His question wasn’t that big of a deal. She knew who she was, the way she dressed, how people saw her and the expectations that came with that. But his attitude, his sarcasm, yeah, those she could’ve done without.
“I spent yesterday in your boxers and T-shirt. Today I’m wearing clothes I rinsed within an inch of their life and they stil
l
smell like dead fish.” Really. It was gross. “And you think I need something other than jeans, tennis shoes, and a clean top?”
He didn’t say anything right away, but she saw the edge of his mouth quirk toward a smile, and she felt better realizing that his anger was short-lived and compartmentalized outside this truck.
Still, if he had something going on that was going to get in the way of keeping her safe, she needed to know. If he was going to guard her body, he needed his head in the game.
“Then let’s drop off your prescriptions and see what we can find in your size.”
At this point, size was less of an issue than the clothes being clean, and her need for the meds. The doctor had not been pleased that she’d let the gash go unattended for more than twenty-four hours. Neither had he liked her use of duct tape. But the topical he’d used before stitching her up had worn off bef
ore they’d made it past his bill
ing clerk, and hiding the pain was getting harder to do. Simon pulled his truck face
first to the curb and parked between Schott’s Pharmacy and Day’s Dress for Less. He killed the engine, turned toward her, his hand on the door handle when she made no move to get out.
“You change your mind?” he asked. “This was a good idea until you actually saw the place?”
She arched a brow. “No, I haven’t changed my mind about anything, though if you don’t kil
l
the attitude, I’m going to change it about you.”
He looked forward again, blew out a long, slow breath. “I’ve got a lot going on.”
“You and me both.”
“You’re right. I’ll find someone else to use as a punching bag. Sorry.”
His punches had al
l
been verbal, but she wasn’t in sparring condition and wasn’t sure she would be until she had answers to the questions turning her life upside down.
“Tell you what,” she said. “If we can get my medicine and find a few things for me to wear, I’ll buy lunch and let you punch all you want as long as you don’t have a problem with me punching back.”
The look in his eyes nearly sent her to the mat. “You’re playing awful loose with those credit cards.”
He had no idea what a shopaholic she could be. And no idea of the flutter in her belly that had nothing to do with it being empty. “As long as I get something to wear that doesn’t smell like it’s been hanging in a fish market, you can max me out the rest of the way on food.”
He laughed at that. A laugh that sounded so real, so true. “Not sure you’d be saying that if you’d really seen me eat.”
“That’s okay,” she teased back. “You haven’t seen me punch.”
Nineteen
Simon was glad for the truce even if they hadn’t needed one. At least Micky hadn’t. He, on the other hand, was ready for a time-out, especially since he’d just been handed a reminder of why he’d kept his distance from Bayou Allain.
The judge’s reasons for letting the house go to shit were lousy. Simon hadn’t heard anything that lame in a hell of a long time—maybe since the last time he’d been here…
the day the judge opened his big mouth and announced to the courtroom he was sending King to prison and Simon to war.
Seeing Lorna again today had triggered the memory of the fire. A couple of years older than Simon and King, she’d been there the night of the blaze. There’d been a lot of sex and a lot of alcohol and most of what happened was a blur.
But something in her expression today—an edgy case of nerves hidden beneath too much blush and begging—brought it all back and had him thinking of this thing with Lisa and Micky. He couldn’t say why.
The two incidents were years apart and unrelated—or as unrelated as anything could be with Bear Landry’s fingers in both pies. That’s what was bothering Simon the most. The judge had shipped Simon and King away, leaving Le Hasard temporarily abandoned. And now, except for King, it was abandoned again. No renters, no livestock, no agriculture, nothing. Four thousand acres virtually uninhabited. What did anyone have to gain by keeping it that way? And how was Bear Landry involved?
“What do you think?”
He looked up. Micky was on the other side of the chest-high rack of hanging clothes holding a blouse to her body, a blouse that made him think of a fifties housewife vacuuming in heels and pearls.
He pretended to consider her choice when he was in no shape to shop or keep from speaking his mind. “You buy that, I’ll spring for the heels and the pearls and the vacuum to go with it.”
She frowned, but she did hook the hanger on the rack. “That’s not funny. I remember my mother wearing heels and pearls.”
“While she ran a vacuum?”
“Well, no. I’m not sure she ever ran her own, but she dressed up for everything. Playdates, shopping, school events.”
“And she always wore a Ferrer fragrance, no doubt.”
Micky nodded, wistful, and Simon breathed deep and let the morning go. “Trapani. She was the epitome of the Ferrer woman. One who wore the fragrance like a signature, making it a part of who she was, of everything she did.”
He followed as she scooted hanger after hanger along the rack, watched her face as she studied the selection of out-of-date garments. “Do you wear the one
on the bill
board?
The Adria one?”
“Of course.” She tossed her head, sending her ponytail flying. “It is who I am.”
He’d thought her beautiful. He hadn’t realized she was also so cute, or such a good sport, or so brave. “And you’ve made it a part of everything you do.”
“I have, yes.” Another hanger. A frown as she returned the selection. He wasn’t even sure what that meant, making a scent part of everything she did.
“Because you wanted to? Or because it was expected of you?”
She cut her eyes toward him and glared. “I thought we were saving the deep shit for later,” she said, tugging at a black polo shirt faded along the shoulders from too much time spent exposed to sunlight streaming in through the store’s windows. He wondered if Micky felt similarly exposed, down here in the South, away from the protection of the Ferrer machine and the Ferrer people who kept her toeing the company line. Or if—crimes against her aside—she was enjoying the freedom of being a public figure unrecognized.
She tossed the polo over one arm. “I’m buying this one, the one with the nautical stripes, and the gray baseball jersey.”
They were al
l
big and bulky men’s shirts. They would cover her well, hide her assets, keep him from trying to sneak a peek where he didn’t need to be looking, though nothing would stop him from thinking what he had when she’d come downstairs in his clothes. He shrugged. “Your call.”
“Or my call as long as it doesn’t make you picture me doing housework?” she asked. And because he was in the mood he was in, he answered, “You can do all the housework you want, but a short skirt, fishnets, and a feather duster would be my outfit of choice. If you were asking. Or wondering.”
“I wasn’t, and I wasn’t.” Surprisingly, her face colored. “And no, I’m not going to keep it in mind for future reference. I don’t do the costume thing if I get the urge to strut my stuff.”
“That’s right. You’re more the full-monty type.” And what a picture that brought to mind. “I’ll remember that next time I’m in town to hit the clubs. Maybe I’l
l
give Jane a cal
l
, check your schedule.”
“You don’t have to check in with Jane,” she said blithely, completely serious. “I’ll be happy to share my full itinerary. All you have to do is ask.”
Well, hell. That was unexpected. He wasn’t sure where they were going with this. He’d thought it harmless flirting, a back-and-forth way to relieve the tension both had been feeling since earlier today.
Except the banter seemed to be more, edging as it was into territory that had nothing to do with missing persons and auto accidents and long-ago fires, and everything to do with the conversations they shared on his patio when he was the only one talking, and her one-dimensional eyes were open to her soul and staring into his.
“I’ll remember that,” he said and left it at that, not certain he was ready for whatever truth had prompted the comment, especially if it turned out to be a lie. “Are you going to need more things?”
She glanced from the shirts she’d chosen to the stack of folded jeans she held to her chest. “Three changes of clothes and the ones I’m wearing. That should be enough, don’t you think?”
Depended on what she was planning. He’d been talking about unmentionables, but her question begged another.
Why hadn’t she left the investigation to the authorities and caught the first plane home?
“How long are you thinking to stay?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t done anything yet about Lisa. So however long that takes.”
“What were you going to do?”
“To start with, hire the best private investigator I can.”
Money would be no object in that regard. And a good P.I. could turn over the stones that needed turning and let Simon do his job. And it was his job. He couldn’t walk away from what was happening, either.
His first vacation in how many years? And it had turned into just another assignment—
only not, because he had a personal connection, a personal investment, a personal reason to see justice served. He hadn’t been able to do anything about Stella…yet. Micky’s case would serve for the moment to slake his need for revenge.
Revenge. A word Hank Smithson didn’t allow his operatives to use, believing revenge got in the way of getting things done right, and was a dish best served cold. That chill time gave a man room to think, a chance to make sure he was being smart and acting instead of reacting. It could also give him room to hone his plan, to be certain he knew what he was up against and how to bring the enemy crashing down. Simon looked up a moment later to see Micky still standing opposite him, the rack of clothes between them, her expectant expression losing patience. “A P.I. wouldn’t be a bad idea. You have one in mind?”
“I can call Jane as soon as you can get me to your phone. Or any phone. Even better, a store that sells phones, so I can replace my cell.”
She said it, but she didn’t sound overanxious. Curious, that. “We can do that, sure, as long as you don’t expect the same service here that you get at home.”
“What about you and your bodyguard work?” she asked, getting back to business.
“Even if you’ve worked overseas primarily, I would think you would have contacts in the States who could recommend someone? Maybe the type of someone out of Jane’s reach?”
He had contacts, all right. He could always ca
l
l on one of the Smithson Group team members to do the digging he couldn’t do from here, the type of digging he might not want Micky to know he knew how to do.
“I can make a call, yeah, but I can’t do it from here. And if that’s the plan, I might as we
l
l stick you on a plane after that. There won’t be anything more for you to do here, and I can keep you updated.”
He knew that she was going to want to stay, that she had a vested interest in finding Lisa, not to mention discovering the truth about what had happened to her. They were both legitimate reasons. But they were emotional reasons. There was no physical reason for her to stay.
In fact, there was a physical reason, a very large and potent physical reason, for her not to. But that would require him explaining the distraction of attraction, and that was one thing Simon wasn’t ready to do—no matter her invitation to come see her dance.
“I’m going to the cashier to check out now,” Micky said evenly, her calm belying the anger simmering around her. “And then we’re going to get you to a place where you can make that call.”
“And after that?”
“After that, it’s gloves up. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
Twenty
Lorna Savoy was rapidly becoming the biggest liability to the rest of Bear’s life. He’d carried her all these years because he was able to use her devotion to him—a devotion he’d earned by putting her in a position to live a better life than 90 percent of Bayou Allain’s population.
He’d made it possible for her to be a queen, to have her name be known when most of her classmates and contemporaries had vanished into the oblivion of poverty. She hadn’t lost her figure popping out swamp brats for some unemployed felon who kept rabbit, squirrel, and gator on the table and called that providing for his own. But all of what Bear had done for her was fast coming apart because of her obsession with Simon Baptiste, and her fear her part in the fire that had destroyed the Trahan home would be discovered.
It had obviously slipped her mind that Bear himself had even more to lose than she did. She had been complicit in that single crime. His had been conceived then but had been ongoing since.