s like you said—I’m a coward. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sky since the time I visited him and Holly. I hadn’t expected to feel that way about a baby, but I took one look at him and I just fell in love,” she added softly. “So I decided I’d set aside my pride and call on Holly that day, put things right between us after all these years. Except I lost my nerve. That must have been just about the time they—just about the time—”
The blue of her eyes sheened over. “I might have saved Sky, Con, and it’s tearing me apart that I didn’t!”
“Don’t say that, cher’,” he began, but with a quick shake of her head she overrode him.
“It’s true. By choosing to keep myself sealed off I put a little boy in terrible danger. And God help me, if you were anyone but a complete stranger, I wouldn’t even have the courage to admit that much.”
Guilt lanced through him. It was way past time to tell her, he thought. If he left it any longer the consequences could be disastrous.
Even as he opened his mouth to speak she forestalled him.
“And maybe I wouldn’t have the courage to go through with this, either,” she said hoarsely.
Her fingers fumbled with the top button of her blouse. She slipped it free and immediately began working on the second one, her movements clumsy with urgency.
“Holly has family and friends to support her.” Her head was bent to her task as if it required her full attention. Without looking at him she continued speaking, her voice little more than a thread. “My father has his wife. Josh may not have found the woman he wants to share his life with yet but he always has someone—someone to hold, someone who can help him keep the nightmares at bay. But I’m the Ice Queen, Con. And ice queens don’t have anybody.”
He had to stop this, Con thought. Whatever she thought she was doing, it was a sure bet she’d hate herself for it before twenty-four hours had passed. His hands moved from her shoulders to grasp her wrists. The edges of her blouse gaped open to reveal a swell of creamy skin, a delicately erotic edging of lace.
Immediate desire burned through him. He swallowed, and forced his gaze to hers.
“I had no right to say what I did, cher’,” he said huskily. “I had no real right to come here at all. I should go now.”
“No!” The single word exploded from her with the desperation of a plea. The blue eyes meeting his were dark with unimaginable pain. “Don’t you get it, Detective? I need to make the nightmares go away for a few hours. Sky’s disappeared. I might have saved him. For nineteen days that knowledge has been tearing me apart, and I just want to blot it out for tonight.”
She undid the last button. His hands slipped away from her wrists, and when she shrugged out of her blouse and let it fall to the floor he made no move to stop her. Cupped by the lacy bra, her breasts rose and fell quickly.
“Take the pain away, Con.” Her whisper was raw. “Please take it away, just for tonight.”
She needed a stranger. She needed someone who would walk away without a second thought after this was over. She needed someone who wouldn’t recall her name a month from now.
And he wasn’t that someone, Con thought. He was just the man who’d loved her for as long as he could remember. If he did what she was asking, after tonight she wouldn’t only have his heart but she’d own his very soul, and any faint hope he might have had for a future with her would have to be forgotten forever.
Take the pain away, Con. Please take it away…
His arms gathered her tightly to him and his mouth came down on hers.
Chapter Two
With a frown Conrad Burke looked around the massive and rustic great room of the Royal Flush Ranch. It had been three months and two weeks since his encounter with Marilyn Langworthy, he reflected, although encounter came nowhere close to describing the conflagration that had consumed the two of them that night in her office. Three months and two weeks of burying himself in his work, of drinking too much, of falling asleep, drunk or sober, with the memory of her haunting his dreams.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t return to Colorado, but when his old friend Wiley Longbottom had come to him yesterday with a request to meet with a certain Colleen Wellesley here at her ranch, located a couple of hours outside Denver, even the fact that Wiley had refused to reveal what the meeting was about and who Wellesley was hadn’t given him pause. He’d caught a red-eye flight out of Louis Armstrong Airport, touched down in Denver, and the first damn thing he’d done after renting a vehicle had been to head for the city’s lively and upscale LoDo district. He’d parked near the corner of Blake Street and 33rd, within sight of the converted-to-lofts warehouse where he knew Marilyn lived, and had sat behind the wheel of his car all afternoon hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Only when the early November dusk had begun to fall had he left the city, taking I-285 until it hooked up with Highway 9 near Fairplay, just north of the Royal Flush.
Although apparently the house itself had been a bordello in the wild old days, to his mild surprise he’d realized when he’d arrived that the Flush was definitely a working ranch. He was willing to accept that as an excuse for the Wellesley woman’s absence so far, Con told himself, walking over to the antique portrait hanging above the gilded mirror running the length of the heavily varnished and well-stocked pine bar.
