by Nina Bruhns
He couldn't believe she was actually gone. For good.
His world tilted and started to crash around him. But before it could get too far, anger swept through his veins and rescued him from breaking down in front of a hundred witnesses and bawling like a baby.
How could she have left him after all they'd shared?
And for what? Some pip-squeak, good-for-nothing delinquent kid who didn't even give a damn that she cared enough to come home to drag his sorry behind out of trouble. He spun away from the window and stalked outside, catching a cab downtown.
At ten o'clock, it was hardly "first thing in the morning" but he figured he'd better go in and get his little interview with the captain over with. He jetted out a breath, glaring through the cab window at the heavy traffic on Interstate 10. If he was really lucky, he'd get fired. That would be the perfect end to a really perfect day. Then he could just put a bullet through his head and finish the job Grace had started by walking out on him.
Sure, sure, he'd been through it all before. But this time … this time he just didn't have the will to fight it any longer. The feeling of betrayal and abandonment was so total, so overwhelming, that this time he knew he wouldn't recover. Grace's cruelty had slashed him like a razor to the heart.
For a short time, for one breathless, suspended moment, he had actually thought she loved him and wanted him. When she had proposed marriage, he'd been stunned speechless, unable to utter a sound for stupefaction, but he'd believed she was serious. The look on her face had been so incredibly hopeful and sincere. Or so he'd thought…
Hell, it didn't matter what he'd thought. It had all been a cruel joke. She hadn't meant it. She'd laughed in glee at the very idea. Thank God he hadn't had the time to respond and make a total fool of himself by saying yes. Thank God she'd wrapped her siren's body around him and slowly seduced his senses to oblivion, reduced his mind to nil, so he couldn't think, could just feel her satin heat slowly drive him mad with want.
Walking through the door of the downtown police headquarters where he worked, he snorted at his incredible gullibility.
Just kidding… Had you worried, didn't I?
Yeah, he'd been worried all right. Was still worried. Worried for his blessed sanity.
The captain's secretary gave him a furtive glance as she motioned him into the corner office. Bon. So, he was history. Hell, it was almost a relief. Not having a job would be one less thing to worry about.
The cap lit into him the second he entered. "What have you got to say for yourself, Detective Levalois?"
Creole ground his jaw and was tempted to keep his mouth shut. Instead he stood straight and looked him in the eye and said, "Man who killed my brother's dead, Sir."
The cap's eyes narrowed. "So I hear." Then he frowned. "Gary Fox was brought in this morning by the FBI. He'd handed over a video tape to them."
Creole sucked down a wave of nausea but didn't comment.
The older man took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and regarded him as though deciding his fate at that very moment. In reality Creole was sure the cap knew exactly what he was going to say and do with him.
"You're a loose cannon, Levalois."
"Yessir."
"You disobeyed my orders. I don't like my officers disobeying direct orders."
"No sir."
"What do you think I should do with officers who disobey my orders, Levalois?"
"Fire 'em, sir."
The cap leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "How about this instead. You're confined to desk duty for two months, pending investigation of the Davies incident at the Louisa Street Warehouse last night. You're to undergo a psych evaluation, and whatever counseling the psychologist recommends, you do every damn hour of it. You better walk the straight and narrow from now on, Levalois, or you're out on your loose-cannon butt. You got that?"
Suddenly it was all too much for Creole. The whole damn thing. He was so damn tired of working himself to death to bring order to the chaos, only to be slapped down at every turn.
He couldn't fight it all. Not the bad guys, the cap and the system, too. This morning he'd lost the only thing in the world that might have made it worthwhile to keep fighting the uphill battle. But now that he'd lost Grace, what was the point? He didn't have the will to do it. Not for a minute more.
All he wanted was to lie down for about a year and not move. Better yet, drink himself into a stupor for several years and not move. No investigation. No psych eval. And no damn counseling.
"Non," he answered.
The cap snapped his head up and glared. "Excuse me, Detective?"
"I said no." With that, he dug his badge out of his wallet, yanked the Glock from his holster, and slapped them both onto the polished oak desk in front of the cap.
"I quit."
* * *
Grace stared in astonishment at the man standing on the other side of her cluttered desk, and a huge grin broke out all over her face. "You did what?"
"I married her."
"You married her. Just like that."
"Yep. I couldn't do it—leave town, that is. I couldn't leave her. I love her. And our baby. Did I do the right thing?" Frank Morina's earnest young expression pleaded with Grace.
"Oh, Frank." She jumped up and ran to give him a hug. "You did the right thing. You have no idea how right a thing you've done. I'm so proud of you!"
It had been over a week since she'd gotten home, and the whole time she hadn't been able to find the boy. He was no longer living at home, and she had truly feared the worst. But this morning Frank had walked into her high school office with Nikki on his arm, fresh from a civil wedding ceremony in Alabama.
"We're converting the garage studio to a place where we can live until we both graduate and I can find a job."
"At her parents'?" That explained why she hadn't been able to find him.
He nodded and glanced out to the hall, to where Nikki waited, and looked at his young wife with soft, melty eyes. "They are being really nice about the whole thing. I can't believe it. I think they actually like me. Despite…" He shrugged, looking about as guilty as a handsome, seventeen-year-old scoundrel could manage to look.
"Of course they like you," she reassured him with a proud smile. "You're a good person, and you'll make a wonderful father."
"You think so?" His eyes sparkled with a joy she'd never seen in them before.
Her heart squeezed. "I know so."
"It's all because of you, Miz Summerville. Thanks for believing in me when nobody else did. If it weren't for you…"
Hushing him before they both started weeping, she gave him another hug and pushed him out the door toward his new wife.
Fighting back her tears, she scolded, "You've only got two weeks before school starts. You better get working on converting that studio, young man."
After congratulating Nikki with more hugs, she gave them a watery-eyed wave on their way into a life of complications and hardships, but with any luck, also love, companionship and devotion. And most of all, family.
She closed her office door and leaned her back against it. And burst into tears.
With a sob she stumbled to her chair and fell into it, burying her face in her hands, and cried her heart out.
She'd been a hopeless jumble of raw emotion since leaving New Orleans. She missed Creole so much there were moments she thought she would simply wither up and die.
She'd been so certain she had done the right thing by leaving him. He was no good for her. There had been plenty of reasons to believe that. Her father's example, and the other reckless boys who had broken hearts right and left in high school. Frank and the dozens of similar high-risk kids she counseled as an adult had all followed the same pattern. And hadn't Creole's own reaction to her ridiculous marriage proposal shown her how he felt about making a commitment?
Men like her father, Frank and Creole, they didn't settle down, and they didn't change.
And yet, here was Frank, just sevente
en and cocky as hell, showing her it really was possible for a man like him to change. To her amazement he'd done a hundred-eighty-degree about-face, all on his own. And she knew his interest in graduating and getting a good job wasn't because he had suddenly been bitten by the responsibility bug.
No, it was all for love. Frank loved Nikki and their unborn child and was willing to grow up and face his private fears and demons to make a life with them.
Did she dare hope Creole could do the same?
Grace wiped a tissue over her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. Unconsciously she lowered her hand to the curve of her belly. She'd been on a physical and emotional roller coaster for days, feeling ill and faint and heartsick all at once. She'd attributed it to lingering aftereffects of the trauma of being kidnapped, almost tortured and losing the man she loved, all within twenty-four hours.
At her mother's urging, yesterday she'd gone to the doctor, to have herself checked out, to have blood tests and to get a prescription for something that would take the edge off her terrible depression. Today he'd called back. And told her she was pregnant.
Gathering all her courage, she took her shaking hand from her stomach and lifted the phone receiver. She'd looked up the number just before Frank and Nikki stopped by, so she had no excuse to delay any longer. She punched in the eleven digits for the New Orleans Police Department and asked for Detective Levalois.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, he's no longer with the department."
"What?"
"I can connect you with another detect—"
"No! There must be some mistake. Detective Levalois worked there just last week. He can't be gone!"
"Sorry, ma'am. He quit after that warehouse shooting."
"He quit?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She hung up feeling even more disoriented than she had before. Why would he quit the NOPD? She dialed Muse's apartment, in case he was there, and he wasn't. Then she called information for his apartment's phone number and tried there, but the phone had been disconnected.
She stared at the instrument beeping in her hand. She couldn't believe this. A minute ago she had been spinning wild fantasies about the man. About how maybe he would change if she told him about the baby. She knew he cared about her. Was more than attracted to her. And he hadn't really said no to her unorthodox proposal—she hadn't given him a chance. Once she'd made up her mind he was looking for a way out, she hadn't let him get a word in edgewise. Later, in bed, he'd tried to bring it up again, but she'd cut him off with passionate kisses, afraid to hear the rejection she'd been so certain was coming.
But listening to Frank talk about Nikki and the baby, a tiny hope had blossomed in her heart. Could she have been wrong? Had Creole been trying to tell her that, yes, he loved her and wanted to marry her?
She had been so blind about him, seeing only what she'd wanted to see—his rough-edged, confirmed-bachelor, bad-boy image that held her in such fear because of her father. But the truth was he'd been a cop for years and had climbed out from his terrible beginnings to become a respected detective—a steady model citizen if ever there was one. You really couldn't get much more committed than that.
Admittedly, his personal life had been troubled and superficial up until now, but he'd had ample reason for that. Maybe he wanted to change that aspect of his life, too, and she just hadn't given him a chance to say so. But now he was gone, and she'd never know.
Where in the sweet name of heaven was he?
She put her knuckles to her mouth, stifling a whimper. What if she never found him, was never able to tell him about his baby?
The office door swung open. She looked up, tears trembling on her lashes. And in answer to her silent prayer, there stood Creole.
* * *
Creole was more nervous than he'd ever been in his life. All at once this whole idea seemed purely crazy. Le bon Dieu m'ait la main. God help him. What had he been thinking of?
Grace stared up from behind her desk with an expression lodged somewhere between dazed and dumbfounded.
He flexed his shoulders, adjusting the uneven weight of his shoulder holster, and then remembered it wasn't there. He'd taken it off after turning in the Glock and hadn't worn it since. No wonder he felt off balance.
Suddenly Grace burst into tears.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
At his unintentionally harsh tone, she covered her eyes with the phone receiver she was holding in her hand and cried even harder.
Damn. This wasn't going well. Not at all how he'd planned it out.
He took a step backward. "Look, this was a mistake. I'll just leave—"
"No!" Those big, expressive blue eyes were plastered on him in an instant. "Don't go! Please, Auri."
He hesitated. She'd called him Auri. That had to be some kind of a good sign. "Why are you crying?"
The phone receiver in her hand beeped loudly. She glanced at it as though startled to see it there, then hastily returned it to the cradle.
"I was just—" She wiped her eyes. "I tried to call you, and I couldn't find you anywhere. Your phone was disconnected and they told me you quit your job, and you weren't at Muse's place and—" Her words rushed to a halt.
A whip of alarm sliced into his gut. "You tried to call me?"
"Why did you quit your job?"
He took a step toward her. "Is something wrong? Why did you call?"
She wrung her hands in her lap, avoiding his gaze. "I'm … I m-missed you," she stammered.
A sweet flutter of hope touched him deep inside. He took another step. "Yeah?"
"And when they said you'd left, I was just so worried."
She looked up at him through still-wet eyes, and for a second his heart forgot how to beat. He couldn't believe what she was saying. "You were?"
"I thought I'd never see you again." Her breath hitched and ended on a hiccup. "Oh, Auri, what happened with your job? I know how much it meant to you."
He gave himself a silent kick. The last thing he wanted to be talking with her about was his job. Not when she'd just told him so sweetly how she'd missed him and had worried about him to the point of tears.
He gave an impatient wave of his hand. "My heart wasn't in it anymore." No, it was fully engaged elsewhere. Too engaged to care about anything else until he had her by his side forever. "Grace, I—"
"But you loved being a detective!"
"No." He sighed, and shot a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. Just like she'd done to his world. "I loved putting away scumbags. I just thought being a detective was the most effective way of doing that. But because of you, I realized I was wrong."
Her jaw dropped. "Me? What did I do?" Guilt and confusion swam in her pooled eyes.
He rounded the desk and perched on the corner next to her, pushing aside the stacks of papers and files. "You showed me a better way. You showed me a better way to do a lot of things, Grace."
She looked up at him, her lush, rosy lips parted slightly. "I did?"
He wanted to sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless for bringing her own poignant brand of goodness and light into his life. And not let her go until she promised to keep it there for the rest of it. "Yeah. You did."
A little frown appeared. "And that's why you quit your job?"
He pushed out an impatient breath. Why did she keep harping on that damn job when he wanted to talk about more important things?
"Yeah," he said, determined to settle this stupid topic once and for all. "I was so damned angry when you left me. So incredibly jealous of that kid Frank for takin' you away from me. But after a week in the bottom of a bottle, I finally realized you'd had no choice. You'd never sell your students short by leaving them behind—even at the cost of your own happiness. You believe too much in them, in what you're doin', to betray their trust. With my background, I have nothing but respect for that."
He reached for her hand and continued, "It also made me realize I was at the wrong end of things. I shouldn't be catching criminals.
I should be working with kids, tryin' to keep them from turning to crime in the first place. Like you."
Her eyes had rounded to the size of saucers. "Really?"
"Really. Now—"
"There's a job here at the high school they've been trying to fill all summer," she interrupted breathlessly. "For a police liaison. Working with kids."
"Not anymore, there isn't."
Her face fell. "It's filled?"
"Yeah. By me."
Her eyes captured his. "Oh, Auri. That's wonderful!" Then a smile crept over her face, radiating like the sun, so beautiful it almost hurt to look at. "But that means … it means… "
"We can be together. If you want."
Emotions bounced through her wide eyes like bullets ricocheting off clouds in a blue sky—emotions he couldn't begin to recognize. Fear seized him by the throat, fear worse than anything he'd ever felt facing down bad guys on the streets.
"You did this for me? To be with me?" she said in an uneven whisper. "You left New Orleans … left your home … to … to…"
He slid from his perch and hit his knees beside her chair, swiveling it around to face him. "No, chère." He shook his head and her chin trembled. "I've never had a home. Never even wanted one. Not until I met you."
"Oh, Auri," she whispered, and her eyes filled up again, making him want to kick himself up one side and down the other for making her sad, when he wanted only to make her happy.
"Grace, I— Aw, hell." He plucked her hands from her lap. "God knows, I'm no prize. I've got more problems than a two-legged dog, no place to live, and a brand-new job I probably suck eggs at. But I love you, honey. And you once said you loved me. I figure you regretted askin' and that's why you wouldn' let me answer, but hell, baby, you asked me to marry you—sort of—and I couldn' live with myself if I let you go without giving you an answer. So that's what I'm here to do, whether you want to hear it or not. It's yes."
"You love me?"
"I love you. Like crazy I love you."
She blinked, causing a lone tear to track down her cheek. "Do you want kids?"
