One-Eyed Jack (The Deuces Wild Series Book 3)

by Irish Winters

  The man pulled away. “Then leave me the hell alone,” he bit out.

  Isaiah watched him go. The poor guy’s shoulders slumped. He shuffled like an old man with no reason to live. For a moment, Isaiah worried if he should follow him to make sure he wasn’t headed to any number of the bridges on the Potomac to do himself in. A man without hope was one of God’s cruelest tragedies.

  But at the chapel door, the big guy turned, tipped his index finger to the rim of his hood and nodded once at the alter as if he’d reached an understanding with the Lord. Maybe he had. Isaiah surely hadn’t, not for the sweet life taken from him when he was Kitty’s age. What he wouldn’t give for one more day with his mom.

  A hand in the middle of his back brought Isaiah around. “I’m sorry I ran away,” Candace whimpered, tears brimming her eyes, “but I can’t take it when she struggles to breathe. I feel like it’s happening to me, as if I’m suffocating right along with her. I had… I had to…” She flung herself into his arms. He barely caught her before she snuggled under his chin.

  “I hate asthma. It takes everything. My peace of mind. My calm center. And someday, maybe even my daughter,” she cried. “How does anyone survive that?”

  From breasts to hips, she pressed her warm body into him. One hand circled his neck, the other slithered inside his suit jacket and ended nestled at his hip, a little too warm, given their body guard/client roles. Yet he read nothing into it, just did his best to comfort Kitty’s mother without leading her on. Sometimes people needed a hug.

  “When I left, Kitty looked and was doing better. Her cheeks had more color. She was breathing easier. Let’s go back, so you can see with your own eyes.”

  Her head bobbed, bumping his chin, but she made no effort to extricate her limbs. She sniffed. “She’s so little and frail.”

  He nodded like the big dumb jock that he morphed into at tender times like this. Women were not his strong suit, and Isaiah, the top Level Ten psychic in the country, honestly didn’t know where to put his hands. Firmly and without moving his palm or fingers in any comforting gesture that might be mistaken for a sexual come on, he placed one palm lightly on just the top of her shoulder.

  Not her arm, where a man’s touch could be mistaken for right or possession, and not her neck, the single most telling grip a man could exert on a woman. A woman’s neck was a fragile thing, a puzzle of bones that could be stroked or just as easily snapped. To hold the nape of a woman’s neck implied trust and intimacy. The only nape Isaiah wanted in his hands belonged to a spitfire Hispanic with blood in her eye were she to catch him like this, almost—but not really—embracing the woman Roxy thoroughly distrusted.

  Hands down, Isaiah trusted Roxy more than Candace. No matter how much empathy he’d extended to this woman, he kept coming up with zero. She never gave his psychic probes more than a smooth flat surface to bounce off of. She was the echo that never came back to him, the void in the mirror where her reflection ought to be. Even now, in what surely had to be one of the worst moments in her life, Isaiah sensed no emotions from Candace Bratton. Despite her display of affection for Kitty and Darrin, he sensed no depth to her. No real concern. No hint of motherly love.

  Interestingly, Roxy had stirred the deepest depths of his soul with just one touch. But Candace? She’d thrown her entire body at him., and he didn’t feel a thing.

  When Candace snuggled in closer, his nose filled with the fragrance of strawberries from her shampoo, and Isaiah’s mind flew back to the safe house and Roxy. She always smelled of coconuts and sunshine, as if she’d just come in from the outdoors, as if she loved every minute of her rowdy, cop-on-the-beat life, and couldn’t wait to get back to it.

  Her coy smile, the one she hadn’t known she’d shared with him, now reminded Isaiah that he had his hands on someone else—and that Candace’s hair was unbound instead of secured like it had been back in the ER. When did that happen?

  He dropped his arms to his sides. “Time to go,” he said sternly. He was not a love-the-one-you’re-with kind of guy. “Dr. Duggan’s with Kitty, but she’ll be upset and wondering where you are.” Wouldn’t any kid who’d nearly died want their mom to be there with them?

  Candace shook her head, her long mane flouncing from side to side. “Uh-uh. She’s been here enough times. She knows I can’t handle seeing her like that. She’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

  “But she’s your daughter.” How could a mother not want to be with her panicked child when said child could barely breathe? When that child’s lips had been blue when she’d been brought in? When she might die? Kitty’s condition had frightened Isaiah, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He’d thought he’d arrived too late to save her just like he had with—Mom.

  When a sigh shuddered through Candace, Isaiah thought she’d come to her senses, that she’d do right by her child and go running back to the ER. Instead, she asked, “Can we sit for a while longer and just talk? It’s been a really bad day.”

  He closed his eyes, fighting a growing sense of urgency to be somewhere—anywhere—else. His sense of duty had changed. In the bank, he’d honestly thought she was a woman fighting for her life. Now he didn’t know who she was, and he was tired of her mixed signals. They did need to talk.

  Very carefully, he took hold of her biceps and extricated her from his proximity. Without another word, he gripped her elbow and directed her to the rear bench nearest the chapel exit. “I’m FBI, ma’am. I’m here to protect you and your children,” he told her sternly in case she’d gotten the wrong idea. Women tended to crush on the guy who came to their rescue. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any infatuation. “So talk.”

  That brought a coy smile to her lips, not what he was going for. Smoothing her hands over her hips, she sat at the end of the bench, forcing Isaiah to step around her. He took the seat a respectable three feet to her left, turned and lifted his knee to the bench as a barrier between them. This was not one of those cozy moments. “What’s so important you can’t talk about it back at the house?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, her eyes on her fingertips now fluttering on her knees. “It’s just been a crazy day, and I guess I needed adult conversation instead of all the drama for a change.”

  He waited. Gradually it came out. She’d been born the fourth daughter of parents who liked their booze more than their kids. Her childhood was no picnic, but on rare days, her mother and father tried to be fit parents. They’d camped out a lot, and because of those excursions, she loved the forest near Roanoke, and she adored Williamsburg with its colonial atmosphere. She’d never planned on having children, but now she had two, and she couldn’t be happier. She worked hard, and she meant to be better off than her parents someday. Sooner than later, she hoped.

  Candace ended with, “A girl can dream, Special Agent Zaroyin. What about you? What was it like to be you when you were growing up?”

  He’d hooked one elbow over the bench back and interlocked his fingers over his stomach, listening and asking a question or two as her story had unfolded. But he hadn’t expected that question, and he should have. Isaiah had certainly heard it enough.

  The tiny hairs up the back of his neck prickled upright. Strange that one simple question seemed so much bigger than it was, but surely she knew the infamous story about his father’s misdeeds and his mother’s horrific demise. They’d both made national headlines. If Candace didn’t know who Isaiah Zaroyin was by now, she had to be the only one on the East Coast who didn’t.

  Ever since the arrest and sensational sentencing of his dad, he’d fought the ensuing self-serving demands of every greedy news outlet, magazine and talk show host, to ‘follow-up’ with the son who’d lost everything. He’d been stalked by reporters and paparazzi, all wanting to wring every last anecdote, salacious bit of gossip, and minute of his past life out of him. To twist his words until they turned into sensational, eye-grabbing fodder for all those enquiring minds out there in John-Q-Public land. Tr
agedy, rumor, and outright lies now tainted the once noble Zaroyin name. Worse—treason. How could she not know?

  Yet her question seemed innocent enough. Like every other time he’d probed her mind, he could detect nothing past the obvious question. She was no spy for any media outlet. He had only face value to rely on and she seemed genuinely interested.

  That alone cinched his decision not to share. ‘Seemed’ relied solely on appearances, not facts and certainly not truth. Until he found his way past whatever self-defense mechanism she’d mentally constructed to block his probes, all Isaiah had to go on was her projected appearance of being a good mom. Her appearance of being a hostage. Not good enough.

  Until he could validate what he suspected were facades between him and the real Candace Bratton—whoever she was—he erred on the stuffy side of polite, FBI propriety and said, “I grew up in a home with two good parents. Went to school. Studied hard. Typical boring life for the average kid, I guess.”

  She cocked her head and blinked at him. “You were an only child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any pets?”

  He let her have that one. “Hoi Toi, a longhaired Siamese with chocolate brown toes. Big blue eyes.” And my only friend for a long damned time after Mom died.

  “Aww…” she breathed, batting soft gray eyes that were an open invitation for trouble. Candace certainly gave off all the right vibes of an innocent caught up in something bigger than she was… until her hand came to rest on his thigh.

  He looked down at her sensible womanly fingers. Clean cuticles. Real nails, not acrylic fakes. Tapping. Just tapping. Light as a feather on the inside of his thigh. They looked almost childlike. Almost innocent.

  If he were any other man, it’d be easy to capitalize on this tender moment and turn it into something sexual. It’d be easy to take that seemingly sweet gesture as an invitation, lean in and pull her under his arm. Comfort her. Kiss her. Lie to her and tell her everything would be okay while he stroked the luscious red hair spilling over her shoulders and dripping down her back like a ruddy waterfall. It was obvious she was looking for a friend with benefits.

  But Roxy waited back at the mansion…

  Candace’s long slender fingers kept tapping. She chewed at the inside of her cheek while Isaiah held his breath, hoping she had something more to say. If ever there was a moment to come clean, this was it. He could be that much of a friend, simply someone to confide in, to share the burden with, so to speak. Needing her to open up, Isaiah rested one hand over hers to stop the incessant tapping that had no chance of leading him into temptation. “You’ve had a tough break,” he said quietly. “What can I do to help that I’m not doing now?”

  Impossibly, the chapel grew quieter. Stiller. Colder.

  It seemed time stood still. She stared sideways at him, her chin quivering just the slightest bit, her body language easy to read. She couldn’t decide what to do, but what that decision involved, Isaiah had no clue.

  At last her lashes fell. She tugged her fingers from between his hand and his thigh, and the moment for truth was lost.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t trust me,” he told her firmly, intertwining his now free hand with his other once more, both back on his chest where they belonged.

  She faced the cross, tipped her chin up, and sniffed. “Let’s go see if my girl’s finally ready to go. I am.”

  Isaiah nodded, though she didn’t see it. The wall between them remained unbreachable, and the woman’s mind was locked up tighter than a castle’s keep. Politely, he followed Candace back to her daughter’s side.

  Kitty looked pinker but still pale and wrung out. Her eyes were feverishly bright. Still, she offered a limp wave when Isaiah ducked into the room. “You came back,” she said breathlessly—to him, interestingly. Not to her mother.

  “Of course, I came back for you, kiddo.” He stepped to one side of her bed while Candace took the other. “How are you feeling?” he asked as he fist bumped Kitty’s shoulder.

  “Better,” she whispered. “Man, that was a close call, huh?”

  He dipped his head to her ear and stage-whispered. “I’ll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone. You scared the crap out of me, young lady, and I’m a big FBI guy. I don’t scare easy. Don’t let my boss know, okay?”

  Kitty let loose a weak, wheezing rasp of a giggle. “Ha. Don’t… make me laugh. I scared me, too.”

  “So what brought this attack on? You were asleep. Does that happen often at night?” he asked as he straightened the warm blanket covering her and tucked it under her chin. The poor thing still shook, no doubt from the adrenaline still in her system.

  “It’s hard to say,” Candace answered, her gaze on her daughter and her lips thin. The calculating look in her eye caught him up short. “Sometimes stress will do it. We’ve certainly had enough of that today, haven’t we?” she asked her daughter brusquely.

  Kitty nodded, her eyes drowsy. “Love you, Mom,” she whispered.

  Isaiah stepped back, taking it all in. Candace certainly acted like a loving mother. And that was what bothered him. It was all an act. He knew it the moment she didn’t tell the daughter who could’ve died in her arms tonight, ‘I love you, too.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Roxy stood guard over Darrin and Nugget while they slept. They’d gone back to the Brattons’ room, which gave her the chance to do a little detective work on the sly. Kitty’s asthma attack had certainly come on quickly, yet checking around Brattons’ bed, under it, and between the covers revealed nothing suspicious. The suitcases they’d brought with them were opened in wild disarray, piles of clothing and shoes scattered on the floor. Two cosmetic bags, both opened and a myriad of tiny jars, tubes, and bottles decorated the dresser top.

  Roxy did a quick search of said suitcase and bags. She peeked into the dresser drawers and the walk-in closet, but all were empty. Apparently Candy didn’t plan to stay long enough to unpack. Roxy gave the end of the bed one last pat on her way out the door. Just as well. No mother would intentionally induce an asthma attack in her child, would she? Nah, she might be a floozy, but she loved her kids. Roxy was one hundred percent certain of that. Almost…

  Back in the kitchen, she washed the saucepan and mugs, tidied the kitchen and wiped the table. That little guy of Bratton’s had gotten under her skin. What a good kid Darrin was, Kitty too, the poor thing. Roxy had never had asthma, but she could relate to the helpless feeling that came along with suffocation. Damned if her hand didn’t automatically circle her neck in a reflexive response from something that happened long ago.

  The memory rose as vividly as if it were yesterday. Mario Forsythe. Hawthorne High. The ever-so-handsome quarterback who thought he was a dandy with the ladies. The girl’s restroom across from the gym. Homecoming dance. Balloons and confetti.

  She’d only dated him once, the night of the homecoming dance, but that was enough. Hawthorne High had just cinched a crucial game. They were on their way to state, and Mario was the hero of the hour. Collegiate football scouts were in the house that night, and they’d talked with him and his coach. He was going somewhere. He thought he was hot. So hot that she’d give it up to him when he snapped his fingers. Like hell.

  The jerk followed Roxy and her girlfriend into the restroom, and Roxy learned the meaning behind the saying, ‘if looks could kill.’

  “Don’t tease,” he’d growled at her after she’d resisted his crude advances and he’d slapped her to the floor. “Every other bitch in this school spreads her legs for me. You’re better than they are? Come on. Get up off the floor and bend over like the slut you are.” He’d snapped his fingers at her like the entitled jock he was and clutched his junk. “Give it up. I ain’t got all night.”

  “I said no,” she’d told him as she’d climbed to her feet, trembling so hard she could barely think. Her dress was torn by then, the bodice hanging by a strap, and her very practical white cotton bra exposed. The fr
iend she’d come into the restroom with had long since run for her life. Her life, not Roxy’s. Julie hadn’t gone for help. No, she’d deserted Roxy like a cockroach fleeing a sinking ship.

  But Mama had always said it was okay to hit a bully if they hit you first. Roxy curled her fingers into a fist, her thumb up tight against the side of her index finger so it wouldn’t get broken. She meant to give Mario something all right.

  He’d lunged then. Before she could punch his solar plexus, he had her by the neck, lifted her against the sink, and choked her with his thick, dirty fingers. His muscled knees had no trouble parting her flailing legs, not in that stupid dress she’d worn.

  Darkness swarmed at her peripheral. She couldn’t catch her balance, and no matter how hard she’d tried, she couldn’t get a grip on the porcelain sink behind her. Up went his hand under her dress. He tore past the elastic of her panties, and rubbed her where no boy had ever touched before. Grunting like the pig he was, he stuck his fingers into her virginal body while she gasped for air and the lights dimmed.

  Roxy knew then that Mario was high on something. With one repugnant sweep of his mouth, he’d licked her face as if she were a sucker. Slick, slick, slick went his nasty tongue and nose over her cheeks, chin, and lips. His breath stunk of poor dental hygiene and cheap beer, while his whiskers scraped everywhere he touched until she was chafed and raw. He poked and prodded at her virginity until she saw red.

  When he jerked his belt off with his free hand and snapped the air with it, lightning struck in that women’s restroom. But it had nothing to do with the measly piece of leather he’d been so prickishly proud of, nor what he’d intended to do to her with it.

  Oh, no. Roxy couldn’t remember precisely what happened next. Until she’d heard the pop of that belt, she’d simply been fighting for her life. But then—instead of being the helpless rape victim and crying for him to ‘oh, please, stop!’—she got mad. And then she got even.