Dare to Love Again

by Julie Lessman

  “Pick his brain?” Blake gave Jamie a wink. “Why? All you’ll find there is puffed pride and hot air.”

  Bram chuckled as he strolled for the door. “Yeah, but don’t forget pride goeth before the fall—Jamie’s pride, Logan’s fall.” He shot a grin over his shoulder as he opened the door. “Followed by Jamie’s fall when Logan assigns him the Preston case out of pure spite.”

  Strolling over to select a cue, Logan laughed and slapped Jamie on the shoulder. “That’s certainly a consideration, my boy, so you may want to take it easy on your old employer or I just may do that and more.” He tested the weight of the cue with a wink. “Like reassigning Blake’s despised Kilcullen case to you.”

  “Hey, I’m all for that,” Blake said, following Bram to the door. He slung an arm over Bram’s shoulder as the two of them stood there grinning. “I’d like to see Pretty Boy handle a woman scorned in the divorce debacle of the year.”

  “No thanks.” Jamie smiled and rolled his neck, flexing one hand and then the other. “When it comes to women scorned, your reputation makes you the most qualified, ‘Rake,’ ” he said, emphasis on the nickname he and Bram “Padre” Hughes had assigned the best friend who tended to womanize.

  Blake cuffed Bram’s shoulder. “I guarantee you, Mac, ‘scorn’ never enters in, not with the Padre along to lend a shoulder to cry on for any heartbroken ladies.” He offered a salute. “Break a cue, Uncle Logan—preferably over Mac’s head. G’night, all.”

  “Good night, boys—see you tomorrow,” Logan called while chalking his cue.

  Grateful for time alone with Logan, Jamie set up once again, rolling the balls until the cluster was nice and tight. When he finished, he twirled the cue in hand, giving his employer a cheeky grin. “Just so I don’t look too eager for the Kilcullen case, boss, how about we forgo the coin toss and I let you have the break?”

  Logan chuckled and moved to the head of the table, taking careful aim with his cue. “Wise move, counselor,” he said with a focused squint, apparently sizing up the angle of the shot he wanted to take. Stance casual, he leaned over the end of the table with an open-hand bridge, breaking the balls with a loud crack.

  “Holy cow,” Jamie muttered when three balls spun off into pockets so fast, his jaw dropped along with his confidence. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

  Humor twinkled in Logan’s eyes. “From your fiancée, Mac, who’s getting tired of being the only one who can put you in your place.” He rechalked his cue and studied the table, obviously assessing his best angle. “Cassie’s been teaching me some of her shots.”

  A grin slid across Jamie’s face as he shook his head. “Has she now? Well, then, I’m going to have to have a little talk with your niece, sir, to put an end to these treasonous tendencies of hers. Especially once we’re married.”

  Logan chuckled and took another shot, sinking two balls in the process. “I suspect she’s just looking for ways to keep you humble since you seem to conquer everything you set your mind to.” He peered up from where he stood bent over the table, cue stick in position. “I know you show no mercy in the courtroom, billiard room, and in the boxing ring, Mac, but what do you know about jiu-jitsu?”

  Jamie blinked when Logan put away two more balls. He glanced up, eyes in a squint. “Jiu-jitsu? You mean the self-defense technique President Roosevelt’s been touting?”

  Logan cocked a hip, both hands resting on the standing cue before him. “Yeah—what do you know about it?”

  Scratching the back of his head, Jamie gave it serious thought. “Well, I’ve heard talk of it at the Oly Club, of course, but I don’t really know much about it nor anybody who does. Why?”

  Logan finished off the eight in a neat, clean swish and stood up straight. “Because I promised Cait I’d find somebody to teach Allison for extra protection when she works late at the school.”

  Releasing a low whistle over Logan’s easy win, Jamie proceeded to dig the balls out of the pockets, making a mental note to speak to his fiancée about teaching trick shots to anybody but him. “Nice game, sir—care to go two out of three?”

  “That may be stretching my luck, Mac, but I’ll give it a whirl.”

  Jamie racked the balls once again, then stepped aside to let Logan take the winner’s first shot. “What about boxing? Alli hounded me awhile back to teach her to box, so I showed her a few steps, although I didn’t take it too seriously. But if you want me to, I will.”

  Another crash of ivory echoed in the room on Logan’s next break, pocketing only two balls this time. “Thanks, I appreciate that, but I’m looking for something where she can defend herself from anyone bigger and stronger should the need arise, and where the element of surprise is a key factor.”

  Jamie grinned. “Pardon my saying so, sir, but ‘surprise’ is always a key factor with Alli. She near broke my leg when she hauled off and kicked me in the shin after I refused to teach her any more than I did.”

  Bent low over the table, Logan took his next shot, managing to sink another ball. “Yes, she’s a feisty one and a lady you don’t want to cross if you can help it.” He let loose with a noisy sigh as he rose to his full height, kneading the bridge of his nose. “Not unlike her mother, I’m afraid.”

  “Or her Texas cousin,” Jamie said with a chuckle, thoughts of Cassie warming his heart. He perched on the corner of the table with cue stick in hand and studied Cassie’s uncle, the man who had become both mentor and friend and whose approval he craved more than any other. Jamie paused to draw in a deep breath, hesitation in his voice. “And speaking of Mrs. McClare, sir, . . . have you . . . given any thought as to when you might tell her?”

  Logan glanced up, eyes suddenly intense. “Close the door, Jamie, will you?”

  Hopping up, Jamie promptly did as he was told, returning to prop himself on the corner of the table once again, waiting for Logan to speak.

  With a heavy exhale, Logan returned to his stool, shoulders slumped and both hands gripped to the vertical cue as it stood slack between his legs. A muscle flickered in the chiseled lines of his cheek, a key indicator just how difficult this subject was for him. “I have, Jamie, and just when I think the time might be right, something derails me—burdens on Cait like a recent incident at the school or Megs leaving in two weeks for a year in Paris.” His shoulders rose and fell with another weighty sigh that suddenly seemed to sap his good mood and energy. “I don’t want to add to her troubles at a time when she needs my strength, not news that will deplete it, so I’ve just been biding my time.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Logan cuffed the back of his neck, his body suddenly sagging as if the weight of his long-held secret would destroy him too. “Of course, she has no idea just how vested I’ve been in various establishments on the Barbary Coast either, which is another fly in the ointment that’s sure to upset her. Especially now that certain members of the Vigilance Committee are pressuring her to escalate the timetable on phase two in the cleanup of the Coast. So timing and favor with Cait is critical right now to forestall any heavy restrictions on taverns that offer gambling like the Blue Moon.”

  Jamie’s pulse thudded to a stop. His heart clenched at the thought of anything affecting Logan’s investment in the tavern that provided jobs for Jamie and his mother over the years and where his mother still worked as a cook. “They wouldn’t close Duffy down, would they, sir?”

  “Not if Cait sticks to the schedule she convinced me to present to the Board of Supervisors last year, which gives us enough time to go after the primary offenders such as the brothels and dancing halls instead of legitimate businesses like Duffy’s.” Logan slashed fingers through his usually meticulous hair, further evidence of his emotional stress. The man was always cool and controlled in the courtroom and out, his appearance as deadly calm as his words. But not this time. Jamie released a slow, wavering breath. Not when it came to Caitlyn McClare.

  Venting with another weary exhale, Logan rose to his feet, meeting Jamie’s
gaze dead-on, his love for his family as clear as the gray of his eyes—transparent pools of deep affection and honest regret. “I promise you, Jamie, I will do everything in my power to protect Duffy and your mother’s job before the truth comes out, but it will come out, you have my word.”

  Jamie’s heart swelled with love and respect for the man before him, the man who’d been everything to him since he’d first met him at the Oly Club in college—friend, role model, mentor, teacher, employer . . . and as close to a father as a man could get. His throat thickened with emotion. “I trust you, sir, in any decisions you choose to make.”

  A sheen of moisture glimmered in Logan’s eyes for the briefest of moments before he quickly looked away, rechalking his stick with a vengeance. “Thank you, Jamie,” he said in a gruff voice that betrayed the emotion he seldom displayed. “That means the world to me.”

  He circled the table to survey his next shot, finally positioning his cue with a hand as steady as his voice, which was now back in control. Slanted low over the far edge, he paused, glancing up to give Jamie a crook of a smile. “Now . . . whether I’m lucky enough to ever beat you at pool again or not, if we can just get Mrs. McClare to follow suit on the trust factor?” He cut loose with a shot that hit dead-on, his smile veering toward dry. “I’ll be the luckiest man alive.”

  “Barone—the captain wants to see ya—now!” One of the new crop of freshly scrubbed officers stuck his head in the interrogation room where Nick and his partner were a hair’s breadth away from coercing Jimmy O’Toole to rat on a friend.

  Nick glanced over his shoulder with a scowl. “Tell him I’m busy on the Dead Man’s Alley homicide and I’ll be there when I’m done.”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, but the captain said this can’t wait.”

  Venting with a near growl, Nick gouged the bridge of his nose with blunt fingers before pushing away from the table, the wooden chair groaning in protest. Blast it all, Friday afternoons were hard enough in the Barbary precinct with a week of felonies and misdemeanors piled high and a weekend of carousing looming ahead. He sure didn’t need the captain pulling rank this close to cinching a case. He rose and snatched his jacket off the back of the chair, tone as threatening as the look he gave the pimple-faced punk slouched with his head in his hands. “I’m out of patience, slimeball. If you haven’t spilled what you know by the time I get back, we’ll toss your sorry hide in the cage and book you for manslaughter, you got it?”

  Nick banged the chair in with a grunt. “You can waste your time if you want, Flynn, but the punk’s yellow and I’m through pussyfootin’. I’ll have the paperwork to toss him in the cage when I get back.” He stalked out of the room and slammed the door. The show of temper was no act as he stormed down the hall to the captain’s office, bumping the shoulder of some baby-faced recruit he passed who looked younger than O’Toole. Not bothering to knock, Nick hurled the captain’s door open, quivering the wood and opaque glass frame as it ricocheted off the wall. “What’s the all-fire hurry, Harm?” he said, taking advantage of their friendship. “I thought Dead Man’s Alley was a priority.” He glared at his superior, not giving a whit about the bigwig in a tailored charcoal morning coat in one of the captain’s worn leather chairs.

  Lips compressed in the barest of smiles, Captain Harmon Peel assessed Nick with the same patient air as always when his top detective came crashing through his door. Easily fifteen years Nick’s senior, Harmon Peel had proven to be not only an honest and able police official, but a good friend as well, one of the few Nick could trust in a precinct where cops on the take were as common as fleas in the jail. Despite a black handlebar moustache and stocky build, hints of Miss Penny’s features could be seen in blue eyes that sported an abundance of wrinkles. The smattering of gray at his temples seemed to have grown since Nick joined the precinct a year ago, but that was to be expected in a district where prostitution, gambling, drugs, and alcohol were primary modes of survival. Harmon waved a hand at an empty chair in front of his scarred wooden desk. “Close the door and take a load off, Nick, I have a proposition for you.”

  “No thanks, Captain—the only proposition I’m interested in is stringing up the lowlife who snuffed out Sadie Merton’s life.”

  The planes of Captain Peel’s affable face hardened into a tight smile as taut as his tone. “It wasn’t a request, Barone, it was an order. Sit.”

  Nipping the colorful retort straining on the tip of his tongue, Nick heaved the door closed, vibrating both the glass and the wall this time before he dropped in the leather chair next to the dandy already seated. Exhaling a noisy breath, he gave no more than a cursory glance at the man beside him, but it was more than enough. He shot to his feet, knuckles white and palms flat as he slanted forward on Harmon’s desk. “A proposition with him? Not on your life, Harm—I want nothing to do with a high-rolling board member who votes with his bank account.”

  Harmon Peel silently rose like impending doom, the flicker in his jaw matching the one in Nick’s cheek. His voice was lethal and low, a level he usually reserved for the baby-fuzz patrolman fresh on the beat. “Another word and you’ll be directing traffic and policing cable cars for pickpockets, Barone, right after a stint in the cooler, is that clear?”

  Grinding a stinging retort into his tongue, Nick chose rigid silence over vaulting the desk.

  “I said—is-that-clear?”

  Nick’s temple was throbbing so hard, it could have been Morse code. “Yes,” he bit out, the word sounding more like a curse than a response.

  “Now sit down and shut up, Nick, and listen for once instead of going off half-cocked like a loaded gun in the hands of one of those squeaky-voiced goggle-eyes I just hired.”

  Twitch in his cheek, Nick made him wait before he finally dropped back in the chair.

  Harmon drew in a deep breath and released it again. He slowly reclaimed his seat with a steel-edged authority as sharp as the cold knife of threat Nick felt lodged in his back. “Logan McClare is not only a presiding member of this city’s top government authority but one of my closest friends, in addition to being a highly respected member of this community. In the future, Detective Barone, you will address him as ‘Supervisor McClare’ in a tone worthy of his status, understood?” He paused, obviously expecting Nick’s consent, which came in the form of a grunt.

  “Good.” Huffing out a weary sigh, the captain leaned back with a squeal of his chair. “Sorry about that, Logan, but he hails from Lower Manhattan—Little Italy—where civil discourse is apparently extinct.” He folded his hands on a barrel chest, ignoring Nick as if he weren’t singeing him with a glare two feet away. “Hired him as a favor to a friend of a friend a year ago, but for all his surly disposition, he’s the best and toughest cop in this precinct.”

  “Only after you, Harm,” Logan said with a warmth Nick didn’t know the man possessed. “I just hope you’re tougher than he is because we’ll need something to keep him in line.”

  A nerve pulsed in Nick’s face. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m not deaf, dumb, and blind.”

  Harm’s gaze finally veered to Nick with a smile. “Well, not deaf anyway,” he said with a chuckle. He turned back to McClare. “Yeah, I’m tougher than him, but only because he needs to eat. But I gotta be honest, Logan, I hate to lose him as a detective even for a short time. He’s first-rate and has solved more crimes in the last year than the rest of my staff put together. But if you can overlook his crotchety manner, well, then I guess he’s your man.”

  Logan shifted in his chair to face him, and his cool smile told Nick he was enjoying the upper hand despite the hard line of his sculpted jaw. With a casual confidence that got on Nick’s nerves, he appeared to be the ultimate solicitor, inside the courtroom or out, unruffled and in control. Not a strand was out of place on thick dark hair peppered with gray at the temples, and the near-cavernous cleft in his chin and easy good looks explained his reputation as one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Nick’s facial muscles stretched taut. Yeah, that
and the fact he was filthy rich and politically connected.

  He assessed Nick through cool eyes the color of iced pewter. “I’d like to commission your services, Mr. Barone.”

  Nick slid him a sideways sneer. “To put a leash on your scatterbrained niece so she doesn’t get in trouble again?”

  “Barone . . .” Harmon’s tone held a warning. “One more slur and your next paycheck is mine.”

  Better than working for an arrogant blue blood. The tendons in his neck felt ready to snap. “Yes, sir.”

  A faint smile played on Logan’s lips as he relaxed in his chair with arms folded across a meticulous silk waistcoat and crisp linen shirt. “You’re more astute than you appear, Detective, although I prefer the term ‘high-spirited and adventurous’ when it comes to my niece.” Genuine affection flickered on his face for a split second while slate-colored eyes trailed into a faraway stare, his eyes as soft as his tone. “Allison is a remarkably rare young woman.”

  Nick buried a grunt. And it’s a good thing, the way she wields a stick.

  “But,” he said with a lift of his chin, a counselor in control once again, “your disdain for me and my niece is exactly why I believe you’re the perfect candidate for what I have in mind.”

  Candidate?? Nick gritted his teeth to contain all further insults. “Victim” is more apt if your niece is involved. He felt the captain’s stare drill a hole in the side of his head, forcing his words past the clench of his teeth. “If I may be so bold, sir, perfect candidate for what?”

  Logan grinned as if what he was about to say gave him great satisfaction. “Why, the perfect guardian, teacher, and handyman for the Hand of Hope School, Mr. Barone.”

  Nick stared, jaw slacking into stupor mode. “In case it’s slipped your notice, Supervisor McClare, I already have a job.”

  The grin faded into a formidable smile. “Yes, Mr. Barone, I know—working for me.”

  Nick shot to his feet, palms strained flat on Harmon’s desk once again. “What’s he talking about, Captain?”