Covert Cowboy. Harper Allen
days. Why aren’t you with them?”
He’d gone too far, he realized immediately. She stiffened, and when her gaze locked on his he could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
“My personal life can’t be part of your investigation, Detective, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that question.”
She smoothed her skirt down her thighs and stood, and despite the perceptible chill emanating from her Con felt sudden heat slam into him. Not everything he’d told her had been a lie, he thought, trying to school his features into impassivity. He had asked questions before coming here, and the answers he’d gotten had all been the same. Marilyn Langworthy was a bitch. She was an ice queen. Nothing touched her—not the kidnapping of her tiny nephew, and certainly not the breakup of her relationship with Tony Corso.
Maybe some of what he’d heard was true, but he’d already seen enough of the woman to put the lie to at least two of the labels that had been pinned on her. She cared about the child—cared enough that she was being torn apart by Sky’s abduction, judging from what he’d witnessed moments ago. And if she was an ice queen, it was only because the right man hadn’t come along to melt her yet.
You gon’ be the one who does that, Cap?
The jeering voice inside his head held the same skepticism he’d heard from the late-night denizens of the Canal Street clubs he’d trolled when he’d been young enough that even hardened gamblers had felt a momentary pang of conscience before dealing a tough Creole urchin in on a game of five-card stud. He’d taken them and their consciences to the cleaners, Con recalled without regret. But back then all he’d been risking was money.
The stakes were higher here. And the odds were more overwhelmingly against him than they’d ever been in his life.
F’sure. One of these days I’m gonna come back here and give it my best shot, he answered the jeering voice with a determination that disconcerted even himself. But whether she knows it or not, tonight the lady just needs someone to be with her. And maybe if that someone gets her good and angry it’ll ease her pain for a few hours. Before I leave I can do that for her, at least.
“Let’s get back to the matter you say brings you here, Detective.”
Her voice was like everything else about her, he noted—crisp and unemotional on the surface, but shadowed with a hint of vulnerability that the casual observer wouldn’t catch. He wasn’t a casual observer, Con thought. Not when it came to Marilyn Langworthy. With no enthusiasm he took advantage of that vulnerability.
“Tony Corso,” he agreed. “Word is he was your—how did I hear it?—your good right-hand man, cher’,” he drawled insinuatingly. “That true?”
If she’d stiffened before, now her posture was rigid. Two warning flags of color flew high on her cheekbones, and when she answered him, five generations of Beacon Hill aristocracy on her mother’s side came through in every clipped word.
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re just referring to his position at Mills & Grommett, Detective—” She made a show of frowning in forgetfulness. “I’m sorry. Your name again?”
“Ducharme.” He deliberately took a step onto thinner ice. “But call me Con, sugar. The other’s a mouthful.”
Even if he hadn’t been trying to goad her he wouldn’t have been able to resist letting his gaze linger on the mouth in question, he admitted. Those lips weren’t Beacon Hill at all. They didn’t go with the prim white blouse and the straight skirt she wore, and they didn’t go with the smoothly brushed hairstyle. Those lush lips went with black fishnet stockings, half-undone bustiers, bed-messy tangles of hair obscuring a gleam of blue eye. They were lightly and invisibly glossed—another Beacon Hill legacy, Con guessed. He wondered what that mouth would look like slightly smudged from his kisses.
You’re wondering way too much here, Cap, for a man who doesn’t intend to do anything about it, the voice inside his head warned. Maybe you better back off a little and—
“What is it about me, Detective?” The lips he’d been fantasizing about thinned. “Why do I seem to present a challenge to men of a certain kind, like you and Tony Corso?”
He blinked, feeling obscurely outraged. “Me and Corso, cher’, we’re not two of a kind. I’ll let you take a look at his file sometime and you’ll see just what—”
“His references were solid and when he left he certainly didn’t abscond with the company’s payroll. Whatever you’re trying to charge him with, you’ve obviously made a mistake,” she interrupted him. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I wasn’t Tony’s type, I know now. But just the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in him when we met made him determined to get some response from me, whatever it took. Even so, his approach was nowhere near as fast and crude as yours, Detective,” she added coldly.
She tipped her head to one side. “The innuendoes, the barely veiled insults. Tell me, do you ever get results with them?”
He’d given in to a reckless impulse by coming here in the first place, Con told himself tightly. He’d compounded that recklessness when he’d revealed himself to her. About the only admirable urge he’d acted upon was his hasty decision to take her mind off her nephew’s disappearance by rousing her ire, and that mission, it was all too obvious, had been accomplished.
He’d always known enough to fold his cards and get up from the table when logic and reason told him his run of luck was about to expire. Right now logic and reason were telling him it was time to walk away from Marilyn Langworthy.
Fast and crude? he thought, a tiny spark flaring inside him. Hell, I could have left you thinking anything else of me, sugar, but not that.
“You bet I do,” he said easily. “And if you were honest, you’d admit that sometimes you wish you could slip out of that ice-water manner of yours and into a little Big Easy fast and crude yourself. If you ever feel a lapse in good taste coming on, look me up, cher’.”
“And you’ll what?” Her tone was edged. “Be my—how did you put it?—my right-hand man? I don’t see my taste lapsing that badly.”
Her gaze lasered him. “But I guess I can understand how you work it, Detective. Some women probably just see a big man with dark eyes and black hair when they look at you. Some women might go for that drawl and the riverboat gambler air you put on.”
“I was born in St. Tammany Parish, honey. We all talk like this where I come from,” Con interjected. “And I put myself through college relieving high rollers of their cash on the riverboats, so that’s legit, too. I’m not the one pretending to be something I’m not.”
He smiled into her furious eyes. “Those shoes. Killer heels, sugar, and barely-there straps. They’re your secret sexy vice, aren’t they? They’re the real Marilyn. And deep down I think the real Marilyn could go for a big man with black hair and gambler’s hands if she wasn’t so damn scared of letting loose.”
Shrugging, he turned away. “Too bad for both of us that you’re such a coward, cher’. If Corso contacts you, try to set aside your fears long enough to let me know, will you?”
He felt suddenly angry with himself. If anyone had been a coward here it had been him, Con thought as he strode toward the door. He hadn’t meant to walk into her life this way, had always known there were reasons why Marilyn Langworthy’s path and his should never cross at all. And still he hadn’t been able to resist this encounter. That was bad enough.
But lying about who he was had been worse.
Didn’t have the guts to watch your dreams die right in front of your eyes, did you? the jeering voice said. Letting her think you’re a cochon is preferable to what you know she’d feel if she ever found out who you really are.
“Is it so obvious?”
Her question was so low he almost didn’t hear it. He