Knight Errant Read online

  Marino moved forward behind them. So did Trevor Morgan. “No. No one’s going anywhere.”

  Nicholas glanced over his shoulder. The kid seemed edgy, his eyes darting from one person to another, but his grip on the gun was cool and steady. A quick glance around the room showed some measure of surprise on everyone’s face—even Trevor’s. For the most part, Jimmy looked annoyed, Alex a little scornful. Marino looked scared, though—real scared—and Vince was concerned.

  As unobtrusively as possible, Nicholas began edging Lainie behind him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jimmy demanded, and Morgan turned the gun on him.

  He parroted Jimmy’s earlier words. “Something I’ve been waiting a long time to do. My reputation demands it.” Then he pulled the trigger, holding it down, sending a spray of bullets around the room.

  The last thing Nicholas saw before he and Lainie dove to the floor was Jimmy, sprawled in his chair, his head back, his mouth open, little blossoms of blood seeping across his shirt.

  The restaurant doors were locked, business suspended for the day. The medical examiner’s people had already taken away the bodies—five, in all—and the paramedics had transported the survivors to area hospitals. Hit once in the head and multiple times in the chest, Vince Cortese wasn’t expected to live. The man with the raspy voice probably would.

  Alex was dead. Vinnie Marino. The lawyer. Another man whose name Lainie had never heard. And Jimmy. Jimmy Falcone was dead. The cause of fighting crime in southern Louisiana had received a big boost, though not for long. With the old man gone, all the interests he’d controlled would be up for grabs. Others would take over, though hopefully not as crafty, as vicious or as cold. In a matter of days, it would be business as usual.

  Like last night, a crowd had soon arrived—first New Orleans cops, followed by what must be every FBI agent in the parish, and Lainie felt as if she had spoken to every single one of them. Nicholas, at a table in the next room, had been put through the same wringer. Remy Sinclair had gone to tell him he was free to leave just before he stopped by Lainie’s table to deliver the same message. She watched Nicholas walk out without a glance in her direction before she finally found the strength to go looking for Sam. “You got a piece of paper and a pen?”

  He flipped to a clean page in the folder he held, tore it out, then fished a pen from his pocket. She sat down again, wrote a brief note, folded it in half and delivered it to Smith Kendricks, deep in conversation just outside the blood-splattered room. He broke off when he saw her, accepting the paper without question. After scanning it, he met her gaze. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “You know you don’t have to.”

  For the first time in too long, she smiled. “Yes, I do.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then glanced toward the dining room where Nicholas had been interviewed. “I guess you do. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” She would need it.

  She walked through the restaurant to the front door, where a somber man let her out before locking the door again behind her. She hoped she never had to set foot in the place again. Of course, with the future she had planned, it wasn’t likely she would ever be able to afford such a place. All her money would be sunk into a house and a business. There would be none left over for fancy restaurant meals.

  Stopping at the top of the steps, she sighed deeply. A house and a business. That was a big job to take on alone. In all her dreams, Nicholas had been there to share the burdens and the pleasures, making it all worthwhile. After last night’s kiss and the tenderness and protectiveness he’d shown her today, she had dared to hope that maybe he was coming around and finding some forgiveness in his heart. The fact that he’d left the restaurant without a word to her suggested otherwise.

  So what was she supposed to do now? Move out of O’Shea’s, for starters, and see about finding some way to help Jamey with the repairs. She could find a cheap motel, then invest a little energy tracking down the owner of the cottage at the end of Serenity. Sooner or later she would have to go back to Atlanta and close out her life there, and...

  Gradually she became aware that someone was watching her, and the sudden ache around her heart told her who. Slowly she turned to see him leaning against the wall, a few feet to the left of the door. His hands were in his pockets, and one knee was bent, the foot flat against the brick. In the black leather jacket, with his eyes so dark and serious, he looked thoroughly disreputable. Thoroughly handsome and, oh, so dear.

  He came to stand beside her on the steps, fixing his gaze on a store across the street. “So what happens now?”

  She didn’t know if he meant her plans for the immediate future or if he was speaking in general terms. She chose to believe the former. “I’m going home.” To sleep. To recover. To plan and to pack.

  “Share a cab with me.”

  She was more than happy to agree, for practical reasons as well as personal. She was tired. Last night as a guest at Falcone’s estate hadn’t been the most restful night she’d ever spent. Her blisters still hurt, and so did the cuts on the soles of her feet. She would have suggested a cab herself if the goon named Alex hadn’t hustled her out of O’Shea’s without so much as a nickel in her pocket.

  They had to walk around the corner to find a taxi. Like before, the driver refused to take them any farther than the intersection of Decatur and Serenity. As they started down the street, Nicholas glanced at her. “You have any explanations for what happened back there?”

  “You probably know that Trevor’s brother Ryan used to run things down here for Falcone.”

  “I bailed them both out of trouble more than a few times.”

  “Maybe that explains why he didn’t shoot you, too.” Her smile was brief. “After Karen moved in over a year ago, Ryan started losing control. He got obsessed with her and her friendship with his pregnant girlfriend—Sean’s mother. Apparently Jimmy decided he was causing more trouble than he was worth. A few hours after Ryan had yet another confrontation with Karen, he was found dead, shot in the head. No arrests were ever made. Officially there were no suspects.”

  “But unofficially?”

  “Most people who had an opinion believed that Jimmy gave the order and Vinnie Marino carried it out.”

  “And Trevor shared their opinion.”

  “I guess so.” They had reached O’Shea’s. The glass, wood and brick fragments had been swept up from the sidewalk, but the four doors were still boarded over, giving it the look of any other abandoned business on Serenity.

  Nicholas touched her arm and gestured toward the end of the street. Pushing her hands into her pockets, she walked with him past apartments and houses, empty storefronts and the Williams’ grocery. When they reached the cottage, he pushed open the creaky gate, then followed her inside.

  It was a beautiful place, even abandoned and neglected. There were so many thousands of places like it all across the South, standing empty and alone, slowly succumbing brick by board by windowpane to the heat, the humidity, to age and vandals and indifference. So many were beyond saving, but not this one. This beauty would be worth every minute of backbreaking labor and every penny.

  There was no grass growing in the yard—just weeds that grew wherever they could, bare dirt where they couldn’t and massive live oaks. Underneath the weeds and dirt was a walkway that led from the gate to each of the staircases. A dusty rose brick showed here and there as they approached the house.

  Lainie tested each of the steps before placing her full weight on it. At the top, she gazed at the wrought-iron and brick fence across the front and the brick walls on either side. Run-down, overgrown and shabby, but definitely a beauty.

  Without changing her view, she quietly spoke. “Tell me about Rena.”

  Nicholas stood a few steps below, seeing the same things she was seeing. He’d always liked the place, he’d told her one day. Had he ever dreamed, back when he was young and ambitious and able to dream, about sh
aring it with Rena? About making it a home and raising their kids and filling it with love? Probably not. One of his ambitions had been to escape Serenity forever. He never would have brought the woman he loved, the woman who had meant everything to him, back here to live.

  Finally he looked at her, his expression as open as she’d ever seen. “What do you want to know about her?”

  Everything. Nothing. Just one thing. “Why do you blame yourself for her death? You didn’t even know Jimmy then.”

  He walked past her and onto the broad gallery, where he rested his hands on the weathered gray railing. She wondered if he needed the support of something solid and strong in order to tell the tale. She was solid. She was strong.

  “After we moved in together, Rena and I agreed that she would drop out of school and work to pay my expenses. As soon as I graduated from law school, we were going to get married and, if she wanted, she would finish her degree then. At the time, she didn’t want to. All she’d wanted was a house and babies. And me.”

  He added the last as an afterthought, as if he couldn’t quite imagine a woman as special as Rena wanting him. Lainie understood. She wanted him more than anything.

  “She worked as a grocery store checker during the day and a waitress at night. She’d started out in a restaurant, but the tips were better in the bar. She hated the job, though. She didn’t like her boss and didn’t trust the people he did business with. She wanted to quit, but the money was good and I was taking such a heavy load that I couldn’t help out. I convinced her to stay until school was out for the summer, when I could work, too. It was the only thing we ever argued about. She was afraid, but, for me, she stayed.”

  Stayed to see her fears come true, to die in a feud that had nothing to do with her. Stayed to become one more of Jimmy Falcone’s innocent victims. And, of course, Nicholas blamed himself.

  “She was an adult, Nicholas. She could have quit the job against your wishes. Maybe you would have gotten angry, maybe you would have argued again, but you would have resolved it. She wouldn’t have lost you over it.”

  “I know the arguments. Hell, I’m a lawyer. But I also know that if she hadn’t been in the club that night, she would be alive today, and she wouldn’t have been in the club that night if she hadn’t wanted to please me. Any way you look at it, it’s my fault. I’m at least partly responsible for her death.” His fingers tightened on the rail. “But...”

  Lainie. tested the balustrade that protected the landing where the two stairways met the porch and found that despite age and neglect, it held firm. She leaned against it and faced him.

  “I’ve done twenty years’ penance. Even Father Francis, who was the hardest, most unforgiving man I’ve ever known, would think that was sufficient. Rena would think it was way too much. She would think I was twenty years’ past due for getting on with my life. For having a life. For falling in love, getting married, having a home, raising a family and all those things that would have made her proud. She would think I was an idiot for losing so much, for wasting so much time.”

  “What do you think?” She had to force the words out because her chest was too tight to allow for more than the shallowest of breaths.

  “I am an idiot. Saturday night I thought I had the luxury of time. Though I was too angry to admit it, I knew I loved you and nothing in the world was going to change that. But I thought I could nurse my hurt feelings and wounded pride for as long as I wanted, that I could push you away and make you suffer because I was suffering. I thought I could indulge myself, then eventually get over it, and we could pick up where we left off. Then Sunday night you almost died, and today you came close again.”

  Finally, with great effort, he released his hold on the rail and came to her. He didn’t stop until he was right in front of her, his hands on either side of her. “If there was one lesson I should have learned from Rena’s death, it’s that there are no guarantees. We might have fifty years together, or maybe only ten, or not even one. However long it is, the key word is together. However many years or months or days I have left, I want to spend them with you, Lainie, because I was right about two things—I do love you, and nothing will ever change that.” He drew a breath, then bluntly asked, “Will you marry me?”

  She resisted the urge to smile with delight. “I think I should tell you first that I’m out of a job.”

  “You can work here with me.”

  “What would we do?”

  “You can open a nursery. I’ll work on the house.”

  “Fixing the house won’t take forever. Then what would you do?”

  “Have you taken a close look at the place?” he asked dryly. “When it’s done, if it’s ever done, I could work for you or...or I could see about getting my license reinstated. This time I could do it right and help the people who deserve it.”

  His words made her feel incredibly warm inside. “You know, I’ve been having this serious urge lately to hold a baby in my arms, to create a little hope for the future.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched just a little. He knew what her answer was going to be. He knew she couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than spending the rest of her life with him. “Funny. I’ve been having the same urge.”

  “I wasn’t very good at this marriage business before.”

  “That’s because you didn’t try it with me.” He moved a breath closer. “Answer me, Lainie.”

  “You know I love you.”

  “I know.”

  “I need to tell you—”

  He brought his hand to her mouth, stopping her words. “Tell me yes,” he commanded, then, without waiting, kissed her gently, sweetly, tenderly. It left her legs a little weak, her head a little muddled and her heart achingly full. “Tell me.”

  For a long time she simply looked at him—at his handsome face, his dark eyes, his intense expression. Then she smiled a big, happy, full-of-love smile and gave the answer he’d asked for. The only answer she could give. “Yes.”

  Yes. A thousand times yes.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-6541-7

  KNIGHT ERRANT

  Copyright © 1998 by Marilyn Pappano

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.