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And he was here to work. Period.
He needed to remember that, because everything about Courtney distracted him, from the hair she wore loose to the feminine way she moved. The only thing that grounded him was her mouth. Every time she opened it, he remembered who she was.
He’d known the Gerard family had money. The name was attached to some heavy hitters, and he’d heard of them all while growing up in New Orleans, names belonging to the longtime district attorney, some politicians and other visible city power brokers. Civil service seemed to run in the family like a luxury most people couldn’t afford.
Courtney eased up on the brake, coasting the short distance to the garage, where she came to another stop. Slipping out the driver’s side, she stood watching him put on a show as he pulled himself out of the car. She made a few false starts, as if she wanted to offer help but had decided against it.
A good call on her part.
When the cane clattered to the driveway, she snatched it up and offered it to him, seemed relieved to do something to dodge the tense silence. His frustration and her guilt for subjecting him to her toy car weren’t a pretty combination. He didn’t feel inclined to reassure her by cracking a joke or making excuses for the pitiful display he made.
Once he was solidly on his feet, Marc met her frowning gaze, felt every inch as broken as he was.
“I have an idea,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she presented a show of her own, only she stole his breath as she ran lightly across the grass and up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. She unlocked the door, and the beeping of a security alarm startled the afternoon quiet.
Marc stood, propped on his cane, willing his pulse to slow. His heart throbbed so hard he could hear it. Unless that was just a trick of the quiet. He guessed this part of town was usually pretty calm. Maybe not along Rue St. Charles, but a few blocks back, where this place was. Another world, sheltered from the shrieks of sirens that riddled other neighborhoods. Or the exhaust-filled traffic that marked the business district and the French Quarter at all hours.
The beeping stopped and Courtney reappeared, resuming her attractive display with her fast, graceful movements and breathless smile. She dangled a key ring as she approached. “Your office.”
She surprised Marc by leading him along a flagstone path toward the rear of the property. He hadn’t paid attention to the building partially concealed in the shelter of trees. Had thought it was another detached garage at first. But on closer inspection, he realized it was too small to be a kitchen or the old slave quarters. Only one floor and no stairs.
“A guesthouse?” he asked.
“A cottage.” Courtney preceded him to the door. “It’s small. And no one has used it since a friend needed a place to stay through a divorce. We’ll need to air it out.”
“Your place or the admiral’s?”
“Mine.” She fitted the key into the lock while he clambered onto the porch. Thrusting the door wide, she grimaced. “I need to remember to open this place up occasionally.”
She stepped inside, then held the door for him.
“A house and a cottage? A lot of room around here for one person.”
“Wasn’t meant for just one.” She gave a shrug that was probably meant to be casual but didn’t manage the job.
Unless he missed his guess, there was a lot more to that statement. A relationship gone south? There was enough room around here for a few families. Did a woman who made a career of micromanaging other people’s kids even want a family? He didn’t have a clue about Courtney’s personal life, but Marc knew one thing—she had a story. His family probably knew every detail.
Courtney obviously didn’t want to discuss her personal life and sailed into the living room, saying, “Fortunately, the place never gets too hot because of all the shade.”
She took off again, heading straight to the windows that cornered two walls, and thrust aside long white sheers to reveal paned glass that overlooked the well-tended foliage and the back wall of the property.
Marc followed her only far enough to survey the place. Leaning against the wall, he appreciated this unexpected good fortune. No stairs. Not one.
She was right about the size. There was a living room, eat-in kitchen and two doors that most likely led to a bedroom and a bathroom. Under a thousand square feet by his estimation, but the open floor plan and floor-to-ceiling windows gave it a bigger feel. The living room was large enough to accommodate a furniture grouping around a television and an area with a corner desk that served as an office.
“Wi-Fi?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” She struggled with a stubborn window.
He didn’t offer to help. Once he might have saved a damsel in distress. Now all he could do was observe, appreciating the sight she presented, her efforts to budge a stubborn window drawing the blouse tight across her back. And he did enjoy the sight she made with her arms outstretched, the curve of her waist visible beneath the cascade of dark hair.
The drug hangover must have finally worn off because to Marc’s utter amazement, he felt a familiar throb as if his body wanted to prove that the rest of him wasn’t as damaged as his leg.
This particular urge hadn’t made an appearance since before the accident. He’d be an idiot to put too much stock in anything right now, but the simple fact that his reactions were still there reassured him.
“Jeez,” Courtney said as the window shot open, throwing her off balance in the process. The sheers fluttered and she righted herself with a steadying hand on the frame. “Needs oil or something. I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
Then she vanished into the bedroom.
Marc didn’t follow, didn’t want to risk connecting the sight of Courtney with a bed, so he hobbled over to the desk instead.
Modem. Laser printer. Fax-copier-scanner combo.
None of the equipment appeared to have seen much wear, but that didn’t surprise him. Why wouldn’t she outfit the office in a place she didn’t even open up for air? There was no computer, but that wasn’t a problem. If he’d been thinking when he’d left his mother’s, he would have brought his laptop.
He hadn’t been thinking about anything but getting the hell out before he killed someone. Starting with his mother.
Courtney reappeared. “How will this place work for you? I mean, after it airs out, of course.”
She’d only brought him here because he had made such a pathetic sight getting out of her car. But Marc wasn’t going to dwell on that. Nor would he look a gift horse in the mouth. “This place is good. I work better without distractions.”
“No distractions here. The admiral works around the yard, but he doesn’t usually come back here. I think he got out of the habit after selling the cottage to Harley.”
Just then a few pieces of a puzzle clicked into place. “This was Harley’s old house?”
“I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
“I knew about her house, just not that you’d bought it.”
Harley was the connection between his family and Courtney’s. His mother would have adopted Harley long ago if the State of Louisiana would have allowed it. They hadn’t, so Harley had contented herself with being an honorary family member, solidifying her place during years as Anthony’s girlfriend.
Until Mac Gerard had come on the scene with all his money. Now Harley brought her husband’s family home for Sunday dinner, too. Anthony didn’t seem to mind. Marc couldn’t begin to explain the situation, didn’t care enough to try.
But anyone who had known Harley had known when she purchased this place—her first home. And from that moment on, Marc’s visits had been punctuated with stories about whatever work she’d been doing. Any time he had asked, “How have you been, Harley?” he never heard about college achievements or career successes, but her accomplishments around this house.
“I sanded the floors to the grain before refinishing them,” she had told him proudly. “They gleam like new.
“I tackled plaster last month. Repaired the damage from some old broken pipe, and now I’m texturing the walls. By the time I’m through, no one will know there’d ever been a leak.”
Marc glanced around the room, at the bright white, finely textured walls, at the planked floor with the rich pine finish beneath the gleam of polyurethane. Both jobs done with care and attention to detail.
If anyone had deserved a home, that anyone had been Harley. She had grown up on the wrong side of Courtney’s business—foster care. But if Harley had owned this place, then Marc knew Courtney must have purchased her portion of the property from her brother after Harley had married him.
He supposed that shouldn’t surprise him, either.
“Oh, I forgot,” Courtney said. “Let me run up to my house. Be right back.”
She didn’t give him a chance to reply, just spun around and took off again, leaving the door open behind her. The sound of her footsteps on the flagstones faded, and Marc took the opportunity to scope out the rest of the place.
The kitchen chewed up a lot of square footage, but as he ran a hand long the smooth finish of the wooden cabinets with their scrolled pewter handles, he could remember Harley talking about the months of work it had taken her to dismantle the cabinetry and refinish the wood. She’d lived without hinges and handles until she’d had the money to purchase the hardware so everything would match.
Such attention to detail because she had cared so much.
There were three large windows in the kitchen overlooking what appeared to be another walled edge of the property. Hard to tell with all the foliage. There were a lot of windows for such a tiny place, and he didn’t have any problem imagining why the Harley he had known had been so in love with her home. Secluded. Airy. Traditional. Right up her alley.
Of course Marc had known the Harley who had been Anthony’s longtime girlfriend. Not the Harley who had left his brother to marry Courtney’s brother. That Harley was a stranger.
Hurried footsteps through the open door brought Marc around in time to see Courtney reappear, the shallow breathing and high color in her cheeks as if she’d run the whole way.
Covering the distance to the kitchen, she set a thick file folder on the table. “Lots of reading here.”
Marc edged closer and flipped open the cover to riffle through the contents.
Reports. Court documents. Profile pages. Correspondence.
“How did you get all this?” he asked.
“It’s the case file from work.”
Normal rules just didn’t apply to any of the Gerard family. Marc should have seen that coming. Courtney wasn’t playing games. She had already made that clear. But this confidential file shouldn’t be anywhere but in her former office, particularly during an ongoing FBI investigation.
She seemed to think she could do whatever she wanted to get what she wanted. Marc knew the type. He wondered if Courtney had a clue that he didn’t think much of the way she operated. Or her family. She probably wouldn’t care. She’d tell him to keep his opinions to himself and write him a check.
“So how do you want to do this?” she asked. “I’ll swap my car before I need to take you home, so any idea when you’re going to want to leave?”
Marc smiled then, a real smile he didn’t have to force for someone else’s benefit. No, this smile just happened, a memory from days when he’d actually had something to smile about.
He didn’t want the complication of Courtney Gerard in his life right now, and he certainly didn’t need the complication of his attraction to her. He didn’t like who she was or what she stood for. But compliments of his nuisance family, she was his to deal with for the time being.
So he would make the situation work for him.
Folding his arms across his chest, he stared at her and said, “I won’t be leaving until we track down your kid. So why don’t you swing by my mother’s place while you’re out and grab my things?”
* * *
COURTNEY STARED AT MARC and blinked stupidly. He was waiting for her reaction. That much she knew.
But she didn’t have one. Not yet, anyway.
In that moment, she couldn’t decide what surprised her more —Marc’s declaration to become her guest or the purely physical sensation that dropped the bottom out of her stomach.
Because she stood close to Marc DiLeo?
Courtney knew this feeling, though she hadn’t experienced the sensation in a very, very long time.
But...Marc DiLeo?
She couldn’t begin to explain why she was suddenly so aware of everything about him. Everything. From the way he propped strong hands on the handle of his cane to the defiance radiating off him like summer heat. No denying he was an attractive man. That in itself was a DiLeo thing. Despite the scowl.
Was Courtney suddenly so aware of him because they were alone? Now that she thought about it, she’d never actually been alone with him until he’d finagled his way into her car today.
“Okay...well, okay,” she said.
If Marc wanted to stay, there was no reason he couldn’t. She didn’t use this place, and more of his attention would be given to finding Araceli if he was away from family distractions. That worked for her.
“I’ll need my things.” His expression was inscrutable, just intense eyes and that hint of defiance.
Did he really expect her to deny him?
“We can swing by your mom’s.”
“You go. Tell her to throw my stuff in my suitcase. There’s only one. Bring that and my laptop case.”
He should probably tell his own mother to pack his things, but his defiance was instigating hers. She needed his help. If he wanted to stay in her empty guest cottage and bum rides, then her guest cottage wouldn’t be empty anymore. No problem.
But she wouldn’t run interference for Mama, who had bullied Marc in the first place. Mama had pushed the issue, and she deserved what she got. If Marc decided to temporarily move out, then Courtney wasn’t about to feel bad.
“Sounds like you travel light,” she said. “I’ll go now then. Will you look through the file while I’m gone? We can work out the details of our arrangement when I get back.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
She slipped the cottage key from her pocket and handed it to him. “Make yourself at home.”
Then she headed to the door, so very aware of each step, the measured length of her strides, the whisper of her shoes on the floor, the way her hands dangled at her sides as if she was suddenly unsure what to do with them. As if his dark gaze followed her every step. When she finally pulled the door shut, she inhaled deeply, apparently her first real breath in a while because she felt light-headed.
What was wrong with her?
She had way more important things to deal with than physical awareness of a man who was an idiot. Taking another deep breath, she walked briskly to her car. Anxiety must be getting the better of her or else her emotions wouldn’t be all over the place.
Marc DiLeo? No way.
But even Courtney’s dismissal of her haywire reactions didn’t stop her from obsessing.
She bypassed Mama’s house. Instead, she drove onto the expressway and headed out of metro New Orleans for her brother’s house. She needed some time to wrestle her racing thoughts under control so she could effectively deal with Mama the bully.
By the time the security guard logged her tag number at her brother’s subdivision, Courtney was grateful for every mile she had put between her and the man she’d left in the cottage. Mac and Harley’s place bordered a conservation lot, and winding through the subdivision felt like driving into another world. The streets were shaded with old cypresses and oaks. The homes were set far back from the street.
Pulling into the driveway, she parked and peeked inside the garage to see if her brother’s car was there. It wasn’t, so she used her key to let herself in, calling out, “Harley, it’s me. Do not get up.”
There was no reply, so Courtney took the stairs two at a time and found her sister-in-law scowling when she walked into the bedroom.
Harley was such a beautiful woman, exquisitely feminine with big blue eyes and a cloud of red hair. She sat propped up with pillows, fully dressed in a comfy-looking shorts ensemble and strappy sandals.
“You look like you’re going somewhere.”
“I am,” Harley said. “Insane. Just a heads-up.”
