Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  When she swung her purse over her shoulder, the bag knocked a figurine off a side table. Val dived, catching it before it smashed into pieces on the floor.

  As she’d stared at the miniature crystal figure—two birds perched side by side on a watering bowl—she swore she felt something faint, like a light passing through her. Although maybe what she experienced had more to do with the tender, yet sad, look on her future boss’s face. For a moment, she and Jayne had shared concern and relief that the crystal birds hadn’t hit the floor and shattered.

  After Jayne gently placed the figurine on the top shelf of the bookcase—where it remained to this day—she asked Val why she wanted to be a private investigator. She had answered that she worked well alone, liked solving puzzles and wanted to help people.

  Jayne had actually laughed. “If you can accept that this business is often driven by greed, revenge and self-preservation,” she said, “you will be better off. Shall we start your internship next Monday?”

  And here they were, two months later, having yet another of their question-and-answer sessions.

  Jayne stood, picked up her purse. “I will be gone the remainder of the afternoon.” After a moment of deliberation, she added, “I have changed my mind. For the time being, we are not accepting any new cases until I finalize some...cases I’m working on. Are you still commuting by bus?”

  “Yes.” Ever since the brakes and fuel pump went south on Val’s fifteen-year-old Toyota, she had been relying on mass transit. “Mornings are okay, but after five those buses are slower than a bread wagon with biscuit wheels.”

  Jayne blinked. “I have never heard that expression.”

  “Means they’re slow.”

  That pained smile again. “Feel free to close at four. See you tomorrow.”

  She watched the older woman leave, not believing that line about finalizing other cases. When Val first started here, the agency carried ten to twelve cases, easy. Currently there were three open cases, two of which were on hold while lawyers decided whether to go to trial. The third involved pulling court records, which took an hour or two. If anything, the agency needed more cases.

  No, Jayne was hiding something. From the recent tiredness in her face and the weight loss, Val wondered what her boss was going through. A death in the family? A financial setback?

  She glanced at the crystal figurine. This small object had always seemed too fragile in an office furnished with a heavy wooden desk, bookcases, a grandfather clock and scuffed hardwood floors. The birds obviously held deep meaning. Shame Jayne didn’t take it home with her, both for its safekeeping and her own comfort.

  Val looked at the picture of her nanny on the corner of the desk. Her grandmother—smiling, her white hair freshly curled, wearing her favorite blue dress—stood in front of her tiny antiques shop, Back in Time Antiques, on ChartresStreet in the French Quarter. When Val was growing up, she had commuted with Nanny to the shop from their house in the Ninth Ward, the only home Val had ever known before Katrina.

  She had brought the photo to work maybe for the same reason Jayne kept the figurine here. Some objects carried too many memories to keep at home, where your mind could easily wander to the past, to what was lost and never found again.

  * * *

  THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK chimed four o’clock. As the last metallic note faded, the front door opened and a woman walked in, her perfume smelling faintly like strawberries.

  She wore a red halter dress, cut too low, and matching lipstick. Her chestnut hair hung sleek with straight-cut bangs that hovered over almond-shaped eyes. Most walk-ins looked embarrassed, nervous or dubious, but this woman looked determined or surprised, which could just be the unfavorable effect of those overarched Cruella eyebrows.

  Without a word, she sat in one of the guest chairs and crossed her slim legs. Val took note of strappy Badgley Mischka sandals, which she guessed were the real deal based on the monster-size bling on the woman’s ring finger.

  “My name Marta,” she said, rolling the r in her name. “My fiancé, I think he cheats. I want you to find out.”

  Val tried to place the thick accent. Romanian? “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re currently not accepting any new cases.”

  Under a veil of thick black lashes, a pair of hazel eyes coolly assessed Val. After a beat, she reached into her purse and extracted a wad of bills bound with a rubber band.

  “I pay thousand dollars.” Which sounded like I pay zouzand dolarz. She set it on the edge of the desk.

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “Tonight,” Marta interrupted, “I know where he goes. I give address, you see if he cheats.”

  This woman did not want to take no for an answer.

  Val recalled the name of the P.I. she’d looked up earlier. “Bert Warner, just a few blocks away, handles infidelity cases. I can get you his number—”

  “No man investigator. Want you to dress up, see if he flirts with you.”

  “Sorry, that’s a honey trap, and we never do those.” She was being good reciting the party line, but dang, this kind of work could be profitable.

  “Honey trap,” Marta repeated slowly, then smiled, as though liking how the word tasted. She pulled out another wad of bills and set it on the desk. “Two thousand.”

  This is how it would be someday when Val ran her own agency. A client would walk in, discuss their problem and Val could say yes, I’ll take your case. And she’d do one helluva good job, too.

  She stared at the two grand, cash.

  What was so wrong with honey traps anyway? Jayne talked about lawyers attacking the evidence, but wasn’t that what lawyers did in courtrooms for any type of case? Didn’t mean honey trapping was illegal. Cops did it, other P.I.s did it.

  Jayne was also an older woman. Obviously she couldn’t conduct a honey trap herself. But Val was young, could pull it off. She had learned a lot watching all those hours of Honey Catchers.

  No. She had to stop thinking this way. She had to abide by agency policy. Rules were rules. Even if she disagreed with some of them.

  She stared at the wads of bills. Two grand, cash.

  Enough to cover a new fuel pump, brakes, with plenty left over to toss into the kitty for the day when she moved out of her cousin’s place into her own.

  Marta leaned forward, emotion shining in her eyes. “I come to United States from Russia. I clean houses, make better my English. Now I work in dress store, want to have own business someday. Did not want to fall in love, but...” She shrugged. “He ask me to marry. I say yes, then I hear about other women...” Her chin trembled.

  Val nudged the tissue box toward her. “Maybe,” she said gently, “you should talk to him. Tell him what others have told you.”

  Marta took a tissue, dabbed the corner of her eye. “Da. Yes. I do. He say no, people lie.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “I must know. Please. Help me.”

  Boy, oh, boy, could Val relate to starting over. After Katrina, starting over became the story of her life. After a short stay in the Superdome, Val had relocated to Houston, where FEMA paid her rent for a studio apartment while she looked for work. Maybe if she had felt connected to the city, or at least known somebody, it might have worked out. But there were days she hadn’t even been able to get out of bed, much less tackle job hunting. When she moved to Las Vegas, at least she had family, but it was still tough learning her way around a new city, finding a job, making friends.

  If she had also been forced to learn a new culture and language, she would have lost her marbles.

  “I’m sorry. It must have been very difficult.”

  “I don’t want person...persons...to know I hire private eye.” Marta leaned forward and whispered, “Only you and me to know.”

  Val blew out a pent-up breath. It’d be sweet to drive her air-conditioned car again. No
more walking in summer triple-digit heat, fighting for seats on crowded buses. She stared at the money. The beauty of cash was nobody could trace it, and this being a one-time gig...she felt a stab of guilt at what she was thinking, but...Jayne would never know.

  Besides, one day Val would own her own agency, and maybe she would accept the occasional honey-trap case. This was her chance to gain experience, something she’d never get while interning with Jayne.

  “Just you and me to ever know,” Marta repeated.

  Val glanced at the photo of Nanny. By the time she was fifteen, she and her grandmother had swapped their parent-child roles. Val grew accustomed to making decisions for the two of them, often on the fly. Sometimes it was like walking into mist—she might not be sure what her next step would be, but she would learn. Over time, when faced with a choice, she discovered she gained more by forging ahead than standing, undecided, at the crossroads.

  She picked up a pen, shoving aside her niggling conscience. “I need to get some information, like where he’s going tonight, the type of car he drives...”

  * * *

  AT NINE O’CLOCK that night, Drake Morgan stepped from the air-conditioned strip club, Topaz, into the outdoor sauna called summer. In his thirty-two years born and raised in Las Vegas, he’d never grown accustomed to these mind-frying temps. But then, there was a lot he’d never been able to accept.

  Like why his brother Brax—the manager of Topaz—kept associating with known criminals. Drake had checked the corporate papers for Topaz and discovered the club was owned by a corporation named Dusha, the same corporate entity that owned Braxton’s luxury condo. Drake ran the word Dusha through an online translator and learned it meant “soul” in Russian.

  Yeah, real soulful. His brother was tight with the Russian mob.

  Tugging off his suit jacket, he looked past the stream of traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard at Dino’s Lounge, a watering hole his dad had frequented. Back before lines got drawn and doors were closed, Drake and Braxton would join him there to watch a game, shoot some pool. He and his brother had been tight then. Thick as thieves, their dad would say.

  Today, the third anniversary of their old man’s death, Drake had thought a lot about things his father used to say. Sometimes he had to dig deep in his memories, because his dad hadn’t been comfortable expressing himself. Oh, he liked to kid around, jaw about some news item or what sports figure had hit a milestone, but when it came to divulging how he felt about something, or even saying a simple “I love you,” he had struggled with the words.

  On his deathbed, he had asked for three promises from Drake. The first was for Drake to stop gambling. He had, that very day. The second was for Drake to learn how to swim—he had carried the name “Aqua Man” since high school after jumping into a pool to save a bikini-clad damsel in distress. She’d gotten out fine on her own. Took two lifeguards to haul Drake out of the water.

  Just like his dad to throw humor into life’s darker situations. Aqua Man took a few swimming lessons.

  The third promise was to take care of his grandmother, his mother and especially his brother. His mom and Grams were easy, his brother was a pain in the ass. Drake had asked Brax to dump his gangster chums and build his own business, but he’d refused. Seemed to think being under the thumb of that no-good scum Yuri Glazkov was the path to success.

  Yuri, what a slick bastard. Brax had done things for him that should have put him behind bars, but Yuri’s high-profile lawyers made sure the charges against Braxton didn’t stick. It sickened Drake that his brother thought he was better than the law.

  If he had his way, he’d do what their mother had done—close the door on Brax—but he had made that promise to their father.

  So here he was tonight, hunting down his brother to check up on him, try to talk sense to him again about living his own, law-abiding life.

  Drake had another reason, a personal one, to quiz his brother. Yuri, recently back in Vegas after an extended stay in Russia, was up to something. Drake could smell it. He wanted facts about the thug’s life, the kind his brother could supply, because he had a score to settle.

  But so far, all Drake had gotten was the runaround from his brother’s employees at the strip club.

  Have no idea where Brax is at, man.

  Mr. Morgan is unavailable. If you would like to leave your name and number, I’ll be sure he gets the message.

  Yuri? Never heard of ’im.

  Tossing his jacket over his shoulder, Drake glanced across the street at the green neon sign. Last Neighborhood Bar in Las Vegas. Lots of businesses had closed during the recession, but Dino’s Lounge had stayed open, just as it had for five decades.

  He decided to walk over, leave his pickup parked in its secluded spot. Later, he would head back to Topaz, and if he didn’t find his brother’s car in the lot, he’d do the question routine again. Try different employees, see if one of them might get hit with a pang of conscience and tell the truth. He’d help that pang along with a bill or two.

  Because in a town like Vegas, everything had a price. Especially an honest answer.

  * * *

  VAL SAT IN the rental car, a Honda Civic, in the Topaz lot, watching the guy standing outside the strip club. He fit the description Marta had given her earlier: a little over six foot. Buzz cut. Wearing a suit. Before he removed the jacket, the gray two-button number had looked like something Don Draper might have worn on that TV series Mad Men. From the way this guy walked—carrying himself like he owned his space and some of everybody else’s, too—he had more than his share of mettle.

  Marta said his name was Drake, but didn’t want to divulge his last name. Even after Val recited the confidentiality spiel she’d heard Jayne give to new clients, Marta refused. Said she had her pride. No last names. Besides, couldn’t Val do the honey trap without knowing that?

  Val had agreed, partially because she wasn’t sure what else to do...and then there was the money.

  Drake headed toward the street.

  Time to report in. Val reached for her cell phone and punched in a number.

  “What news?” Marta answered. No hello. “I am anxious.”

  Join the club, Val felt like saying. Wearing this skimpy outfit and blond wig, which she had used at her last job as a card-dealing Christina Aguilera look-alike, and sitting on her first surveillance in a rough Vegas neighborhood outside a strip joint, was nerve-racking.

  But she couldn’t let on she was tense. Had to act cool, knowledgeable, as though this were her hundredth surveillance gig. After all, Marta thought she’d hired a professional, not an amateur.

  “He left Topaz,” Val said, “and he’s walking toward Las Vegas Boulevard.”

  “Where he park?”

  “At Baker’s Service, one street over.” A guy in a retro suit driving a ’79 Ford pickup didn’t fit Marta’s sleek designer style. Val guessed they were one of those opposites-attract relationships.

  “Baker’s,” Marta repeated.

  “It’s an appliance store.”

  After she observed him walking into Topaz, Val had circled the block and found the pickup parked in front of the store. The business was closed, its lot dark, and he’d taken the extra precaution to position it behind some palm trees.

  After parking a short way down the block, she had walked back to the truck, a faded brown-and-gold two-tone with rusted chrome strips, and pointed her miniature flashlight into the bed, where she spied a toolbox, tarp, several chew toys and a small doggie bed. Next, she perched herself on the metal step below the driver’s door—not easy in high heels—and pointed the light at the front seat. A closed notebook and coffee-stained foam cup were on the ripped vinyl seat. A video camera lay on the floorboard.

  “How long he at club?” Marta asked.

  “Forty minutes. Now he’s crossing the street...there�
�s only one bar over there, so that must be where he’s going.”

  “You go to this bar.”

  Val looked at her outfit. The skimpy top and skirt could pass for a sexy summertime outfit, but fishnet stockings? They had seemed like a great addition when she thought she’d be conducting a honey trap outside a strip club, but they’d look sleazy, over the top, in a regular bar.

  Even Vegas had its limits, didn’t it?

  Screw it. Sitting at the crossroads would get her nowhere. “I’ll go.”

  She reminded herself that this was Sin City, the unconventional capital of the world. On a scale of one to ten on the weird scale, fishnet stockings were probably a five.

  She slipped the cell into the pocket of her skirt and turned the ignition.

  Copyright © 2013 by Colleen Collins

  ISBN-13: 9781460323243

  THE RANCH SHE LEFT BEHIND

  Copyright © 2013 by Kathleen O’Brien

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