The NOLA Heart Novels (Complete Series)

by Maria Luis

  “Nathan?”

  The sound of her sweet voice nearly brought him to his knees, and he ducked inside.

  The breath left his body at the sight of her in the hospital bed. IV tubes pierced her skin, and a swath of white material encircled her head. She peered out at him, her eyes squinting like she couldn’t make him out.

  Had the blow stolen her eyesight?

  His fingers found the metal bed railing, curling tightly so he wouldn’t reach for her. “How are you?” he rasped, sounding so much like he’d smoked a pack of Marlboros today. He hadn’t, though right now the desire for a cigarette nearly rocked him back.

  Her dark eyes lifted. “I can’t really see you.”

  Regret slammed into him: regret that he hadn’t been there with her when she needed it, regret that something precious had been taken away from her. This time, he allowed his hand to gently land on her shoulder. “I’m right here, honey. I’m right here.”

  She blinked. “Oh,” she murmured, sounding surprised, “you are. This is what I get for letting them take out my contacts.”

  Nathan frowned. “Your contacts? You mean that you aren’t . . .?”

  Her expression froze before her mouth curled up into a half-smile. “I had a concussion, Nathan. I can still see you. It’s just that you’re . . . blurry.”

  He’d take looking blurry over the alternative any day.

  Her hand reached up and curled over his. The warm look in her dark eyes . . . it slayed him. Nathan dropped to the chair at her bedside, his hands not once pulling from her grip.

  There was so much to say and all of it warred in his head. Where the hell did he even start? But, God, she was a sight for sore eyes, even with the bandage wrapped around her head and her hair all tangled against the thin paper pillow.

  “What happened, Nathan?”

  He met her gaze. “What do you remember?”

  Her nose scrunched in thought. “Well, I definitely remember thinking that I shouldn’t have gone to Ms. Hansen’s house without you. But I remember Shawna giving me the signature . . . ” Her eyes went wide, her fingers squeezing around his. “The signature! Mierda, did you or someone else get the—”

  “Take it easy, honey,” he said in a low voice. “Brady has it. I definitely agree that you shouldn’t have gone there alone, especially without a single bit of equipment on you, but you did a good job.”

  Her full lips parted. “Shawna did it, didn’t she? She murdered her husband. I heard her just before I passed out. She said she was sorry but that she had no choice. I should have known not to trust her.”

  “Shawna didn’t murder Zeker.”

  Jade’s fingers jerked in surprise, but he didn’t let her go. He never planned to let her go again, not after today.

  “But if Shawna didn’t . . . then was it Miranda, like we thought?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then who?”

  “Bev Hansen.”

  Her only answer was silence, and Nathan didn’t blame her. It was hard to picture the little old lady, who smoked cigarettes by the pack on her front porch, as the woman who had murdered her son-in-law.

  He rubbed the back of his neck at the same moment that Jade said, “I’m so confused. How in the world did she even manage that?”

  Nathan sighed, finally pulling away to lean back in the chair. His shoulders slouched after the weight of the day’s events. “Do you want the long version or the condensed one?”

  “What?” Despite the tubes linked up to her wrist, Jade lifted a hand to point at him. “All of the details, Detective. All of them.”

  Of course she would want them all—his Jade was nothing if not inquisitive. And she’d worked beside him on this case. She deserved to know all the details. After asking the nurse for a little privacy, the door was shut and they were left alone.

  “Nathan.”

  It was all the prompting he needed.

  “Apparently Beverly Hansen was tired of her son-in-law two-timing her daughter. She didn’t kill him herself, but she did hire someone to do so. A guy who lived two doors down.” Nathan dropped his head to stare at the floor between his boots. “That was a misstep on my part—the times I had been over to Ms. Bev’s house, I never noticed the man watching me.”

  “Why in the world would that guy help her commit murder?”

  “According to Shawna, they’d been friends since they were kids and he had an unfortunate life-long crush.”

  Jade snorted. “Seriously? That’s so cliché. So, what, he just decided to get rid of Zeker? Why doesn’t anyone watch TV? We always know that person is going to land themselves in jail.”

  Nathan felt a smile tug at his lips. Trust Jade to bring it back to the crime shows. She was a fan, that was for sure. But, in this case, she was also pretty accurate. He had no idea what Jeff Thompson had thought when he’d agreed to Ms. Bev’s scheming, other than to hope that Shawna might then turn around and give him a chance. Which was unlikely to have happened, even if Ms. Bev’s plan hadn’t gone awry.

  “She planned it all,” he admitted gruffly, “every last bit. From the start, she had us running around in circles. She told me that her daughter had done it, knowing that Shawna hadn’t. She knew that once lab results came back, Shawna would be let go. Naturally, we’d turn our attention to the person with the most to lose—Miranda Smiley. That’s what Bev Hansen predicted, and I . . . ” Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, self-disgust slamming into him. “I fell right into the ploy. Didn’t even consider anything else.”

  Jade’s brows came together, even as her eyes warmed. “Nathan, you just want to see the good in people. You wanted to see the good in Bev Hansen. That’s all. That’s not a bad thing.”

  At her words, he recalled his conversation with Ms. Bev, when she’d asked him what his sin was—wanting too much. He nearly laughed, the irony was so acute.

  “It is when my mistake put you in danger. I just—” All morning, in between thoughts of Jade, he’d considered one question: was he good for the job? Was he what the NOPD needed? Without intending to, he voiced the thought out loud.

  “Oh my god, Nathan, no.” Jade clutched his wrist, her nails biting into his skin. “No. Stuff like this happens. It does. Look at all those instances on TV! Sometimes cases go unsolved for years.”

  He cracked a smile. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Well, yeah.” She shrugged, grinning at him. “It took you less than a month.”

  “Give me a participation ribbon, then.” He couldn’t help it—he returned her smile, flipping her hand over so he could touch their palms together. Maybe she was right. He wasn’t the only one Ms. Bev had fooled in the last few weeks. She’d blindsided the department as a whole, crime lab, the media . . .

  “What about Shawna?” Jade prompted, as she shuffled around on the bed. “Obviously she had to have known.”

  “Not, then,” he told her quietly, “not when her mom had everything taken care of, so to speak. She only found out after she was released from jail, but then it was too late . . . . You can’t hide a murder, no matter who did it. That makes you an accomplice.”

  “So Shawna . . . ?”

  Nathan watched Jade’s features pinch, and he had no doubt that if her hair had been back in a ponytail she would have tried to tighten it. “She’ll be going to jail, along with her mother and Thompson. Thompson was responsible for the pictures of Miranda Smiley. He’d taken them at Ms. Bev’s request. And you were right about the break-in, too. Completely staged by Jeff.”

  “Díos mío,” she swore softly.

  He agreed one-hundred percent. It was a crappy situation all the way around, made even crappier when Nathan thought about the fact that he’d put his ass on the line for both mother and daughter in this case. Talk about being burned.

  “Is Miranda . . . did she and Charlie actually marry? His signature wasn’t real. I saw the credit card bill, and it—”

  “Shawna forged the bill yesterday.”

&n
bsp; He didn’t think it possible for Jade’s mouth to drop open more, but here she was proving him wrong. “You’re kidding me. So Miranda was actually married to Charlie Zeker?”

  Nathan shrugged. “According to Heavenly Met, but not according to the state. Looks like Mr. Simms isn’t as reputable as an institution as he claims. Shawna and Zeker never divorced, so it seems that Charlie Zeker got around, if you know what I mean.”

  Jade flopped back against the bed. “I think I’ve been given too many pain meds. None of this is making sense.”

  “Welcome to the club. Maybe we’ll see this on TV one day.”

  “Can I ask what she hit me with?”

  “Shawna?” Now it was Nathan’s turn to shuffle around uncomfortably. “Well,” he said slowly, “it seems that she knocked you out with a porcelain doll.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Maybe she was still feeling the effects of her concussion. Intending to explain it better, he grunted, “One of those Victorian dolls. Big, terrifying, heavy?”

  She did not look pleased. “She knocked me out with a doll. That is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “To be fair,” Nathan murmured, “she apparently used to play softball. She had quite a swing, and she got you right on the crown.” He flicked his gaze up to her head. “It’s at crime lab right now, in case you were wondering.”

  “The only thing I’m wondering is how she managed to grab it without me noticing! I was right there the whole time, and she didn’t have the opportunity to . . . ” Nostrils flaring, Jade pushed out a breath of air. “She asked me to go in front of her on the way out. She must’ve picked it up then.”

  “Is your head okay?”

  “No, it feels like someone’s taken a sledgehammer to it. Let’s pretend that’s what happened, not the doll thing. A girl has got to keep her dignity and everything—”

  Nathan didn’t want to disappoint her, but . . . “The doll made the news.”

  Her jaw dropped open. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Technically, you made the news, but there’s some B-roll with this doll just laying discarded and fractured in the grass. You might become insta-famous.”

  “I don’t want to be famous at all, insta or otherwise. If we ever have kids, I’m just going to ensure that . . . ”

  Nathan’s heart skipped a beat as her words registered. “If we have kids?” Damn, but those words made him want to drag her close and crash his mouth down over hers. Mine, he wanted the kiss to tell her, all mine. “I think we’re going to need to back up a moment and pull a repeat on that.”

  “I don’t . . . ” Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink as awareness dawned. “Oh. I said that.”

  “You did.” He shifted forward, sliding off the chair until he rested at her bedside on his knees. As tall as he was, it didn’t even matter. They were practically eye level, and she was the prettiest damn sight he’d ever seen. “Jade, I need to apologize about . . . ”

  He didn’t get the chance to finish.

  The door burst open behind him, and then her family marched in.

  31

  It was safe to say that Jade felt like crap.

  Her head pounded like the devil, and her skin felt stabbed raw by all the IVs and needles prodding her.

  But her heart . . . oh, her heart felt like soaring at the sight of her mother storming into her hospital room. “Ma, what in the world are you all doing here?”

  Lucia spared a single look toward Nathan before scurrying to the other side of the bed. She took Jade’s face in her hands, and her dark eyes welled with tears. “My baby,” she whispered, “mi pobracita, look what they did to you.”

  Her mother tugged a little too sharply and Jade bit her tongue to keep from cursing. “I’m okay, Ma, I promise. You can let go now.”

  “She’s never letting go,” said a new voice, one that Jade recognized instantly as her younger sister’s. “You’re obviously coming back to Miami after this, otherwise Mom will never be the same again.”

  Her gaze flicked to Nathan, who’d risen from his spot beside her to stand. He looked . . . he looked good. Masculine and healthy, and way too sexy for his own good—and he hadn’t rushed off when she’d accidentally mentioned the kids thing.

  Which was worrying in its own front, because when had she even begun thinking about kids?

  About the time that you met Nathan Danvers.

  It should have frightened her, it should have sent her running for the hills the way she’d done with John Thomas, but that wasn’t the case now . . . . She wasn’t necessarily ready to pop out any young ones today, but in a few years, maybe, she could see herself doing so.

  With Nathan, only. It seemed crazy to think that in such a short time he could hold her heart so completely, but it was true. He was her best friend and her lover. He saw past Predictable Jade and never stopped until he was convincing her wild side to take a stroll. She loved him for it. She loved that he didn’t make her feel odd or different. She just wished . . . Jade swallowed. She wished that with him being here, that they might have a chance of starting anew, together this time. It hadn’t taken a blow to her head for her to realize that she wasn’t willing to let him go.

  “Kevin,” Lucia exclaimed, still holding Jade’s face in her strong grip, “look what they did to her!”

  From the doorway, her father approached. Like always, he came to stand right next to his wife, his hand on her shoulder. With his free hand, he reached out to hold onto the metal railing of her bed. His knuckles turned white with tension—it was the closest he’d give to showing emotion, and Jade soaked it up.

  “I’m good, Dad,” she told him, “Tell Ma to let me go.”

  “Lucia, querida,” Miami’s police chief murmured, “let her go. Be thankful that puta only used a coffee mug on her, and nothing stronger.”

  Whoa. Back up.

  Jade physically lifted a hand. “Did you just say that she hit me with a coffee mug?” Pulling out of her mother’s grip took some maneuvering, but she finally did so to stare at the man to her left. Her eyes narrowed, even though she could barely see him, thanks to her sorry eyesight. “You said that she hit me with a porcelain doll.”

  Although she couldn’t quite make out his features, she could have sworn he smiled—that playful, mischievous smile of his that encouraged her to do things she shouldn’t. And then he spoke, and it was like that first night they’d met, when he goaded her into a response. “Now, Jade,” he told her now, “I was just trying to make you feel better. Coffee mug . . . Victorian doll. At least the doll story has some character.”

  She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Does this doll exist in real life?”

  “I’m sure I can find one for you should you want it.”

  “You shouldn’t be finding her anything,” a new voice said, and this one . . . Jade’s eyes slid shut with dread.

  Who had thought to bring John Thomas?

  “For the record,” Sammie put in, “I vetoed the decision to bring him. I was out-ruled.”

  “By who?” Jade asked.

  “Me,” said John Thomas. His shoes clipped across the floor, signaling his approach. Jade wondered how ridiculous she would look if she tried to flee, her butt flashing everyone as the hospital gown parted. “I demanded to come along, because I have a few words to say to you, Jade.”

  “John Thomas,” Sammie whispered, “I already told you, you’re going to embarrass yourself.”

  But John Thomas would not be dissuaded. He swaggered on up to the hospital bed, and she wouldn’t put it past him to break out his cell phone and turn on some Marc Antony. When she saw him reach for the back pocket of his chinos, Jade figured she’d called it. Marc Antony was about to begin crooning.

  Then she saw what he held in his hand, and surprise hit her like . . . well, like a coffee mug.

  It was a watch she’d given him for Christmas ages ago.

  He placed it on the little dinner tray off to her right. “After our last talk, Ja
de, I realized some things, mainly at the urging of your sisters.” He cast a quick look at Sammie, and Jade got the feeling it was one of terror. Sammie could be scary like that. “You see,” he continued, “we dated for four long years, and I was convinced that you were the one. You completed me. You made me laugh. And then you broke it off.”

  All attention turned to Jade, and she curled into the hospital bed in an attempt to make herself smaller. She hated awkward moments—hated them—and yet there was nowhere to hide. “I’m sorry?” she squeaked.

  He gave a short nod. “I was heartbroken, of course. I went out and got drunk with my buddies. I’m sorry to tell you, but I may have had sex with at least four women that week.”

  “What a pig,” Sammie muttered.

  John Thomas paid her no mind. “But when I finally came back home, sober, I took a look around my house and realized . . . there was not a single trace of you. Not one. Except for this watch, which you bought for me. Four years and it was like you didn’t exist.”

  She heard Nathan grumble something under his breath.

  “You were a ghost, my Jade. Practically a figment of my imagina—”

  “I can’t do this.”

  The last bit was Nathan, and her gaze jumped to his blurry form. Was he going to leave? Before they had a chance to talk?

  “Don’t go!” she cried, throwing out a hand.

  Strong, masculine fingers gripped hers. Fingers which had brought her so much pleasure, so much joy. “I’m not going anywhere, honey.” He turned, just slightly, and said, “Listen, man, I’m sorry to interrupt, but let’s be honest—you and Jade weren’t meant for each other. And that’s nothing against you. The two of y’all just weren’t a match.” His fingers tightened on hers. “We’re a match, Jade. We’ve been a match since I met you on my parent’s front stoop, and you refused to tell me why you got a ticket on your first day in—”

  “I was driving the wrong way down a one-way.”

  “What?”

  Tears stung her eyes as she peered up at him, and she so wished someone would bring her a pair of glasses, because this seemed the sort of thing she would want to remember for the rest of her life. “I was singing Beyoncé’s latest song at the top of my lungs, and you New Orleanians have all these crazy one-ways, and I didn’t realize until the lights were flashing that . . . I was going the wrong direction.”