by Jaycee Clark
Chills danced over his skin and panic slithered through him.
No. She’d be fine. She was just . . . was . . .
He stood in her bedroom and . . . could smell her.
God.
Goose bumps peppered his skin. He could smell her: citrus, herbal, light flowers, and he could almost swear vanilla. The scent brought tears to his eyes. God, he’d missed the hell out of her.
He scanned the room. Bed was made. Nothing was on the dresser. In fact, nothing was in the closet. Not really. A couple of boxes. He walked back down the hallway and into the kitchen.
A bag sat beside the door, another zipped black overnight bag near the door. He reached into his pocket to call her again and remembered his phone was charging in the rental.
A blinking light in the dim kitchen caught his eye. He flipped on the light.
Her phone sat on the counter, the cord snaking into the outlet.
She didn’t have her phone.
He took a breath and had to take another.
“Where is she?” Carmine asked.
He could only stand there and shake his head. Then shake it again. No. She’d called him. She’d called . . .
His gut twisted.
“Call the police,” he said, or thought he did. He cleared his throat. “Call the police. We should call the police.”
Chapter 8
En Route from Las Vegas to New Orleans, February, earlier that year
Quinlan Kinncaid closed his eyes and sat back in the seat.
He tried to shut his mind up. It wasn’t working.
They’d already refueled and the gang would be on here shortly. Probably with a hard time and tons of questions, none of which he would answer.
As if he could.
Damn. Today was Monday. He realized that when he was checking out earlier. Where the hell did Sunday go? He didn’t have a single clue. Or rather he did, but he did not want to think about what happened on Sunday evening. Sunday night? He hadn’t read the papers that closely.
He rarely drank. Not after everything that had happened before. He’d learned the hard way drugs didn’t have a taste in alcoholic drinks, at least not the ones the bitch had poured into him before she’d tried to kill him and everyone else in his family a year ago. After she failed to kill him, he learned the docs didn’t approve of vodka painkiller cocktails. They were frowned upon for one’s recovery.
He wondered if he should be worried.
Fuck yes!
He remembered some things over the last couple of days. Okay, the beginning was bright and shiny. His brothers ambushing him for a mini-vacation of fun in New Orleans. A men’s getaway or whatever. Aiden had been thinking classy fun. Hell, most of them were. But Bourbon Street was Bourbon Street and sooner or later all tourists ended up there and classy ended up bead-covered and vomiting in the gutters. Eight males away from home and wives? Pack mentality. Nothing classy about it.
Ella.
He remembered her tie-dyed pink shirt and blue hair. He remembered running into her, literally, while grabbing a few things at the grocery store on Ursuline.
Not that any of them did anything shocking, at least that he knew of. The first night he didn’t have more than a glass of wine, watched as his various brothers, cousins, and friends achieved several levels of inebriation and then the bead tossing commenced.
Probably a video on YouTube somewhere.
Fine with him. Then was the club Christian’s brother had taken them too. Cheesy when explained but fun nonetheless, and brilliant if risky from a marketing standpoint. He remembered having a business discussion with the man on the fact he didn’t foresee the club lasting forever, but it was fun for now and had already paid for itself.
Profit was profit. Great.
Café Du Monde.
And then her house.
Yeah, he remembered that.
He was clear on walking her home after they’d talked and laughed, walked the streets of the Quarter. He remembered heading back to her place and all the worries that he would never again be able to slide hard and thick into a soft, slick woman—well, she’d shown him how stupid that fear had been. But it was a big damned fear, one he’d only shared with his therapist at some point and didn’t mention again.
With her, though . . . with her, there was no need to worry. He gotten hard just thinking about her.
They’d talked.
A lot.
He’d laughed and felt free for the first time in too damned long.
Spending the next couple of days looking for art supplies for the shelter, meeting up with her for dinner with his brothers, where they’d all drank. He and Ella had walked the streets until almost dawn just talking, listening to others play music, laughing, talking more. Then drinking some fruity concoctions out of slushy machines. Her place, where they made love just after dawn. Champagne for breakfast, on the plane . . .
He didn’t remember which one of them mentioned Vegas, but one of them had. He remembered the fun ride to Vegas, the fact that they’d made love most of the way there while drinking champagne off of each other, giggling and laughing.
Apparently, he’d had copious amounts of bubbly for the last couple of days. He winced behind his shades.
Vegas was bright, so bright and fun. He remembered laughing. Remembered getting a room—or suite, rather—at the Bellagio.
Gambling. Something he was good at, he knew, but rarely did at the tables. He enjoyed the everyday gamble of business. However, he was almost two hundred grand richer on this return trip. A definite plus there. He apparently played at some point. He didn’t remember actually playing, though there was a vague memory of cards, and that left a slick fear in his gut. The fact the concierge asked him if he wanted to cash out this morning when checking out confirmed he hadn’t completely lost it and robbed a bank or what the hell ever.
The rest was rather blank. Sort of. Mostly. Sort of.
He remembered the scent of her skin, the taste of her, the silky glide of her beneath him, over him, around him. He knew how husky desire tinged her voice. The way her eyes glinted with passion as he thrust into her. The way she chuckled against him. The tattoo low on her hip with one word, Trust, below a dragonfly. Love was stenciled in flowing letters along her inner left wrist. Beauty scrolled along the side of her left breast in Hindu. He’d traced every letter with his tongue. He damned well remembered that. Her strange and quirky hair reminding him of pale blue cotton candy, though the silky strands had slid through his fingers.
And.
And.
Elvis.
He remembered a flash of Elvis and this morning he’d had a ring—not cheap either, as both his and hers had been billed to his room—on his fucking finger.
A. Ring.
Holy fuck.
He thumped his head back. Then bit back another curse as his head pounded. He honestly hadn’t felt this hungover since before the Hellinski bitch. She’d given him a couple of hangovers he’d never forget.
This hangover, though, just might beat hers, and he had no one to blame but himself. Or the champagne. Bubbly was bad. All the effing bubbly’s fault.
He’d sworn he’d never get married—more than once. God knows he’d said it plenty to everyone in his family.
Yet?
Yet.
Elvis.
The. Rings.
And . . .
The note.
The. License.
He shied away from the last. The former though . . .
. . . I’m sorry. I know it’s rude to run out, more than rude. But we didn’t . . . we shouldn’t have . . . I have to go. Thanks for the great weekend and don’t worry. Call your lawyers and get an annulment or whatever and get back to me. Neither of us wants to be married. I don’t want anything except the wonderful memories. Best to you, my darlin’ Quin. ~ Ella
She’d left a five-carat diamond ring on the note for him to find. The platinum band his account said he’d also gotten her was not there.
> She left the more valuable ring and kept the simple band. Why?
God almighty.
He leaned forward and gripped his head just as Roger, their pilot, said, “Boys’ll be on in a bit, Mr. Q. You need anything?”
When they were younger, the pilot and driver and whoever else had started referring to them as Mr. First Initial. Kept things easy, he supposed. Too many Mr. K’s in this family.
He almost shook his head. Instead he just waved his hand and mumbled, “Nothing. Thanks, Roger.”
The door gave a hiss as Roger opened it. Several minutes passed before the herd stampeded in.
This should be good.
Elvis? For some reason, Elvis in his mind was in drag, which made no sense whatsoever.
His family would kill him if he didn’t do himself in.
Last time he was this impulsive and stupid with a woman it liked to have killed him and his whole family—or part of them.
This time?
He’d only gotten married. God.
Who knew? He didn’t remember signing a prenup.
Prenup. Or was that lost? He’d have to talk to Brody—at some point. Clearly, he hadn’t called his lawyer, or said cousin and the rest of the family would have undoubtedly tried to stop the damned wedding.
Oh my God.
She could . . . Hell, he’d have to check with Brody. Though not now.
What did he really know about her?
. . . I don’t want anything . . .
Ella . . .
He saw her blue-green eyes with amber flecks in them, weird hair and pale skin. He knew so much about her, but so little. She volunteered at shelters and gave her afternoons to the elderly and taught yoga. He’d enjoyed her yoga, in more ways than one, which was totally beside the effing point.
What the hell did he do?
Ian slapped the back of his chair and slid into one across from him.
“Vegas?”
“Hey, little bro. Got tired of our party and went and made your own, huh?” Gavin muttered as he sat beside him. Someone else sat down, but Quinlan didn’t open his eyes, move, or remove his shades to see who it was. Didn’t care.
“So who was the chick? The cotton-candy-haired one? Eliza or Ellen or whatever?” Aiden asked, also across from him. The others piled in quickly. Clearly they were ready to go home as well. And why the hell wouldn’t they be? They’d planned to go home yesterday.
Home.
How the hell would she get home?
He’d left a message with the front desk in case she returned, along with an envelope of money—more than enough to see her safely back to New Orleans.
However, she left him, hadn’t she?
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing he still hadn’t decided. Bad echoed through his brain. Knee-jerk, probably, but he did have his pride, stupid as it was.
“Hello?”
Seat belts clicked into place throughout the cabin as the jet fired up and everyone was ready for takeoff.
Quinlan ignored them all until he felt someone take his wrist. He jerked then and glared at Gavin. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
Gavin held his hand out. “Just making sure you were okay, ’cause you look like hammered shit. Worse than Bray, and he’s pretty bad.”
No one said anything for a long while as the plane took off and cabin pressure built. By the time his ears popped, the boys had gotten waters and drinks, whatever they wanted.
He wanted nothing.
Gavin handed him water anyway. “So, spill before one of them beats it out of you and then I’d have to play doctor and patch you up. After I help them, of course.”
He only flipped them all off.
“I already said I was fine, didn’t I?” he snapped.
Aiden just stared at him, as did Ian. Why did those two have to be sitting across from him. Those two could pull off the worried, nearly pissed-off father routine way too well. He could hear Brody and Gabe arguing about God only knew what. Bray was nowhere to be seen. Sorry bastard was probably sleeping. Would be nice. Apparently no one was going to let him get away with that. Couldn’t really blame them though, as he had left them stranded.
“So,” Ian finally said, sitting back, opening his own water. “Vegas.”
Quinlan tried to ignore him.
“At least you didn’t come home with some gold-digging wife,” Aiden muttered.
“Nope, I left her in Vegas,” he told them.
“Speaking of, what happened to what’s her name you ditched us for?” Ian asked, his gaze sharp. “Heard she went with you, or did you take someone else?”
Gold-digging wife? If only. No, she wasn’t even that—which, all things considered, he should be thankful for. But—okay, he was—but damn it. She’d slipped out like a thief in the night. After everything they’d shared.
Connected.
He’d felt connected to the woman like he never had before.
How the hell was she going to get home and—
Gavin shoved his shoulder.
He shoved him back.
“Maybe I did get married.”
Gavin scoffed. “You?” He laughed and then laughed some more.
“So it’s true, then,” Bray grumbled from somewhere behind them all. “Satan’s building a ski run in hell?”
Quinlan took a deep breath.
“And if you did,” Ian started, his gaze still searching, and seeing too damned much, “where is the illustrious Mrs. Quinlan Kinncaid?”
He shifted and shrugged. “No idea.”
“See, he’s not married.” Gavin chuckled. “He’d have to be drugged again and out of his mind.”
That was just a little too close to the truth. He shifted again in his seat.
Ian’s eyes narrowed and now Aiden was leaning forward. “Or just seriously drunk.”
Bray leaned over the top of the seat. “If it’s Ella, at least she’s pretty, even if she’s a bit weird.”
Brody joined the group. Ever the lawyer. “Please tell me there was no marriage, and if so, you have a prenup somewhere, somehow.”
Quinlan shut his eyes and leaned back, ignoring them all. Their joking was too damned close to the truth and he didn’t want to deal with any of it just now.
“So are you or aren’t you?” Aiden asked.
As both rings were sitting in his pocket along with her damned note, that was an easy answer, though he wasn’t about to admit that. “Apparently not. She’s left me the ring and a sweet note and I’ve no idea where she is.”
“Do you have any idea who she is?” Gabe asked, joining the conversation. “It is Ella, isn’t it? Or did you elope with some Vegas showgirl?”
Several mutters and curses filled the air.
“I only ask ’cause I married this really sweet Vegas showgirl once. God, she had a pair on her, and legs that went on for fucking ever. And,” he continued, holding a hand up as questions were lobbed at him, “I didn’t remember her. I remember getting hitched. Remember the weird preacher dude and—”
“Can they be preachers in Vegas? Isn’t that like a priest in Sodom and Gomorrah?” Bray asked.
“Anyway, he wore this weird lime green suit, which is how I found him, and he said we never signed the license, which is how I slicked by. Don’t even remember her name. But she had the best ass I’ve ever seen and a dimple just . . .”
Great. Why didn’t he just shrug them all off.
“You should all see your faces, shocked to amused to completely pissed,” Quinlan said, forcing a laugh.
They all sat back and huffed.
Aiden pointed to him. “I knew you couldn’t be that stupid. Gabe, well, he’s a different story. I write it off to him being a cop and too many close encounters with death.”
“Hey!” the cop said. That rankled. “Why? Because I’m too stiff? Too predictable? Too set in my ways to find a great girl for a weekend fling and then marry her?”
“Yeah, we all foresaw your trip to Sin City,” Gavin said and sighed b
ack himself. “This was, overall, a fun weekend. We should do it again. This time all of us, and not just some of us while others go seek diversion elsewhere.”
Ian was the only one who continued to watch him. Great. Just great.
Let him wonder, let him look. Let him search. Maybe then Quinlan would know where she was, because he had a marriage certificate for Clark County, Nevada, and it was notarized and had both legible sigs on the bottom of it.
He. Was. Married.
How the hell did that happen?
Married?
Insanity. Ella. Laughter?
Laughter. It had been so long since he’d really laughed and with her it had been . . . so easy. So . . . right. He’d even told her about the hell last year of being drugged and almost killed. How he got his permanent limp. Yeah, everything had been perfectly right.
Stupid too, apparently.
And champagne. Lots of champagne he’d licked off her heated skin, her chilled skin . . . off the dragonfly tattoo low on her hipbone. He remembered running his tongue along the Hindu symbols along the side of her left breast, tracing them with his finger. The way the lights played in her hair. A memory pierced his brain of him running her hair through his fingers while she said she wanted to change the color.
“To what? I thought you were going purple next time,” he’d said.
“I’m thinking pale, probably white if I can find someone to get it that color with a dark purple stripe in it.” She’d wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss . . .
Champagne. The bill showed seven bottles charged last night. And absinthe. Wicked evil brew that. What the hell had possessed him to order the green liquid, he had no idea.
Alcohol and impulsiveness. Dangerous partnership.
And a taunt. He remembered that. She teasing him that he never was spontaneous.
The memory slipped away.
He closed his eyes and decided he’d worry about it later. He caught Brody’s eye and his cousin lifted his thumb and pinky to his jaw in the classic call me sign.
He might just have to.
Chapter 9
