Knight Errant Page 7

  Not that it’d been necessary. For all the attention he’d paid her, she could have had an antitank assault weapon on the table and he wouldn’t have noticed. He had locked up behind him, muttered something that might have been good-night—or maybe not—and gone upstairs. She had sat at the table another hour, wondering where he’d gone, who he’d seen, what they’d done, before finally dragging herself off to bed. She hadn’t slept well.

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “Some.”

  Frowning, he turned in the chair to face her. “You work alone a lot, don’t you?”

  “Some. Why?”

  “It shows. This is how it goes when you have a real live human partner. He asks questions, and you answer them in real sentences with information and nouns and verbs and everything so he can go back to the office and fill out a report. Now let’s try it. Have you learned anything interesting?”

  Plenty. “He’s not the slightest bit concerned that his former boss wants him dead.”

  “We already knew that. You’re here because he turned down our offer of protection, remember? Has he heard from anyone in Falcone’s organization since he got back?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t get that impression.” She mentally rewound to Saturday afternoon in the bar and filled Sam in on everything that had happened since. Well, not quite everything. She didn’t tell him that, as of Saturday afternoon, Nicholas hadn’t had sex in five years and counting—though she wondered if his late return Sunday had meant an end to the wait. She didn’t mention that he’d lost his virginity in the local park with the girl who had grown up to marry the U.S. Attorney for this district. She left out the fact that she had confided in him the story of her mother’s death, something even her ex-husband had never heard. She certainly didn’t mention that he’d called her darlin’.

  “Try to stay as close to him as you can,” Sam advised when she was finished.

  “I’ll do what I can, but he’s not exactly eager for company.”

  He gave her an appreciative look. “Darlin’... Oh, excuse me, you don’t like that. Sweetheart, he’s been in prison for five long, solitary years—years without women. Maybe it’s not the same for a woman, but for a man, that’s a lifetime. If I were in his place, I’d spend time with you even if all I got to do was look.”

  “If I were in his place, I’d be going where I could do a whole lot more than just look,” she retorted. As maybe he had last night. Why did she dislike that idea so much? Unwilling to acknowledge the obvious answer, she got to her feet as Mrs. Montoya came out of the inner offices and started toward her. “There’s my lady. I’ve got to go.”

  He glanced lazily toward the old woman, waited until she was close enough to hear, then caught Lainie’s hand. “You sure I can’t change your mind, sugar? I know a great place across the river. They serve the best Cajun food you’ll find ‘anywhere.”

  She couldn’t help but smile at him. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he did have the most engaging grin, and the sugar was a nice touch. “No, really, I can’t. Sorry.” Pulling free, she steered Mrs. Montoya toward the door.

  “There was a time when I used to attract all the young charmers wherever I went,” the old lady said with a wistful sigh. “It’s hard to believe now, but I was quite a pretty girl when I was young.”

  “I don’t find it at all hard to believe. I hear old Thomas is smitten with you.” Thomas Campbell lived on Trinity Street, where he and his wife had raised four children and had been enjoying their retirement until a drive-by shooting took her life. Soon after, he’d become a regular at O’Shea’s. Lately, according to talk, he’d been coming for companionship more than the booze, and Karen said he’d been paying more than the usual attention to Mrs. Montoya at the neighborhood cookouts. It was nice to know romance was alive and well at their age. Just in case she was still looking then herself.

  Mrs. Montoya’s face turned a delicate pink, and her laugh was a self-conscious giggle. “Old Thomas is just that—old.” Then the look in her eyes turned devilish. “But he’s not dead, and neither am I.”

  The comment brought to mind Karen’s remark yesterday when she’d responded to Cassie’s teasing about noticing Nicholas. I’m married, not dead. Lainie didn’t have that much protection. She wasn’t married. For all practical purposes, there was no reason why the Lainie Farrell everyone on Serenity knew shouldn’t notice Nicholas—and respond. No reason except that she was deceiving everyone, including him. No reason except that she wouldn’t be around long, that she would like to return home with her heart as intact and untouched as when she’d left.

  Plus the small matter of professional misconduct. If Nicholas Carlucci wasn’t her job, she would be prohibited from any contact with him at all. Because he was her job, she was prohibited from any intimate contact. Everything between them was business. She had to remember that.

  After negotiating evening traffic, Lainie took Mrs. Montoya home, returned Karen’s car and keys to her, then headed home herself. One job was finished for the day, but the other was about to start. It would be easy work if Nicholas stuck to his usual routine and stayed locked inside his apartment, but if he chose to go out again, like last night... She would much rather accompany him than try to follow him, but how much luck would she have inviting herself along if his reason for going involved a woman?

  Maybe she shouldn’t wait to hear his plans, if any. Maybe she should invite him to dinner and a movie or a walk around the Quarter. Maybe she should hope he was already gone, so the decision would be out of her hands.

  No such luck there. As soon as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside O’Shea’s, she saw Nicholas sitting at the bar and talking to Jamey. There was a cigarette burning in the ashtray between them, a half-empty bottle of beer in front of Nicholas and a glass of ice water in front of Jamey, and they were too absorbed in their conversation to pay her much attention—or so she thought. She was halfway down the hall when Jamey interrupted to call, “You got a delivery today, Lainie. Since I didn’t have your key, I had them leave it in the hall.”

  Her furniture. She had forgotten when she’d asked for a Monday delivery that she would be spending the day away from Serenity. “Sorry about that.”

  “Give me a minute...” He looked away, giving a nod of greeting to someone she couldn’t see, probably a customer. “Give Nicky a minute to finish up here,” he went on with a grin, “and he’ll help you move it.”

  “That’s not necessary. I can manage. Thanks anyway.” She pulled her keys from her pocket as she reached the stairs. Up above on the landing she could see the sofa, stretching from one side of the hall to the other. The two occasional tables were turned upside down on its cushions.

  She climbed the stairs, leaned over the end of the sofa to unlock the door and swing it open, then climbed over the arm and inside. She set the tables out of the way in one corner and turned back to the sofa. It was just a bit wider than the doorway, so the only way it was coming inside was on its side. She tried where she was, but couldn’t budge it. She climbed over, squeezed into the narrow space behind it and realized immediately that wouldn’t work. She was climbing over again, into the hall this time, when she smelled cigarette smoke and knew she was no longer alone.

  “I don’t need your help,” she said ungraciously, looking over the stair railing to where Nicholas stood a third of the way down.

  “I didn’t come to offer it.” A stream of pale, acrid smoke lifted into the air, rising past her, breaking up into wisps, then dissolving into nothing. He followed the drag on the cigarette with a swallow of beer.

  “Those are nasty habits, you know.”

  “So I’ve been told.” After dropping the cigarette into the bottle, he reached between the balusters and set them on the floor near her feet. “Satisfied?”

  She purposely ignored the question, not because it was flip and uncaring but because the answer trying to slip out—It takes a lot more than that to satisfy me—could too easily pro
vide an opening to a conversation she didn’t need to have, not now with any man and never with this man. “If you want to get into your apartment, you’d better climb over now before I turn this thing over.”

  “I’m not going to my apartment. I came to watch.”

  Scowling, she turned away. The couch was heavy and took a good deal of maneuvering to get it into the proper position. When it was tilted precariously on its front end, she wiggled into the space between one arm and Nicholas’s door, gave it a great shove and pushed it into her apartment. She was setting it upright, a little out of breath and a little damp from the exertion, when Nicholas stepped into the doorway.

  “Now that you’ve proven you don’t need it, would you like a little help on the other pieces?”

  Since he was gracious enough to acknowledge her accomplishment, she accepted his offer. He brought the chair in by himself, then helped her carry the dresser to the center of the living-room floor. “Thanks,” she murmured as she rubbed her hand lightly over the curves of the elaborate mirror. Once it was stripped, sanded and refinished, it would be a beautiful piece. She would leave the rest of the furniture for the next person on the receiving end of Jamey’s generosity, but the dresser would go home with her. It was the only thing she planned to take back to Atlanta with her—it, plus a new charity to support and a regret or two.

  “You have a bad day at work or are you always crabby in the evening?”

  “I’m not...” Her hand grew still on the frame, and she glanced at his reflection in the mirror. He was testing the sofa, settling in, leaning back against the hideous yellowand-orange cushions. She was crabby, in part because of her own reminder that whatever was between them must remain strictly business. Then there was the matter of last night. She was annoyed that he’d managed to slip out without her noticing, and she was curious about where he’d gone and the less-than-friendly mood in which he’d returned. That was all it was—annoyance and professional curiosity. Nothing personal.

  She began removing the drawers and laying them on the floor. “I’m not crabby. I just had a long day of driving and waiting, and I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “I never have trouble sleeping.”

  “That’s because you have no conscience.”

  “And why would your conscience bother you? You’re a do-gooder who’s kind to small children and old women. What could you possibly do that might cause you sleepless nights?”

  She set the last drawer down, started to sit on the sofa, then changed her mind and slid into the chair. From his first comment, she assumed he’d seen her with Mrs. Montoya. Was that what he did during the day? Watch life taking place outside his apartment windows?

  “You’re right,” she said airily. “I never do anything to upset my conscience. My actions are innocent, my intentions pure.” Except for all the lies she told. Actually, the reason behind the deception was good and right. She was trying to keep a man alive. She hated the lies, though, hated deceiving people whom, under better circumstances, she could become inordinately fond of.

  “Do you plan to work on this tonight?” he asked, giving the dresser, drawers and tables an all-inclusive gesture.

  “If Karen has some stripper over there. Otherwise I’ll have to wait until I can go to the store.” Or unless he had other plans that she could manipulate to include her. She gave him a sidelong look. “I don’t suppose you’re planning to offer your help.”

  “Why would I do that? You can manage.” Before she could do more than privately acknowledge that he was right, he went on. “I’m going shopping tonight. Want to go?”

  “To a store that sells stripper?”

  “No, to a store that sells clothes. I’m tired of doing laundry every three days. I need some more clothes.”

  “Okay. Sure.” She flashed him a smile. “I have great taste in clothes.”

  He subjected her to a narrow-eyed look before skeptically agreeing. “Uh-huh. Let’s go now so we can get dinner when we’re done.”

  Uh-huh, indeed, she thought as she got to her feet. So her jeans were faded practically white. So maybe everyone in the world didn’t think traffic-cone orange was such a great color for a shirt. The jeans were loose enough to comfortably tuck in a .40 caliber semiautomatic—though she’d brought only a little .22 with her—and the shirt was absolutely a hundred and eighty degrees opposite from anything her conservative associates might ever wear. Besides, back home she had a few outfits in her closet that she could guarantee would make an impression on Nicholas Carlucci.

  Come to think of it, she had a few things in her closet here that held potential. “Let me change shirts first. I wouldn’t want to look like a poor relation or something.” She was halfway to the bedroom closet when he called through the open double doorway.

  “You don’t have to change. We’ll just tell everyone you’re color-blind.”

  She took a couple of garments from their hangers, tossed them on the bed, then began unbuttoning her shirt. Suddenly realizing that he still sat in the living room, that he still continued to watch, she forced her features into a frown and somehow injected a note of annoyance in her voice. “Do you mind going away?”

  She expected a sarcastic retort. She got a subdued retreat.

  When the door closed behind him, she stripped off her shirt and pulled on a sheer top. By itself the tank was indecent, leaving nothing to the imagination. It was also sexy, cool, comfortable and sensual. She pulled a white shirt on next, fastened the buttons, then rolled the sleeves to her elbows and tucked the tails snugly inside her jeans. For the final touch, she took a black nylon waist pack from the closet shelf, slid her gun and some money inside and fastened it around her waist.

  A quick look in the mirror confirmed that she had achieved the look she’d wanted and that everything was decent. It also confirmed that Nicholas’s skepticism had been well deserved. Bright orange did nothing for her. Soft, gauzy, barely-there white did.

  With a deep breath of anticipation, she walked to the door, shut off the lights and stepped out into the hall to see if he agreed.

  He was an easy man to distract.

  They had talked to Jamey on their way out of O’Shea’s, walked to Decatur to catch a cab and methodically made their way through the appropriate stores in Canal Place, and Nicholas didn’t remember much about any of it. Even now, sitting in the lush courtyard of what had long been his favorite French Quarter restaurant, he couldn’t recall exactly what choice he’d made from the menu ten minutes ago.

  And it was all Lainie’s fault.

  She’d layered one shirt over another, the plain outer shirt left unbuttoned practically. to her waist. It was open wide at the collar, then narrowed in a deep V to the single closed button, revealing smooth skin up high, a matching V of gauzy shirt lower. The fabric of the second shirt was of no substance, thin enough to see naked skin underneath, thin enough, it seemed, that it would dissolve under his hand. Combined, the shirts exposed nothing beyond the facts that she wasn’t wearing a bra, that her skin was a creamy gold, that the golden shade extended unbroken all the way to her waist. The appeal of the two was in the contradiction. The thin top revealed. The cotton shirt concealed. The thin one promised pleasure. The cotton offered protection.

  Together they delivered punishment, and all because he’d implied criticism of the god-awful color she’d been wearing.

  He was certainly feeling punished.

  She sat across from him, resting her arms on the tabletop, her fingers loosely clasped. She seemed to be waiting for him to speak, but he could think of little to say that wouldn’t somehow end in bed. After an evening of watching her like a sex-starved ex-con, he was about ready to hint, ask, offer, suggest, seduce, plead or even pay for relief.

  Finally she broke the silence. “If you can afford to shop at Canal Place, why do you live on Serenity?”

  “Is that your way of asking if I have money?”

  “I know you have money. You just spent more on a pair of pants tha
n all my furniture cost. I’m just curious about why you live in a shabby little place on a dangerous street in a bad part of town when you can afford someplace better.”

  “Because I don’t care.”

  “About what?”

  He shrugged. “The money, the clothes, the apartment, the street, the neighborhood. I don’t care about any of it.” But somehow the words had sounded truer a week ago. He’d said them then with much more conviction. But there was no reason for the difference. Nothing had changed in the last week.

  Except that he’d met Lainie.

  Meeting her hadn’t changed anything, except that his more frequently occurring fantasies now had a face. The phantom lover who had kept him company for more than five years now had short hair, sweet hazel eyes and a knockout smile. No doubt in tonight’s torture she would be wearing some filmy, flimsy, tantalizing bit of nothing, and no doubt he would find it almost as tormenting as the damned clothes she was wearing now.

  “When you worked for Falcone, you must have become accustomed to a more luxurious style of living.”

  “I did. And when I was in prison, I became accustomed to austerity.”

  “But there you had no choice. Now you do.”

  “And I choose to live on Serenity. It’s my home. Can you honestly say that, when your life got shot to hell, you didn’t give any thought at all to returning to Savannah?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Her answer was quick and emphatic.

  “Not to your father. Just to the place where you grew up. You never considered it?”