Knight Errant Read online

  “Kids used to come in here and play. Their mothers thought they were safe on church grounds, even if the church had long since abandoned them. One day about eight years ago, there was a shooting. Some punk had looked at some other punk the wrong way, and the second one blew the first one away. Unfortunately a five-year-old boy got in the way. He died right there.”

  Lainie looked away from the sad little flowers to Nicholas. His face was expressionless, but his eyes weren’t. The look in his eyes was dark and angry over the pointless loss. Deliberately she changed the subject. “So this is where you grew up.”

  “Part of the time. That was my room.” He pointed to a corner window on the second floor of the small house. “I had a cot and a chest for my clothes. There were no curtains on the windows, no rugs on the floors, no pictures on the walls. There was no television, no radio, no books to read but the Bible. Father Francis was short on affection and long on penance, forgiveness and suffering for your sins. It was good preparation for prison.” He said the last with a faint smile that didn’t extend beyond the corners of his mouth.

  It must have been a sad place for a little boy to live. As if losing his mother hadn’t been enough for a six-year-old to bear, he’d had to bear it here, in a place as unwelcoming as any she’d ever seen with a man undeserving of the title of father. The state should have taken him into custody, should have placed him with foster parents or found an adoptive home for him. How big a difference would that have made in his life? If loving parents had taken him away from Serenity, if they’d given him a happy, healthy upbringing, if he’d had all the advantages and benefits that every child in the world deserved, what kind of man would he be today?

  Possibly not half the man he was now. Adversity often brought out the best in a person. If he’d been able to achieve his goals without hard work, effort and determination, he might not have worked as hard, might have set easier goals. He might not be the man she spent too much of her time obsessing over.

  Stepping past him, she walked along the uneven stone path to the fountain. It was a half-round, curving out from the back wall, tiled in blues, pinks and greens that had long ago lost their brilliance. There were cracks where age and neglect had taken their toll and smashed places where vandals had done their own damage. Dirt, trash and weeds filled the bottom and rose around the feet of the headless, handless statue there. The hands lay in pieces in the mud. The head was probably sitting in some kid’s apartment nearby, a grotesque trophy celebrating a juvenile act of destruction.

  “That’s St. Jude. He’s the patron saint of hopeless causes. Appropriate, don’t you think?”

  Lainie gave him a chiding look as he joined her. “Does everyone in the world think of Serenity and its people that way?”

  “Everyone except Karen and Cassie.”

  “And me. I haven’t met any hopeless causes yet.”

  “You’ve met Vinnie Marino. He’s about as hopeless as they get.” His voice lowered a note or two. “You’ve met me.”

  The rain fell harder, stinging her face, dripping inside her jacket, sending a chill through her, but she didn’t seek shelter. She simply stared at him for one moment, then another, before slowly raising one hand to his face. His jaw was smooth, cool, the muscles working. She slid her hand up until one fingertip touched the corner of his eye, then let it slide down his jaw again, breaking the contact bit by bit, first with the heel of her palm, then the midsection, then her fingers. “You’re not hopeless, Nicholas,” she said quietly.

  She started to turn away, but he caught her hand and pulled her back, using his grip to pull her snug against his body. His intent was clear in his eyes, darker than ever, but he didn’t act on it right away. “Most people would disagree with you. Most people think I’m way beyond hope and way beyond help.”

  “Most people are wrong.”

  “No. If they were wrong, I wouldn’t be doing this...” He used one arm around her waist to hold her close and slid his free hand up into her hair, tilting her head back, exposing her throat to his mouth. When his first kiss landed at the base of her throat, heat raced through her. She knew she shouldn’t let him continue, shouldn’t let him leave a second kiss a little higher, a third one a little higher still. She knew that if she let him really kiss her—mouth to mouth, tongues, heated, demanding, wicked, raw lust—she would be the one beyond help. She would be the hopeless cause.

  But she couldn’t stop him. If her life depended on breaking free of him at this very moment, she couldn’t do it. She wanted him, needed him, craved him too much.

  He toyed with her, reaching her jaw, brushing his mouth across her ear, touching her cheek, then finally taking her mouth. It was a simple kiss, perfectly chaste, perfectly respectable. If he stopped right there, maybe she could survive. Maybe she could walk away with her future intact. But, of course, he didn’t stop there, for which she was practically tearful in her gratitude. He drew her closer, held her tighter, as if he could join with her right there, as if the setting and their clothing were minor barriers easily overcome, and he slid his tongue into her mouth, thrusting, seeking, claiming.

  She was lost.

  All she could do was cling to him. When he moved her against the wall, she was grateful for the support. When he opened the snaps that secured her jacket with one savage pull and slid his arms inside, she welcomed his touch. When he moved his hips suggestively, erotically, against hers, she whimpered, wordlessly pleading, helplessly needing—

  And then he stopped. He pulled back, returned for one little kiss, then unwound her fingers from his jacket, turned and walked a few yards away.

  “Nicholas...” Her protest had no substance, no sound. She didn’t try to find her voice, didn’t try to call him back. However strong her disappointment, whatever his reason for stopping, it was best for both of them. Her job left no room in her life for this particular man, and even though he’d insisted that he wanted her in spite of who and what she was, she knew how quickly that would change when he learned that who she was was an FBI agent, that what she was was a liar, a deceiver and a cheat.

  Still, for a time she leaned against the wall, seeking the strength to let the moment pass and the courage to not call him over and plead for more. Just one more kiss, one more touch from his hands, one more moment pressed intimately close, arousal to long-unsatisfied arousal.

  When she thought she could trust herself to not do anything rash, she moved away from the wall, pulled her slicker tight and went to stand near him—not close enough to touch, just in his general vicinity. “How long has the church been empty?” Her voice sounded strained, thick, out of place.

  “Fifteen years.” His was strained, too, and he didn’t look at her. Instead he scowled hard at the church. “People just quit coming. The church blamed crime rates, the crises everyone down here was facing, the economic depression and everything else in the world, and some of that probably did play a part. Crime was bad. People were afraid to get out on the streets. They were losing their jobs, their homes, their families and their faith. They needed the church more then than they ever had, but they were turning away.”

  “Because of the priest?”

  His smile was cynical. “Father Francis treated his best parishioners the same as his worst sinners. He was pious and holy, and everyone else was going to hell.”

  “For a man of God, he was hard and unforgiving.” The comment came from behind them, startling Lainie. She hadn’t heard Luke Russell’s approach, although Nicholas clearly had. The man looked less like a preacher than any she had ever met. He was dressed in faded jeans and, under an open jacket, a brightly colored tropical shirt that looked out of place in this somber scene. His hair was a little too shaggy, the look in his eyes a little too worldly, his overall appearance a little too unholy. Still, Karen was convinced that he was exactly what Serenity needed.

  “You planning to put this place to good use?” Nicholas’s tone was overtly detached. If the minister heard the skeptical undertones, he gav
e no sign of it.

  “It seems the best choice. The other churches are in sorry shape.”

  “So you’re really going to open a church down here.” Lainie gazed past him to the church. Maybe it would be good for the building. Maybe regular services, prayers and singing could alleviate the dark sense of desolation that hovered inside the compound. Maybe children playing once more on the grounds would shatter the stillness that surrounded them. Maybe having an outlet for their spiritual needs would help bring peace to Serenity.

  Or, she thought as gunshots rang out in the near distance, maybe not.

  Luke looked toward the open gate and the little bit of street it showed. “Sometimes it seems almost like a normal neighborhood. You can forget that it’s not safe to be on the streets.”

  Especially for Nicholas, Lainie silently agreed. He was convinced—and the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office agreed—that Falcone would make his death a personal issue, but the old man could surprise them all. He could pay someone like Vinnie Marino a few thousand bucks to turn Nicholas into just one more victim of senseless violence, an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “When do you plan to open the doors?”

  Nicholas’s question made the minister grin. “Not for a while. We don’t even have permission to come in here yet. When it’s a go, I’m sure Karen will let you know.”

  “As she hands out the hammers, shovels and ladders,” Lainie replied dryly.

  That made him laugh, a full, deep, rich sound. Too many people on Serenity never laughed. “She knows how to get things done.” As he started to walk away, he gestured toward the smaller building behind Nicholas. “I understand you and Jamey lived here for a while. The rectory’s open if you want to take a look around.”

  She would like to go in and climb the stairs to the corner room with no curtains, no rugs, no comforts or affection. She would like to see the place that had helped turn little Nicky Carlucci into Nicholas Carlucci, attorney for the rich and corrupt. But if she went, she would go alone. She knew before he refused Luke’s offer that he had no desire to set foot inside his former home. To him, this place was nothing that a church should be—not a sanctuary, a place of worship or a haven from the problems of the world. It was just a place of bad memories.

  Once the minister disappeared behind the church, Nicholas gestured toward the street. “Ready?”

  With one last glance at the rectory, she nodded and followed him out the gate.

  Walking in the rain had lost its appeal by the time Nicholas and Lainie turned onto O’Shea’s block again. He wanted nothing more than a hot bath and dry clothes—except maybe a warm bed, a willing body and no clothes. If her reaction back there at the church was anything to judge by, it wouldn’t be long before Lainie would be willing. The way she had responded to his kisses... It had been Almost as good as sex. Of course, the sex, once they finally got to that point, was going to be incredible. He didn’t have the slightest doubt.

  “Looks like Jamey opened early.”

  He looked ahead and saw that the doors to O’Shea’s were open and light spilled out, a soft yellow glow in the dreary day. From the day Jamey had taken over the bar twenty years ago, the doors had opened at ten a.m. and stayed open until two a.m. six days a week, and he’d been there every hour. Since he’d married Karen, the bar was open only from noon until midnight, and closed on Sundays, holidays and every time there was a function going on at Kathy’s House. This morning it wasn’t yet eleven. Why the early opening?

  The instant he stepped through the door behind Lainie, he saw why. Jamey was sharing a table and conversation with guests: Smith and Jolie Kendricks. He would like to think that Jolie was simply visiting old friends. She’d known Jamey all her life, and she’d first met his wife back when Karen was married to her first husband, a New Orleans cop Nicholas had often faced in court. But it was a miserable day, and Jolie hated Serenity too much to drop in for a casual visit. On a day like today, she would surely rather be home—a few significant miles away in a much better part of town—with Smith and the kids.

  So this visit was probably business..Kendricks’s business. Nicholas’s business.

  He pulled his jacket off and hung it on a doorknob so the water dripped outside. Lainie, looking more than a little uneasy, did the same. Her hair was soaked and dripping, and her soft cotton shirt was damp in interesting places. Though he’d deliberately ended the kiss too soon—to prove to himself that he could, to avoid the appearance that he was pushing her, to give her time to adjust to that much before he asked for more—if they’d come home to an empty place and he’d seen her looking exactly the way she did right now, he would have been seriously tempted to pick up where he’d broken off.

  It was Kendricks who finally broke the silence. “Pleasant day for a stroll.”

  “We had the streets to ourselves.” He wished they had the bar to themselves, at least for the seventy-five minutes remaining before O’Shea’s official opening. The things they could do in seventy-five minutes...

  “Why don’t you guys get dried off and changed?” Jolie’s smile was none too bright. “Then we can talk.”

  Lainie started to move, but Nicholas didn’t. “I doubt Lainie’s interested in anything we might have to say.”

  “Then she and I can talk while you talk to Smith.”

  He wasn’t sure he cared for that idea, but he was sure that he had little say in the matter. Jolie was stubborn and used to getting her way—a large part of what had made her such a good reporter. As the top federal prosecutor in eastern Louisiana, Kendricks was also used to getting his way. He would say what he’d come to say, alone or in front of Lainie. Nicholas preferred to be warned of his impending death alone, without the woman he was trying to seduce close enough to hear every word.

  “Give us ten minutes.” He gave Lainie a nudge toward the back of the bar, then followed her, their shoes squeaking on the floor.

  Down the hall and up the stairs, she remained quiet. As she unlocked her apartment door, though, she gave him a difficult-to-read look. “She’s very pretty.”

  “Jolie? Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You guess so,” she scoffed. She pushed the apartment door open, and he caught the scent of cinnamon and cloves. His own apartment smelled of dust and emptiness. “You were intimate with this woman, and you don’t really notice how pretty she is?”

  He moved close enough to smell her own particular scents and to feel the soft puff of her breath on his chin. “I was intimate with a teenage girl and, yes, she was pretty. But that was another lifetime.” He moved another step closer just to torment himself. “I noticed that you’re pretty.”

  For just one moment he thought she was going to press against him, to cling to him the way she had at the church, in the way that he’d never imagined he would like but did. Unfortunately she didn’t. Instead she backed away. “Get changed. I’ll see you downstairs.” With that she closed the door in his face.

  Nicholas stood motionless for a moment, then, swearing softly, went down the hall to the bathroom. He stripped and dried off, then wrapped the towel around his waist for the trip back to his apartment. Lainie’s door remained closed.

  Dressed in warm, dry clothes, he went downstairs, stopping behind the bar for a beer before joining the others at their table. Jamey excused himself, got his jacket and returned to his house across the street. Nicholas watched him go before facing the Kendrickses. “Well?”

  It was Smith who answered. “I understand Falcone came to see you last week.”

  Nicholas didn’t respond. The government spent a great deal of money and effort to monitor Jimmy’s movements. Kendricks no doubt knew the exact date, hour and minute of Jimmy’s visit, who had accompanied him and how long they had stayed, where they had been before they’d come here and where they had gone when they’d left. He obviously had a pretty good idea of what was said while they were here.

  “Did he want to make his threat in person?”

  “
He wanted to talk. Just like you.”

  “I want to talk about his promise to kill you. Was that what he wanted to talk about?”

  “He wanted to talk about respect. About forgiveness. About paying for my sins.”

  Smith and Jolie exchanged somber looks, then he said, “The offer for protection still stands.”

  Nicholas finished his beer, then tilted the bottle from one side to the other. He had never asked exactly what their offer entailed. It could be as simple as placing him under twenty-four-hour surveillance or as complicated as taking him into protective custody. Either one would play hell with his plans for a personal life. Seducing Lainie wasn’t the easiest task he’d ever attempted. With a constant audience, it would be impossible.

  With his luck, their plans could be as drastic as placing him in the witness relocation program. They could give him a new identity and a new life far from Serenity and New Orleans, but a new life was one thing he’d never wanted. No matter how miserable things had gotten, he had always been satisfied being Nicholas Carlucci, Serenity Street punk. He would never be happy as anyone else, would never be happy anywhere else.

  “My refusal still stands.”

  Jolie leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. “Don’t be an idiot, Nick. You know Jimmy better than anyone else. You know he’ll keep his promise.”

  “So maybe the feds should try to stop him before he does.”

  “Maybe you should cooperate in stopping him. It’s your life, damn it.”

  “And I have to live it my way. I don’t want the government’s protection. I don’t want anything from them. I’ll deal with Falcone on my own.”

  “He’ll kill you,” Smith said flatly.

  “He’ll try.”