N
o way would Sykes allow Poppy to return to Fortunes alone. He wasn’t sure he would be able to let her go anywhere alone until he had answers to the questions coming at them like bullets fired at close quarters.
They went into the building by a side door and Sykes set aside the umbrella they had used. The streets were hot and steamy—and breathless.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” Poppy said. “You’ve got other things to do.”
He took hold of her arm and made her look at him. “You matter a lot to me. More than a lot. I’m not leaving until I make sure you’re in a safe place.”
Her lips parted and he saw her struggle with her emotions. She pulled away. “I am in a safe place. This is where I live and work.”
She marched along a deserted passageway past storage closets, freezer compartments and eventually the kitchens. Sykes prepared himself for another confrontation with Liam or Ethan who had every right to
disbelieve any arguments Poppy and Sykes came up with about not being involved with each other.
When it came to Liam, finding a way to ask Jude’s question was uppermost in Sykes’s mind.
“Um, Sykes.” Poppy skidded to a halt and faced him.
Their eyes met for long enough to make him reach for her, but Poppy held up her palms. “We’ve got to get our acts together. This can’t be all about sex.”
“Is that what it is for you? All about sex?”
She made an ugly face. “Tricks and traps. What else should I expect from a man who gets me from the bathroom to the bedroom without my seeing anything happen.”
Inspiration hit Sykes and he ran with it. He leaned against a wall, crossed one foot over the other and assumed partial invisibility.
Poppy’s eyes enlarged in a very satisfying way. “What are you doing?” she whispered, looking around. “What if someone comes?”
“I choose who sees me like this. At the moment, you’re the only one who knows I’m here at all. Now, could I get your attention, please?”
She gaped.
“That’ll do,” he said. “Good reaction.” And to increase the effect, he rose a foot from the floor while keeping his position against the wall.
“Sykes,” she squeaked.
“Just listen. I know your brothers are going to look at us as if we just got out of the same bed.”
“We did.” She did another quick visual of the area.
“We can deal with it in one of two ways. Let them think that or try to keep denying the obvious.”
She turned pink and moaned. Sykes grimaced. “Am I so awful you don’t want anyone to think you’d sleep with me?”
“Keep your voice down,” Poppy said. “I
don’t
go around sleeping with just anyone.”
Sykes inclined his head. “How am I supposed to take that remark?”
“Don’t take it at all. I’m not making sense because I’m rattled and it’s all your fault.” She wiggled a forefinger at him. “You hypnotized me without permission and that was a creepy thing to do. You invaded my privacy, took over my body and mind.”
“I know, and then I forced you to make love with me.”
She looked away quickly. “No, you didn’t. You were right when you said the trance must have gotten rid of my inhibitions. I did what I wanted to do.”
“So did I. But it wasn’t just about sex. I really like you, Poppy. I care about you. I don’t know where we’re going, but that doesn’t seem like such a bad start.”
He thought her eyes filled with tears. Then she looked up at him and he knew they had. “What is it, Poppy?”
“Have you forgiven me for being a selfish pig?”
“It isn’t for me to forgive and I don’t think you’re a selfish anything. But let’s save the topic. I’ve got to be certain Liam and Ethan know to keep an eye on you if
I’m not around. It’s possible we need to have a chat with Nat about police surveillance.”
“Please don’t do that.” She sounded desperate. “We have no proof that anything’s really wrong yet.”
“One woman is dead? At Ward’s you saw four people you think weren’t human? Nothing wrong?”
“I could have made a mistake about those people.”
“And you could be right. We’re not taking the risk. There are enough of us to look out for each other and that’s what we’re going to do.” Jude had made the point and Sykes agreed with him.
“I’m not helpless, Sykes. I won’t take any stupid risks.”
“If Ward Bienville is released, will you spend time with him alone?”
She peered into the kitchen, obviously buying time.
“Poppy?”
“If it looks like that could happen, I’ll let someone know. Okay?”
It wasn’t, but he had no right to push too far. “Be very careful.”
The door from the club banged open.
Ethan Fortune stopped in the act of hurrying into the passageway. “Poppy! What the hell is the matter with you? Are you going to keep scaring the hell out of us?”
Sykes backed up until he could reappear and join the two of them without Ethan seeing what he was up to. “Calm down, Counselor,” Sykes said, hoping his own easy smile would defuse the other man’s anger.
Ethan, the youngest of the Fortune brothers, glared at Sykes. They were all blue-eyed and dark-haired, these male Fortunes. Too bad the Millets couldn’t get over their aversion to the same coloring in their own family. Poppy’s were the only dark eyes among her siblings.
Every time she looked his way, Sykes got sucked in by Poppy’s eyes.
“Okay, you two,” Ethan said. There was not the faintest crack in his anger. “Liam told me he met you coming back here together yesterday. Today it’s me who has the honor. Both times neither of us saw you for hours, Poppy. You’re a big girl. What you do is your—”
“Business,” she finished for him. “That’s right. Why are you so doggone edgy?”
Ethan looked here, there and everywhere but at Poppy.
“Look at me,” Poppy told him.
She got the brilliant-blue Fortune stare. “We love you. Is that okay? We’re worried about you. Is that okay?” He threw up his hands. “For cryin’ out loud. If we know you’re with Sykes and not a maybe murderer, we won’t be eating our nails up to the knuckles.”
“Ward isn’t a murderer,” Poppy said.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Sykes said quietly.
“Okay. Would you mind coming through the club to the office,” Ethan said. “I don’t think we should be doing this out here. It’ll get busy soon enough.”
“It’s only seven-thirty in the morning,” Poppy
pointed out. “It isn’t going to be busy for hours. But it’s fine with me to use my office.”
The inference was clear. She didn’t appreciate what appeared to be a general takeover of her life—and her office—by her brothers.
“Follow me,” Ethan said, his face set. He pushed open a padded door into the very blue Fortunes club. “Things aren’t quite as quiet as you seem to think. We’ve already got visitors and they’re looking for you, Sis.”
Liam met them in the middle of the club floor. He didn’t take his attention off Poppy. “What are you trying to do to us?” he said, turning a little red.
Then he did look at Sykes. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make the mistake of jumping to any conclusions again—not out loud. But I know what I think and I don’t understand what the pair of you are playing at.”
“Really?” Sykes said, all innocence.
Poppy elbowed him. “When everyone’s calmed down, Sykes and I will explain what’s happened.”
That should be interesting.
“Where’s your cell phone?” Liam said to Poppy.
She pulled it out of her jeans’ pocket. “Right where it usually is. On me.”
With finger and thumb, Liam took it from her. “It helps if you turn it on.” He did so himself and handed it back. “Your buddy Ward called here three times before I told him I’d let him know when I saw you. Ethan’s tried to get you, and so have I.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Poppy looked furious. “I’m not ten. I don’t have to tell anyone where I am.”
“You sure as hell don’t have to tell me,” Liam said, poking his face into hers. “Just as long as I’m pretty sure you’re alive.”
A few employees were busy cleaning in the bar or polishing the brass tables but they still managed to send interested glances at the Fortunes.
“Nat’s in the office with Bucky Fist,” Liam said. “They just got here. I was coming to see if Ethan had found you.”
“Where did Ward call from?” Poppy asked.
“How should I know?”
Sykes began to feel sorry for Poppy’s brothers. He knew how it felt to worry about someone who meant a lot to you.
The door to Poppy’s office opened and Bucky Fist, Nat Archer’s partner, came out. As always he wore a baseball cap back to front on his sandy hair and twirled a toothpick between wide-spaced front teeth.
“Later,” he said, passing them. “Nat wants to talk to you first, Sykes, and Liam. Poppy, hang around, please.”
“How did you know we were here?” Poppy said.
“Wazoo was keeping watch,” Bucky said and sauntered out of the club.
W
azoo waved from a corner booth.
“Has Nat managed to persuade her to stay in New Orleans?” Sykes asked. “I wouldn’t have expected him to take her to work with him.”
“That’s mean,” Poppy said promptly and meant it. “She could be here to see me. Did you think of that?”
Sykes rubbed her arm and smiled. “Sorry. I’m surprised to see her is all.”
Her arm tingled and just looking at his smile made sure everything else tingled, too. “You’d better get in there to Nat,” she said, softening her voice. “Although I can’t think why he wants to see either of you.”
From Liam’s frown, Poppy figured her brother didn’t know, either.
Both men left and Poppy went to greet Wazoo. “Is Nat’s plan to keep you here working?” She knew what she had just said was not so different from Sykes’s suggestion. And she did not feel guilty.
“Sit with me and I might just tell you somethin’ about it,” Wazoo said. The mug of coffee wrapped in
her hands smelled too good. “You want coffee? Hah, I guess you’re the one to see about that.”
Poppy gave the bartender a high sign and pointed to Wazoo’s mug, signaling for a second serving. She slid in beside the other woman who was as darkly dramatic today as yesterday.
Wazoo looked into Poppy’s face. “You are gorgeous, girl. But you know that.”
Poppy started to return the compliment but Wazoo cut her off. “I’m gorgeous, too, I know. We gorgeous girls got to make the best of ourselves—and the best use of ourselves, if you know what I mean.” She winked.
Laughing, Poppy nodded to the barman, Otis, who delivered a second mug and topped up Wazoo’s.
“They’re making beignets in the kitchen,” Otis said. “You tempted?”
Before Poppy could comment, Wazoo said, “Hoo mama, I could eat a hundred of those babies for a starter.”
Otis left with a big smile on his face, and Poppy caught a flash of light from Wazoo’s lap. She took a better look and jumped. “You’ve got a dog there!” What she had seen were bright eyes staring at her.
“I’m watching him for Nat,” Wazoo said.
Poppy said, “Oh,” and decided a dog was just fine in the club if it was with a cop—maybe.
“I don’t know if I’m going to tell Nat this, but the poor little thing has far too much on his mind.”
Not a single word of response came to Poppy.
“He’s a master at covering up his feelings.” Wazoo stroked the dog’s wiry fur, and Poppy heard him sigh. “He looks so relaxed, but inside he’s like a jumble of overstretched rubber bands. I just don’t know how much more he can take.”
Still nothing came to Poppy.
“Oh.” Wazoo patted Poppy’s shoulder. “You are lookin’ at me like I’ve got horns.” She laughed. “I probably do only you can’t see them. I’m an animal psychologist, among other things. I feel what they feel and see what they see—and I know when they are distressed. This is one distressed dog.”
Poppy found her voice. “And you don’t think Nat ought to know this?” She had forgotten the animal-psychologist bit.
Wazoo stretched the dog up until he stood with his back feet on her lap and his front feet on her neck. “We will make sure he gets whatever he needs. Are you gettin’ what you need, Poppy?”
She had another jaw-dropping instant.
“With Nat and me it’s interesting. Who would have thought he’d ever take a second look at me?” The dog curled up on her lap again.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Poppy said. “As you’ve already admitted, you’re gorgeous.”
“Surely, but I am not, well, I’m not the woman a man waits for because she’s the right one to take home to his mama.”
Poppy had coffee in her mouth and she burned her throat when she swallowed and laughed at the same time.
“I haven’t met Nat’s mama,” Wazoo said, looking pleased with Poppy’s reaction. “I’m not sure he has a mama. But if he does she has got to be some good-looking woman. One look at that man and all those important parts of me do the two-step—fast.”
Getting the rhythm of this conversation, Poppy said, “Sounds to me like you’ve made up your mind where you belong. Must be time to stop torturing Nat and tell him you’re his.”
Beignets arrived on an oval platter big enough for the Thanksgiving turkey—for twenty-four people—and Wazoo promptly took a large, sugary bite out of the closest one before tearing off a piece for the dog.
“I see things,” she said when she could speak again. “That worries some folks. They don’t like it.”
“What kind of things?” Poppy turned sideways on the seat to look directly at Wazoo.
She got just as straight a return stare. “Things. I don’t talk about them unless I think I ought to. Usually because I like someone. I don’t know you well but Nat says you’re good people, so that makes you okay with me.”
Poppy ran a forefinger through powdered sugar on the edge of the platter and put the finger in her mouth.
“Sometimes we women keep things private,” Wazoo said. “You know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Men are special. I’m real glad we’ve got them around, but they don’t think the same as we do.”
“Mmm.” Poppy screwed up her eyes. “I’ll give you that.”
“I’ll give it to you straight. If Nat finds out I talked to you about things I’m not about to discuss with him, I may never meet his mama—if he’s got one.”
Poppy gave a little smile. “We can talk between the two of us. As long as you haven’t robbed a bank or something.”
When Wazoo smiled she looked like a teenager—a beautiful teenager. “Not yet, ma’am. It’s you I need to say somethin’ about. You and the men in your life. I thought a long time before I came with Nat today. And I had to do some persuading to get him to let me come at all. You and I hit it off yesterday, that’s what I reminded him. And he thought it was a good idea for the two of us to get together again.”
“Nat’s crazy about you,” Poppy said. Why not toss some of her own reserve to the winds? “I think he’d forgive you anything, if he thought there was anything to forgive.”
Wazoo’s smile was secretive. Coy wasn’t something she could ever be. “I’d say that’s the way your sexy Sykes feels about you.”
Sometimes Poppy thought she needed help speeding up the way she thought. Almost everything that came out of Wazoo’s mouth didn’t have an obvious response.
“He is drop-dead fabulous,” Wazoo said. “He’s the kind of man makes a woman want to turn herself inside out for him. I bet he’s some kind of wonderful in bed. Probably leaves you feelin’ he’s stripped off your skin and you’d give him your flesh and bones to go with it.”
“Um.” Poppy looked around. She had done that a lot this morning.
“I’m not asking you to give away any details. I can’t help it when I see a man and a woman made to get joined up together as often as possible. It makes me happy.” She lowered her voice. “Makes me feel sexy, too. But don’t you ever tell Nat that.”
“No.”
“You need to work hard to snap up that man of yours. Don’t let anything get in your way. Do it fast. There’s trouble coming and if you—” she paused and looked into the distance, absently stroking the dog. “If you don’t keep your eyes wide open and stay close to Sykes, you could be in deep shit.”
Poppy cleared her throat. The way the hairs on her spine rose was more than nasty. It would be easier on her to write Wazoo off as weird, but Nat Archer wouldn’t be so close to someone who was weird.
“Nat looks like a movie star,” Poppy said but her heart wasn’t in it. “Denzel Washington move over.”
“He doesn’t look anything like Denzel Washington. Not that Denzel isn’t a peach. No one looks like Nat. The first time I saw him in Toussaint, I said to myself, ‘That is the sexiest man you ever saw, Wazoo. Maybe
you got to do something about that.’ So I did. The problem is …” She frowned. “We’re talking about you and the blue-eyed raven. How is it to have his arms wrapped around you and that luscious mouth doin’ some of the things it can do to you?”
Poppy felt almost weak. She was grateful when Otis came by to fill their coffee mugs.
“You can tell me all about that later,” Wazoo said, tucking into another beignet. “Let’s get to the other one. I don’t have anything on him yet, or not much, but from what Nat said, I’m not inclined to approve of him.”
“Other one?”
“The man who wants to run Louisiana.”
“You mean Ward?” Poppy said. She drank more coffee. “Ward is a nice man. He’s probably going to run for the senate—if they don’t stick him with a murder rap.”
“Murder?” Wazoo whispered, her eyes huge. “Huh, that wouldn’t be so good, would it? I mean if he wanted to be a senator.”
Poppy wrinkled her nose. “You’d think. Could be it wouldn’t matter at all.”
“You listen to me, Poppy Fortune. Is this other man real interested in you like I think he is?”
“Who told you that?”
Wazoo looked blank. She cleared her throat and said, “Nat.”
“He thinks he is. He started coming here and decided
I was something special, probably because I didn’t show any interest in him.”
Wazoo’s fist came down on the table and she laughed, showing all of her perfect teeth. “Isn’t that the way with them. They want most what they think they might not get. Good, ’cause you belong with Sykes.”
Do I?
Poppy wondered.
“There’s been a lot of parties for this—what’s his name?”
“Ward Bienville.”
“Sounds like a money name,” Wazoo remarked. “Parties to raise interest and money? Is that right?”
“Absolutely.”
Wazoo got her distant look again. “What else are those parties for?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.”
“We’ll see,” Wazoo said. She held the dog close and it didn’t seem to mind being squeezed. “We’ll have lunch today.”
“That would be great,” Poppy said without thinking about it.
“It won’t be till after, though.”
“After what?” Poppy asked.
Wazoo shrugged and signaled to Otis.