by Lucy Farago
He wanted to argue, wanted to tell her he didn’t need mothering. But it was his fault she was here. His fault she’d had to come into hiding with him. “No. I get it. I need sleep.”
“That’s better. Now let’s get you inside.”
He looked around the delivery truck and realized they were alone. “Dozier?”
“He went in, said he’d be back in a few minutes.” She stood, bending to slide an arm beneath his shoulder. “Can you do this with me or should we wait?”
“No, I’m fine. Let’s do this.” He only prayed he wouldn’t embarrass himself by landing flat on his face.
It took more effort than he thought but he managed not to puke or lose his balance. Rhonda, trooper that she was, kept him steady. Inside the old plantation-home’s gates, Dozier met them in the courtyard.
“I’ll take it from here.” Dozier exchanged places with Rhonda.
It was for the best, his size making it awkward for Rhonda to help him up the stairs. Still, Blake resented Dozier’s intervention. The woman felt too good in his arms, even if she was only there to lend support. Then he hoped, prayed, it was the meds controlling his thoughts because if he wanted to survive being secluded with Rhonda he’d better stop caring how good she felt.
“I put your bag upstairs,” Dozier told her. “I’ll stay on the first floor, in the room behind the kitchen. Take any room you want. They’ve all been made up.”
“How many does this place have?”
“Ten, excluding the carriage and pool houses,” Blake answered. “The carriage house was converted into a separate apartment along with the rest of the stables. There are two rooms in the pool house as well.”
“Wow.” Money didn’t impress Rhonda. She made a lot of it at the club and had been saving for her own place one day, when she figured out what she wanted to do with her life. But like any woman, she liked nice things. And this place fit that bill. Plus this estate had history, not all of it good, but it had its place in the world. Unlike Rhonda.
She decided to go exploring while Dozier tucked Blake in for the night. She’d never been to New Orleans. Not sure she wanted to wander outside without Dozier, she kept her snooping to the inside of the old plantation.
The kitchen was right out of a magazine, old-fashioned soap stone sinks and counters, and Shaker cupboards. The rest of the house was exactly what you’d expect an historical home to be. Six-inch cypress floorboards, thick walls, massive doors, and antiques everywhere you looked.
“Most of the modern amenities are hidden.” Dozier entered the kitchen. “There’s a computer screen in every room. You just have to know which button to push on the remotes. You’ll find those either sitting on a table or mounted on a wall. Go surfing if you want, but nothing personal, okay? No emails, no Facebook, no Twitter. Nothing they can use to pinpoint our location.”
“I know. Before we left, Christian gave me the do’s and don’ts. I don’t have many friends beyond the club.” Not any who’d care if she went missing for weeks … or months. “And Christian mentioned Blake could contact Maggie through a secure channel.”
“Yeah, pretty boy is a little more techy than Christian. He’s not all face. Even though Ryan pretends to forget that. It drives Blake insane.” Dozier laughed, piquing Rhonda’s curiosity.
“What do you mean, pretends to forget?”
Dozier snorted. “Sorry, it’s not nice to laugh at a guy when he’s down. But I’m just glad it’s him and not me Ryan abuses.”
Now he really had her curious. “Go on.”
“Blake is smart. Real smart. Ryan knows that, hell everyone knows that, but he gives him assignments that require … mmm … let’s say a certain knack. Nah, that’s not it. Oh shit, he uses Blake’s looks against him. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but since you’re here and stuck in the middle of this, I figure you’ll be hearing a lot worse. Ryan once assigned him a case that required Blake to escort a seventy-five-year-old woman all over town.”
“So?”
“The key word there was escort.”
Rhonda’s mouth fell open. “He pimped him out? That’s disgusting.” Dozier laughed again, making Rhonda want to slug him. “It’s not funny.”
“Yeah, it kind of is. Don’t worry. Blake came out of it unscathed. Barely. You see, the woman kept trying to share him with her friends. I mean it was bad enough to try and stay out of her bed, but add the rest of her socialite bridge club and I’ve never seen Blake solve a case faster. But don’t fret. Blake got even with Ryan.”
She’d heard Ryan Sheppard was some kind of philanthropist. “Goes to show.”
“That he’s good at his job?”
“No, that you can’t judge a book by how much money they give to charity.”
“Am I missing something?” Dozier asked.
“Just that your boss is an asshole.”
“Wow, and you haven’t even met him yet. Ha,” he said, giving her a quick hug. “You and I are gonna be great pals. Now how about we go get something to eat, dance partner?”
“Sure. I’ll even cook.” She let Dozier lead her to the kitchen, her thoughts with Blake and wondering what other kind of torture his boss had subjected him to. She realized then that Blake might understand something few other men could—what it was like to be objectified.
Chapter Seven
Blake hated playing cards, hated walking through a casino and even looking at cards. In fact, he couldn’t think of a more useless way to pass the time. So it could have been that his ass was growing roots from being forced to stay in bed for two weeks, but when Rhonda invited him to a friendly game of poker, he agreed. After a while, not only was she beating said ass, but if they’d been playing for money she’d have cleaned him out. Better still, if they’d been playing strip poker, he’d have been buck naked instead of wearing a robe and pajama bottoms. Or maybe if they were playing strip poker, he’d be playing better and they’d both be naked. Yes, he was starting to feel better.
He was a good boy and swallowed every pill she gave him, partly out of guilt for having landed her here, but mostly because he’d been trying like hell to figure her out. She liked bossing him around. But as pushy as she was, sick bastard that he was, he liked the attention. She’d bark out an order—lie down, shut your eyes, go to sleep—then when he complied, she’d fix his covers and brush his hair off his face. Shit, a time or two he’d even pulled his hair over his forehead to feel her hands against his skin. Childish, he knew. But a bored man was a bored man.
Blake lay down his hand and once again her straight beat his three of a kind. “What are you, a card shark?”
“No, you just suck.”
“I had three of a kind,” he said, acting more insulted than he was.
“This time. Mrs. Grekov played better than you and she kept confusing the game with Go Fish.”
“Mrs. Grekov. She was your neighbor when you were a kid?”
“More like a babysitter. She died when I was eleven. I don’t remember telling you that,” she said, not missing a beat. “So it’s true? You have a file on me? Maggie said you might.”
“I’m sorry. Does that bother you?” He hadn’t meant to upset her. “We only wanted to make sure there wasn’t something Krupin could use against you. Against us.”
“Yeah, Maggie said you’d say that too. It’s okay. My life is an open book. I don’t have anything worth keeping secret.”
Everyone had something they didn’t want others to know. Even if they themselves weren’t sure what that something was. But he was certain that it wasn’t what Rhonda had meant. However, now that the topic had been opened, he had to ask.
“What was it like? All those years taking care of your father?” Growing up, Blake hadn’t wanted for anything. And when he did, a servant brought it to him.
She laughed. “Your file didn’t tell you that?”
“Oh.” He picked up the cards and shuffled. “So you’re mad about the file.”
“I’m not mad. More like creeped
out a little. It’s like finding out someone went through your underwear drawer.”
Blake smiled, rubbing the two-week growth of his new beard. “This was more like your sock drawer. It was a basic background check.”
“What’s the difference? Snooping is snooping. What if I kept my vibrator in my sock drawer?”
Blake’s eyebrows shot up. She said it so earnestly, so honestly, he knew she didn’t mean anything sexual. And yet his mind went straight to the gutter. He started to imagine exactly how he’d use that sex toy on Rhonda. This time he didn’t have the pain meds to blame. So why was the image of her sprawled in his bed, legs open and welcome, refusing to go away? Squeezing his eyes shut, he rubbed them with two fingers.
“Blake, you all right? Is the pain back?”
Rhonda’s sudden concern finally snapped him out of it. He opened his eyes and went to shuffle, not realizing he’d squeezed the cards, molding them into a curve. “Sorry.” He dropped the deck.
Rhonda glanced down at the pack. “Don’t worry about it. Those are casino cards. They’ll take a beating.” She smiled. “You on the other hand … Can I get you something? I know you said no more pain medication—”
“No, no, I’m fine. A small twinge, that’s all it was,” he lied, feeling more the ass. If he didn’t stop having those “small twinges,” he was in serious danger of breaking his promise to Christian.
“Okay, so let’s call it an afternoon. You go back to bed, get some rest, and I’ll bring you tea.”
“Tea?”
“Sure. Isn’t that what you foreigners like?” She grinned, teasing him. “If you’re nice, I’ll sneak some bourbon into it.”
“Why Miss Rhonda, what would my nurse say?” he said, playing along.
“She’d say it would shut you up and make you sleep.” She fluttered her eyelids like a true southern belle.
He had to laugh, the image of the gothic beauty doing anything that femininely cliché too funny, but regretted it as pain lanced his chest.
“Bed,” she ordered, all teasing gone.
Having learned it was best not to argue, he complied. “Damn you’re bossy.” He wanted the fun back.
“And don’t you forget it.”
After he climbed back into bed, she tucked him in the way she always did. It was odd. She handled the covers like they’d done something to offend her, but then she’d look up and smile.
“You don’t have to do that, you know.” He took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I appreciate you taking care of me. I do. I really do.”
He appreciated it a little too much. It had been a long time since someone had been this sweet to him. Even at home, his grandmother had insisted on a no-nonsense approach to childrearing. Not until Colin’s accident had he seen the nurturing side of his mother. He figured nearly losing one of her children had made her realize how important they were to her.
“I’m feeling better.”
“Really? Ready to run a mile?” She crossed her arms, daring him to disagree.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant you don’t have to baby me.” He indicated the bed covers. “You make me feel bad.”
She tugged on the covers to flatten them even more, then smirked.
“Did I say bossy? I meant evil.”
“I do my best.”
“Which brings me to the question you didn’t answer. Your file said your mother died when you were … four?”
She sat on the edge of his bed. “Three. A drunk driver killed her. Kind of ironic considering how my dad ending up dying.”
“I’m sorry.” It was lame, but what else did one say?
She nodded. “My dad never got over it.”
“Is that when he started drinking?”
“Near as I can tell. It started off slowly, you know, the drink after work. He’d pick me up from the sitter, we’d have dinner together, then I’d go to bed. Then sometimes, if I got up for water, I’d find him on the couch with another glass of wine. He’d kiss me, and then tuck me back in. By the time I turned six, he couldn’t tuck me in anymore. He’d be asleep on the couch and I couldn’t wake him. So I started tucking him in. Sometimes he’d sleep through his alarm so I’d learned how to use mine and wake him up in the morning. We no longer ate dinner together. Mrs. Grekov would feed me and give me leftovers for dad. I was seven and a half when he lost his job.”
“That must have been tough.”
“Not as tough as conning social services into thinking my dad could still take care of me. I’d had to keep him sober for an entire day. But we did it. He’d looked like total shit. I managed to convince the case worker he was getting over the flu.”
“Maybe it would have been better if they’d taken you from the home. You might have had a better life.”
“And my dad? What about him?” She shook her head. “We only had each other. He’d lost my mom. It would have killed him to lose me too. You see, he wasn’t a bad drunk. He wasn’t mean and he’d tell me every day how much he loved me. He just couldn’t cope.”
“When you have a small daughter to take care of, you don’t run away from your responsibilities.”
“You won’t get any arguments from me. But it was what it was.”
“That’s a pretty good attitude about the whole thing.”
“I’m a glass-half-full kinda girl.” She smiled, but it never made it to her eyes. “Plus, there were kids far worse off than me. I was lucky. At least my dad loved me.”
Blake thought she’d gotten it wrong. Her father was lucky to have her. He couldn’t imagine a five-year-old realizing she had to be the parent. What kid did? “The file said you moved to Vegas to live with your grandmother.”
“I was fourteen. She was my mother’s mom. Up to then, her husband, my grandfather, wanted nothing to do with my dad. He blamed him for Mom’s death.”
“But what about you? You were his granddaughter.” Say what you would about his grandmother, the old hag, she loved her family. For that reason alone he hadn’t cut all ties. Even with all her bullshit, if someone said anything negative about one of her family members, she’d tear into them, in her own entitled, aristocratic manner.
She stood and went over to the window, the afternoon sun catching her glossy black hair. “I don’t know. Maybe he blamed me too.”
“You were a kid when she died. That makes no sense.”
“I don’t know. My dad and I never discussed it.”
“So he had a change of heart? Your grandfather?”
“He died,” she said over her shoulder.
“That’ll do it.”
“We moved in with her. But she had her own health issues. I ended up being nursemaid to both of them. She died when I was eighteen, two months before I graduated paramedic school. The city provided homecare assistance for her, so I’d been able to get a job and save some money to pay for college.”
“Ever think about going back, finishing the degree?”
She eyed him sideways. “You been talking to Maggie?”
“No. She make the same suggestion?”
“Makes. The key word is makes. I’ve heard it a hundred times from her. But I’m not like the other girls.”
He’d agree with that but most likely for far different reasons than Rhonda. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she said. “We’ve been talking too long. Get some sleep.”
He wanted to talk more, wanted to know more about her. But he knew better than to argue.
Chapter Eight
Rhonda closed the door softly behind her. What she really wanted was to slam it. It would make her feel better, but leave Blake wondering what kind of a nut was taking care of him. All that talk about family. She had no family. They were all gone. Her life was now her own.
Her grandmother may have lost a daughter, but she’d lived a full life. Rhonda couldn’t fault the woman for needing care in her old age. And it had been her dad’s decision to drown his sorrows and not face his pain. Now they were gone. They’
d had their lives, good or bad. It was Rhonda’s turn. Too bad she had no idea how to do that.
For all her talk, it turned out she didn’t mind taking care of Blake. And that scared her to death. Was she cursed to be the sap everyone counted on, the one who couldn’t say no because, for some sadistic reason, she had this need to help? Help she would, but she didn’t want to spoon-feed anything to anyone ever again.
Rhonda headed for the kitchen to make dinner and take her mind off her pathetic life. Dozier sat at the kitchen table, a sandwich the size of Texas in his hands.
“Your choppers big enough to bite into that?”
His smile had perfect white teeth. Opening his mouth, he bit into the triple-decker meal.
“You know, one of your bites could feed a family of four.” She took a chair across from him.
He chewed, swallowed then smiled again. “I’m a growing boy.”
She harrumphed. “I pity the woman who had to feed you when you were a teenager.”
“No one fed me when I was a kid.”
“Seriously?”
“My mamma died when I was seven and by the time I was ten, I decided foster care sucked. Those five o’clock beatings tend to get on your nerves after a while.”
Rhonda’s heart clenched. What a shitty life for a kid.
“I lived on the street until I was fourteen.”
“How’d you feed yourself? Where did you sleep?” she asked, fearful for the kid he’d once been.
“Shelters mostly, on the streets when the weather was good. And when you’re hungry, you eat whatever you get your hands on. Rats are good with a little ketchup. Anything is good with ketchup.” He grinned.
The man liked to smile. “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding before I gag.”
“Just teasing. I did have a homeless guy offer me rat once, but I had my limits.”
“How’d you avoid social services?”
“A black kid? In Detroit? Wasn’t hard.”
“That sucks. I mean not social services. I get that.” The idea of social services taking her from her father had given her nightmares. “But having no one to take care of you.” Maggie spent a lot of time and energy helping kids like Dozier.
