Goes down easy: Roped into romance

by Alison Kent

She took one long hop toward him, leaned down and flicked the end of his nose. “Tell ya what, dick. As soon as I find out, you’ll be the first to know.”

  And then she yanked on the chain pull, leaving him in darkness as she walked out of his life.

  16

  “YOU KNOW I’m not going to handle it well if they don’t find him,” Perry said to Della. The two women were sitting together at the kitchen table, as they’d found themselves doing so often lately—and always, it seemed, in the middle of the night.

  With Jack’s kidnapping falling under local jurisdiction, Book and his partner hadn’t given the federal agents on the Eckhardt case time or room to object, but had arranged to meet officers from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office at the Morgan property near Jean Lafitte.

  The feds had followed because, thanks to Jack, they’d been handed the closest thing to a clue they’d had in the Eckhardt case for days. Perry doubted she and Della would be handed anything before daylight.

  That was assuming Jack was being held at the Morgan place, and the search parties picked the right place in all that swampland to start.

  It was also assuming those in charge didn’t decide Jack could wait, that Eckhardt was a priority. That first they needed to get to him.

  “They’ll find him.” Della reached over and patted Perry’s hand, her fingers cool and smooth. “Book will find him. He knows Jack’s one of the good ones. He won’t leave him out there any more than he’d leave one of his men.”

  Perry could only pray Della was right. “I still can’t believe what he did, charging out of here the minute we realized you were gone. I mean, I love what he did. I’m in awe of what he did. Losing you would be unbearable.” She sighed, drooped against the table. “But he’s only known us a few days. It just seems so…”

  “Heroic?” Della supplied, a wise brow arched above her eyes, which shimmered a deep purple hue.

  All Perry could do was nod because she couldn’t think of a more perfect word. Jack. A hero. Her hero. Her eyes filled with tears. Her throat ached and burned. The last thing she wanted to do was cry, but her emotions wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “It’s been an extraordinary few days, Perry,” Della said softly as Perry sobbed. “And he’s an extraordinary man, doing what men of his nature do. As is Book. They may try a woman’s resolve, but they are men worth loving that much more because of who they are.”

  Perry swiped the back of her hand over her eyes and, desperately needing a distraction, considered her aunt. “You love him, don’t you? You love Book. I’ve wondered for a long time, but it’s all over your face.”

  Della pressed her fingers to her cheek, then reached for her teacup. She didn’t try to hide any of her smile. “I certainly didn’t mean it to be so obvious. I hope I didn’t embarrass him.”

  “Embarrass Book Franklin?” Why did that make Perry want to laugh? “Is that even possible?”

  “Of course it is.” Della frowned. “What sort of question is that?”

  Sighing again, Perry slouched back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I don’t know. It’s a man question. A species I know nothing about.”

  “And now whose feelings are written all over her face?” Della teased, lifting her cup to sip.

  “I never believed this would happen.” Perry closed her eyes, dropped her head back. It felt so heavy she wondered if she’d be able to lift it again. “And I don’t just mean that it would never happen to me. I didn’t think it happened at all.”

  “What, love at first sight?”

  “Funny. And here I thought it was heartburn.”

  Della chuckled. “You haven’t been exposed much to romance, Perry.”

  Oops. Not sure this was a conversation she wanted to have, she leaned forward and reached for her tea while changing the focus to Della. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Della hedged.

  “Do you know why you haven’t? And do you know how horrible I’m going to feel if it has anything to do with your responsibility to me?”

  “Truthfully? You’ve always been a consideration, but never a burden,” she hurried to add when Perry groaned. “You’ve always been a very welcome part of my life. Having you would never have kept me from a relationship if I’d found a man who could deal with my gift. I never did. I’m still not sure that I have.”

  “Book doesn’t seem to have any problem dealing with it.”

  “The problem is more mine,” Della said, her fingers growing white where she gripped her cup. “It’s hard to respond only to what he wants me to know, and not to what I know he feels. There are times I’m not sure I can tell the difference. And it seems easier not to try.”

  “And so you’re going to give up? Give him up?”

  She dropped her gaze, smiled softly to herself. “You don’t think I’m too old?”

  “To do what? Live? Love?”

  “To start over.”

  Perry suddenly felt like the wise, experienced one when she was nothing of the sort. “It’s not about starting over, Della. It’s about starting again. It’s about change. Who said we have to pick where we live and how we make a living and who we let into our lives, and stick with that plan forever?”

  “Good.” Della’s hand came down flat on the table so hard that her teacup rattled. “Because now that you’ve said it aloud, I’m going to hold you to it.”

  Sneaky woman. Perry narrowed her eyes. “We’re talking about you and Book. Not about me and…whoever.”

  “You and Jack. And yes we are. Like I said. Extraordinary. The days. The man. The whole world out there waiting for you to embrace it. The only thing tying you to New Orleans is familiarity.”

  “You’re here. Sugar Blues is here. This is my home. And…” She groaned as her own words came back to haunt her. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

  “That’s something only you can figure out. But what I know is that you’re thirty years old, Perry. It’s time for you to step outside your comfort zone and give life, and love, a chance.”

  JACK HAD NEVER given the prospect of dying much thought. Hell, he’d almost died of frostbite hunting down a group of Chechen rebels who’d blown up a school, killing over two hundred children. He’d almost expired from heatstroke rescuing aid workers captured by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. But all that was before he had Perry.

  Now all he wanted was to get the hell up off the ground, and get back to Perry ASAP.

  He had no idea how long he’d been lying alone in the dark in the dirt with a gash pouring blood from his head, but it was long enough that he was almost too stiff to move.

  In the end, Kelly did nothing more to him than drive off and leave him to his fate there with Dayton. That was it. Did they freak out? Chicken out? He would’ve laughed if he’d had the energy.

  He’d heard the engine of Kevin’s car sputter twice before turning over, followed by the sound of what had to be Chris’s Jeep. Ten minutes later, all that was left was silence. Ten minutes after that, what few night creatures didn’t mind singing in the cold had started up.

  Knowing it was going to be a hell of a long time until he saw the sun, he decided not to waste it. He hadn’t taken but a quick look around while the light was on for Kelly’s visit, but he had seen enough to know he and his chair were the only things on the porch. Meaning his best bet was to get off and find something—a broken bottle, a crushed can, a sharp edge on the generator, a gator’s jaws—to cut through his ropes.

  The one piece of metal he knew he could use if he broke it just right was his chair. Options weighed, he’d busted loose one section of railing with his shoulder, then rocked himself right off the porch.

  He was out for a while. He didn’t know how long, only that he came to feeling like an almost corpse. His head ached like a burst watermelon, his joints like seized gears, and his balls had never been so cold.

  He flexed toes, then ankles, then knees, then hips, finding the lower half of his body working. His hands seemed oka
y, and he didn’t seem to have dislocated either shoulder, or busted his elbows—a mean feat since his wrists were bound behind him.

  But it wasn’t until he rolled to his side and up onto his knees that he realized how badly bruised he was going to be in the morning.

  And then the knees thing didn’t seem like such a good plan at all because the chair on his back knocked him forward, and the ground came rushing up to meet his face. He lay there, hands sagging from the chair frame, and recovered his breath.

  What a way to find out you were truly an ex in the special ops biz.

  In the past, survival had been about getting back to his unit, getting hooked up with another operation, getting his ass back out in the field.

  Now, surviving was about getting back to his woman. He would’ve laughed, but he already had enough dirt in his mouth as it was. Four days—five days?—and that was exactly how he thought of her. It had been a hell of a wake-up call to discover what he’d been missing.

  He really didn’t want to have to miss out on any more. And so he crunched his abs—his only muscles that didn’t ache—and pulled himself up to sit on his knees, then made it all the way up to his feet. He swayed to one side, stumbled looking for his balance, but finally found it.

  Walking with the monkey of a chair on his back and one eye caked shut with dried blood kept him on a pretty short leash. The hulk of the house loomed in shadow, and he headed toward it, catching his foot on a tree root and crashing to the ground with a rib-crushing oomph.

  Hell on a crutch. He did not want to lay here like alligator bait until morning. He closed his eyes, screwed them tight, and concentrated on Della, hoping there was some psychic tide flowing out there in the ether, and that she could catch his wave.

  Thirty seconds later he realized the sharp stabbing pain in his back wasn’t a broken rib but a piece of the chair. Finally! His trip to the ground had busted the frame. He was lying on one hand, so he twisted the other, tugging until the rope slipped free from the broken end of the metal tubing.

  He used his teeth to undo the knots at his wrist, then sat up and swung the rest of the chair around in front of him. By the time his other hand was free, he felt as if he’d mainlined adrenaline. He needed a lantern. A flashlight. A canoe or a raft, and a paddle.

  And he was on his way to find them when he heard the first car. He felt like an island castaway, wanting to jump up and down and wave his arms. But he didn’t. He hurt too much. And the headlights—two sets of them now, no three—were cutting through the trees.

  So he leaned against the porch and waited, raising a hand to the level of his good eye and squinting into the glare. The first car threw up rooster tails of gravel and dirt as it screamed to a stop. The door slammed open. Book Franklin charged out.

  “Montgomery!” he yelled.

  Jack lifted his other hand in acknowledgment, saving his breath and waiting for the detective to get close. “You’re looking for a Jeep and a Civic hatchback. Not sure on the Jeep, but the Civic’s white. Early nineties.”

  But Book was already nodding. “We got ’em. We knew about the Honda. Had the plates. Two vehicles that close together, this time of night, on the Lafitte-LaRose Highway? We stopped them both.”

  Jack breathed a painful sigh of relief. “Della told you about the car?”

  “She did. Where’s Eckhardt?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” He turned, pointed in the general direction. “That way, somewhere. I was just about to hunt down a raft and paddle out.”

  “You look like shit, Montgomery,” Book said, clamping a hand down on Jack’s shoulder. “You go wait in the car. We’ll bring him in.”

  “He’s got to be in bad shape after all this time.”

  “Yeah. I’ve already called for an ambulance.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  “For what?” The detective smiled. “Doing my job?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, shaking the other man’s hand. “For that.”

  FINISHING UP everything he had to do took Book forever. He knew it was part of the job. He didn’t mind that it was part of the job. He just wanted the job finished because he wanted to get to Della.

  Protocol be damned, but he’d done the bulk of his interview with Jack while the investigator was having his head stitched up in the emergency room. Eckhardt was in surgery—finger aside, he and his heart were in fairly good shape. He had a broken ankle pinned and wouldn’t be giving a statement anytime soon. Jack had given Book the number, and he’d called the wife in Texas. She was on her way.

  The four kids who’d snatched the computer chief were in federal holding, making for one less task Book had to finish up tonight. Tomorrow would be a hell of a long day, one better tackled after food, sleep and making love to Della.

  It was late afternoon by the time he dropped Jack at Sugar Blues to pick up his ride. Not that Jack had anywhere he needed to be—or anywhere Perry was going to let him go. The minute he climbed from the car, she was out the back door, running, screaming, launching herself into his arms.

  Book walked right past the younger couple. He only had eyes for the woman standing framed in the open back door. She was so beautiful, his Della, and damn if that wasn’t exactly who she was. Exactly who she’d been since the night he’d first found her sitting on the courtyard fountain, drenched to her skin.

  He stopped in front of her, looking up from the step that led into the kitchen. He was still an inch or two taller, but he liked seeing her at this level. They were almost face to face. And he didn’t think he’d ever seen her eyes so dark purple.

  Or so teary and red. “Are you crying?”

  She nodded. “Of course, I am. Aren’t you worth crying over?”

  His heart fluttered, but he frowned anyway. “I wasn’t the one in danger.”

  “You’re always in danger.” She reached for him, caressed his face with her fingers. “Every day that you go to work, you’re in danger.”

  “I am who I am,” he said with a shrug, her hand cool and soft and the only comfort he needed.

  “I know that.” She blinked. She smiled. “I wouldn’t want you to be anyone else. I wouldn’t love you if you were anyone else.”

  “Then you can live with that?” Damn voice, cracking like that. “Knowing there’s always a chance when I leave that I might not come back?”

  “I know it already.” Her smile broke the dam holding his emotions. “I’ve lived with it every day for two years.”

  At the sound of doors slamming and an engine roaring to life, he glanced over his shoulder and watched Jack and Perry drive away. “He’s a good guy. I wasn’t so sure about him at first.”

  “That’s because you saw too much of yourself in him.”

  He turned back, curious. “Am I really that cocky?”

  “You can be.”

  “Hmm. I’ll see about making a change.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  And if that didn’t just make his heart—and other things—swell. “You like me the way I am, huh?”

  “I love you the way you are.”

  The swelling went on. “Then is there any particular reason you haven’t invited me in?”

  “None that I can think of. As long as you’re sure this is where you want to be.”

  When she said it, the brimming tears fell from her eyes, and he caught himself unable to speak. His throat clogged. His chest burned. He swore he was about to have a heart attack. And so he took her hand, smoothed his thumb over her fingers and brought them to his lips.

  The kiss stopped time. It was a moment he’d never forget. She smelled of soft flowers and jasmine tea, and it was the scent he’d thought of for so long as belonging to him. The same scent he’d learned meant home.

  He kept her hand in his and captured her gaze. “There is no place in the world that I’d rather be. No person in the world who means to me what you do. Della Brazille, I have loved you forever, and more than anything I want for you to be my wife.”

  “I
’ll marry you tomorrow, Book Franklin. I’ll marry you today. If I could marry you this moment, it wouldn’t be soon enough for me,” she said, before she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried.

  He held her, feeling his heart burst open in his chest, then finally smiled against her ear and asked, “So now do you think I can come in?”

  She laughed, stepped away from the door and gave him the greatest privilege of all by letting him into her life.

  17

  “I WANT YOU to make love to me,” Perry said, closing her townhouse’s front door and leaning back against it. She’d spent all day waiting to get Jack alone.

  Hours had passed between Book’s phone call relaying news of the double rescue and his car finally turning into the alley behind Sugar Blues. Jack had climbed out aching and exhausted, his visit to the hospital behind him, more with the NOPD and the FBI to come.

  She knew he was as tired mentally as physically, and she too was running on empty. But right now, she had to be with him. Nothing else mattered but feeling as if they were one.

  “You do, do you?” Jack said, flopping down onto her couch and slouching back like he owned the place, legs spread wide, arms propped on the top of the plush cushions, eyes closed and head back.

  “Yes. I do.” She turned the lock. It caught with a loud click. “We’re together and we’re safe. We don’t have anywhere we need to be for hours. And I don’t want to do anything between now and then but enjoy you.”

  He opened his one good eye, the other hidden with a bandage, and glanced over. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but where do we need to be hours from now?”

  “When it’s time, I’ll tell you.” She pushed off the door, walked to where he was sitting, stood between his legs and held out her hand. “But right now all I care about is letting you know exactly how happy I am that you are alive and a part of my life.”

  He wrapped his fingers around hers and brought them to his mouth for a soft, lingering kiss before tugging her down and tumbling her across his lap. “I’m pretty happy that I’m still around to be here.”