Night Shield

by Nora Roberts

  you’d better remember it.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Stop poking at me.”

  “I’d like to flatten you.”

  “Same goes.”

  He walked away, waiting until he was sure he had some level of control again. Her mention of shame had gotten through. He could be angry with himself for falling in love with her. But he wouldn’t be ashamed of it.

  “I’ll make you a deal. You get rid of the tail.” He gestured to the shadow car that had pulled in a minute behind them. “And we’ll take a couple of hours at your parents’.”

  “Give me a second.”

  She walked to the dark sedan, leaned in and had a short conversation with the driver. She had her hands in her pockets as she strode back over to Jonah.

  “I cut them loose for the rest of the afternoon. It’s the best I can do.” She circled her shoulders. Apologies always tensed her up. “Look, I’m sorry I played it this way. I should have done it straight and we could have argued about it back at your place.”

  “You didn’t play it straight because you knew I wouldn’t be here to argue with.”

  “Okay, you’re right.” She threw up her hands in defeat. “Sorry again. My family’s important to me. I’m involved with you. It just follows that I want you to feel comfortable with them.”

  “Comfort might be asking a little too much. But I’m not ashamed of my relationship with you. I don’t want you to think I am.”

  “Fair enough. Jonah, it would mean a lot to me if you’d give it a try this afternoon.”

  “It’s easier to argue with you when you’re being obnoxious.”

  “Now see, that’s what my brother Bryant always says. You’ll get along fine.” Hoping to soften things, she hooked her arm with his. “There’s one thing, though,” she began as they walked back to the car.

  “What thing?”

  “This deal at the house today? It’s a little … more than I might have indicated. Sort of a kind of reunion. It’s just that there’ll be more people, that’s all,” she said quickly. “Aunts and uncles and cousins from back East, and my father’s old partner and her family. It’s really better for you this way,” she insisted when he balled a fist and tapped it against her chin. “It’s more a horde than a group, so nobody’ll even notice you. Hey, why don’t you let me drive the rest of the way?”

  “Why don’t I knock you unconscious and you can ride in the trunk the rest of the way?”

  “Never mind. It was just a thought.” She strolled around the car, reached for the door handle. But he beat her to it. It made her laugh and turn and take his face in her hands.

  “You’re a real case, Blackhawk.” She gave him a noisy kiss, then climbed in. When he joined her, she leaned over, rubbed her knuckles over his cheek. “They’re just people. Really nice people.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Jonah. An hour. If you’re uncomfortable being there after an hour, just tell me. I’ll make an excuse and we’ll go. No questions. Deal?”

  “If I’m uncomfortable in an hour, I’ll go. You stay with your family. That’s the way it should be, so that’s the deal.”

  “All right.” She settled back, secured her belt. “Why don’t I give you a quick rundown so you know the players? There’s Aunt Natalie and her husband—Ryan Piasecki. She runs some of the interests of Fletcher Industries, but her real baby is Lady’s Choice.”

  “Underwear?”

  “Lingerie. Don’t be a peasant.”

  “Terrific catalogues.”

  “Which you peruse for fashion’s sake.”

  “Hell no. There are half-naked women in there.”

  She laughed, relieved they’d passed the crisis point. “Moving right along. Uncle Ry’s an arson inspector in Urbana. They have three kids, fourteen, twelve and eight, if my math’s right. Then there’s my mother’s sister, Aunt Deborah—Urbana’s district attorney—her husband, Gage Guthrie.”

  “The Guthrie who has more money than the national treasury?”

  “So rumor has it. Four kids for them. Sixteen, fourteen, twelve and ten. Like steps.” She made upward motions with her hand. “Then there’s Captain Althea Grayson, Dad’s former partner, and her husband, Colt Nightshade. Private Investigator. More of a troubleshooter really. Sort of a loose cannon. You’ll like him. They have two kids, one of each, fifteen and twelve. No, thirteen now.”

  “So basically, I’m spending the afternoon with a teenage baseball team.”

  “They’re fun,” she promised him. “You don’t like kids?”

  “I have no idea. My exposure to their species has been limited.”

  “This exit,” she told him. “Well, it won’t be limited after today. I think you might have met my brothers somewhere along the line. Bryant’s in Fletcher Industries. I guess he’s a kind of troubleshooter, too. Does a lot of traveling and nailing butts to the wall. He loves it. And Keenan’s a firefighter. We visited my aunt Natalie right after she hooked up with Uncle Ry, and Keen, he fell for the big red truck. That was it for him. Left at the next light. That wraps it up.”

  “I have a headache.”

  “No, you don’t. Right at the corner, left two blocks down.”

  He’d already gotten a solid impression of the neighborhood. Stable, rich and exclusive with its big, beautiful houses on big, beautiful grounds. It gave him an itch between the shoulder blades he’d never be able to explain.

  He was comfortable in the city, where the streets reminded him he’d overcome something, and the faces that crowded him were anonymous. But here, with the majestic trees, the sloped lawns, green and lush with approaching summer, the explosion of flowers and rambling old homes, he wasn’t just a stranger.

  He was an intruder.

  “That one there, on the left, the cedar and river rock, with the zigzagging decks. I guess everyone’s here already. Looks like a parking lot.”

  The double driveway was packed. The house itself was a huge and unique study of rooflines, jutting decks, wide expanses of glass, all accented by trees and flowering bushes with a meandering slate path ribboning up the gentle hill.

  “I’ve reassessed the deal,” Jonah told her. “I’m adding exotic sexual favors. I think this deserves them.”

  “Fine. I’ll take ’em.”

  She reached for the door, but his arm shot out, pinned her back against the seat. She only laughed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay, we’ll discuss exotic sexual favors later. Unless you’re demanding a down payment on them here and now.”

  “Yeah, that’ll put a cap on it.” He jerked open his door, but before he could walk around the car, there was a war whoop, and a pretty young girl with a pixie cap of dark hair raced down the hill.

  She grabbed Ally in a bear hug the minute she was out of the car. “There you are! Everyone’s here. Sam already pushed Mick into the pool and Bing chased your neighbor’s cat up a tree. Keenan got him down and my mom’s inside putting something on the scratches. Hi.”

  She beamed a hundred-watt smile at Jonah. “I’m Addy Guthrie. You must be Jonah. Aunt Cilla said you were coming with Ally. You own a nightclub? What kind of music do you have?”

  “She does shut up twice a year, for five minutes. We time it.” Ally wrapped an arm around her cousin’s neck and squeezed. “Sam is in the Piasecki branch, Mick is Addy’s brother. And Bing is our family dog who has no manners whatsoever, so he fits in very well. Don’t worry about remembering any of that, or you really will have a headache.”

  She reached out to take his hand, but Addy beat her to it. “Can I come to your club? We’re not going home until Wednesday. Thursday if nagging works. I mean, what’s one more day? Gosh, you’re really tall, aren’t you? He looks great, too,” she added, peering around him to her cousin. “Nice job, Allison.”

  “Shut up, Addy.”

  “Somebody’s always saying that to me.”

  Charmed despite himself, Jonah smiled at her. “Do you listen?”

  “Absolutely not.” />
  The noise level rose—screams, shouts. A couple of gangly teenagers of indeterminate sex raced by armed with enormous water guns. He saw a woman with a sunny sweep of hair in deep conversation with a striking redhead. A group of men—some stripped to the waist—battled it out brutally on a blacktopped basketball court. Another group of young people, dripping wet, raided a table loaded with food.

  “Pool’s around the other side of the house,” Ally explained. “It’s glassed in so we can use it all year.”

  One of the men on court pivoted, drove through the line of defense and dunked the ball. Then he caught sight of Ally and deserted the field.

  She met him halfway, shouting with laughter when he plucked her off her feet. “Put me down, moron. You’re sweaty.”

  “So would you be if you were leading your team to a second consecutive victory.” But he dropped her on her feet, wiped his hand on his jeans, then held it out to Jonah. “I’m Bryant, Ally’s far superior brother. Glad you could make it. Want a beer?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  Bryant eyed Jonah, measuring size and build. “You play any roundball?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Great, we’re going to need fresh meat. Shirts and skins. Ally, get the man a beer while I finish trouncing these pansies.”

  “Come on inside.” In a show of sympathy, Ally rubbed a hand up and down Jonah’s arm. “Get your bearings. It’s too confusing to try to meet everyone at once.”

  She drew him up onto a deck, where yet another table was spread with food and an enormous metal trough was filled with ice and cold drinks. She plucked out two beers and went in through the atrium doors.

  The kitchen was spacious, broken up into family areas with counters and a banquette. In one corner a dark-haired man was trying to tug away from a dark-haired woman. “I’ll live, Aunt Deb. Mom, get her off me.”

  “Don’t be a baby.” With her head stuck in the refrigerator, Cilla swore. “We’re going to run out of ice. I knew it. Didn’t I tell him we’d run out of ice?”

  “Hold still, Keenan.” Deborah covered the scratches with a gauze pad, taped it neatly. “There, now you can have a lollipop.”

  “I’m surrounded by smart alecks. Hey, speaking of which, here’s Ally.”

  “Aunt Deb.” Ally hurried over to hug her aunt, then reached over and grazed her knuckles over Keenan’s cheek. “Hi, hero. This is Jonah Blackhawk. Jonah, my aunt Deborah, my brother Keenan. You’ve met my mother.”

  “Yes. Nice to see you again, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  A small army chose that moment to pour in through the door, full of shouted complaints and chased by an unbelievably large and ugly dog.

  Ally was immediately absorbed into them. And before he could defend himself, so was Jonah.

  * * *

  Jonah intended to leave at the end of the hour. A deal was a deal. His plan was to make some polite conversation, keep as far out of the way as humanly possible, then fade back into his car and back into the city where he knew the rules.

  And somehow, he was stripped out of his shirt and going elbow to gut in a vicious game of basketball with Ally’s uncles, cousins, brothers. In the heat of competition, he lost track of intentions.

  But he damn well knew it was Ally herself who stomped on his instep and cost him game point.

  She was fast and sneaky, he conceded that as he ripped the ball away from an opponent and gave her one deadly glare. But she hadn’t grown up on the streets where a single basket could mean a buck for a burger against a painfully empty stomach.

  That made him faster. And sneakier.

  “I like him.” Natalie ignored her son’s bloodcurdling scream of revenge and tucked an arm through Althea’s.

  “He was a hard-ass, but Boyd always liked him. Ouch, he plays dirty.”

  “What other way is there? Whoa, Ryan’s going to be limping tomorrow. Serves him right,” Natalie said with a laugh. “Taking on a guy half his age. Nice butt.”

  “Ry’s? I’ve always thought so.”

  “Keep your eye off my husband, Captain. I was referring to our Ally’s young man.”

  “Does Ryan know you ogle young men?”

  “Naturally. We have a system.”

  “Well, I am forced to agree. Ally’s young man has a very nice butt. Oh, ouch, that had to hurt.”

  “I think I could take him,” Natalie murmured, then laughed at Althea’s arch look. “In basketball. Get your mind out of the gutter.” She swung an arm over her old friend’s shoulder. “Let’s go get some wine and pump Cilla for info on this new and very interesting situation.”

  “You read my mind.”

  * * *

  “I know nothing, I say nothing,” Cilla claimed as she poured another bag of ice into the trough. “Go away.”

  “It’s the first guy she’s brought to one of the family deals,” Natalie pointed out.

  Cilla merely straightened and mimed zipping her own lips.

  “Give it up,” Deborah advised. “I’ve been interrogating her for a half hour, and I got zero.”

  “You lawyers are too soft.” Althea moved forward, grabbing Cilla by the collar. “Now, a good cop knows how to get to the truth. Spill it, O’Roarke.”

  “Do your worst, copper, I ain’t no stool pigeon. Besides, I don’t know anything yet. But I will,” she murmured as she saw Ally dragging Jonah toward the deck. “Clear out, give me five minutes.”

  “It’s nothing,” Jonah insisted.

  “It’s blood. Rules of the house. If it bleeds, it gets mopped up.”

  “Ah, another victim.” Cilla rubbed her hands together as her friends and relations conveniently scattered. “Bring him on.”

  “His face ran into something.”

  “Your fist,” Jonah said with some bitterness. “Guarding the goal doesn’t include left jabs.”

  “Around here it does.”

  “Let’s see.” Wisely Cilla kept her expression sober as she studied Jonah’s bleeding lip. “Not so bad. Ally go help your father.”

  “But I—”

  “Go help your father,” Cilla repeated and, snagging Jonah’s hand, dragged him up to the deck and into the kitchen. “Now, let’s see, where did I put my instruments of torture?”

  “Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Cilla. Sit down, and button it up. Whining is severely punished around here.” She gathered up a damp cloth, ice and antiseptic. “Punched you, did she?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Takes after her father. Sit,” she ordered again and jabbed a finger into his bare stomach until he obeyed. “I appreciate your restraint in not hitting her back.”

  “I don’t hit women.” He winced when she dabbed at the cut.

  “Good to know. She’s a handful. Are you up to that?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Is it just sex, or are you up for the whole package?”

  He wasn’t sure which shocked him more, the question or the sudden sting of antiseptic. He swore, ripely, then clenched his teeth. “Sorry.”

  “I’ve heard the word before. Was that your answer?”

  “Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Cilla.” She leaned in close, then smiled into his eyes. Good eyes, she thought. Steady, clear. “I’ve embarrassed you. I didn’t expect to. Almost done here. Hold this ice on it a minute.”

  She slid onto the bench across from him, crossed her arms on the table. By her calculations, she had two minutes tops before someone burst in the door and interrupted. “Boyd didn’t think you would come today. I did. Allison is relentless when she’s set her mind on something.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I don’t know your mind, Jonah. But I know something about you, and I know what I see. So I want to tell you something.”

  “I didn’t intend to stay this long—”

  “Hush,” she said mildly. “A lifetime ago. Nearly your lifetime ago, I met this cop. This irritating, fascinating, hardheaded cop. I didn’t want to be interested.
I certainly didn’t want to be involved. My mother was a cop, and she died in the line of duty. I’ve never gotten over it. Not really.”

  She had to take a breath to steady herself, because it was perfectly true. “The last thing I wanted, the last thing I figured was good for me, was to find myself tangled up with a cop. I know how they think, what they are, what they risk. God, I didn’t want that in my life. And here I am, a lifetime later. The wife of one, the mother of one.”

  She glanced out the window, caught sight of her husband, then her daughter. “Strange, isn’t it, the way things turn out? It isn’t easy, but I wouldn’t give up a moment of it. Not one moment.”

  She patted the hand he’d laid on the table, then rose. “I’m glad you came today.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it gave me a chance to see you and Ally together. It gave me a chance to look at you, close. An opportunity you haven’t given me more than twice in, what is it, Jonah, seventeen years? And I like what I see.”

  Leaving him speechless, she turned to the fridge and pulled out a platter of burger patties. “Would you mind taking these to Boyd? If we don’t feed the kids every couple of hours, it gets ugly.”

  “All right.” He took the platter, struggled with himself while she just smiled at him out of the eyes Ally had inherited. “She’s a lot like you, too.”

  “She inherited all of my and Boyd’s most annoying qualities. Funny how that works.” She rose on her toes, gently touched her lips to the wound at the corner of his mouth. “That comes with the treatment.”

  “Thanks.” He shifted the tray, searched for something to say. No one in his life had ever kissed him where it hurt. “I have to get back to the city. Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome. You’re welcome anytime, Jonah.”

  She smiled to herself as he went out. “Your turn at the plate, Boyd,” she murmured. “Make it count.”

  Chapter 11

  “It’s all in the wrist,” Boyd claimed, flipping a burger.

  “I thought you said it was all in the timing.” Ally stood, thumbs tucked into her pockets while her brother Bryant looked on, his elbow comfortably hooked on her shoulder.

  “Timing is, of course, essential. There are many, many subtle aspects to the art of the barbecue.”

  “But when do we eat?” Bryant demanded.

  “Two minutes if you’re going for a burger. Another ten if you’re holding out for steak.” He peered through the billowing smoke as Jonah cut across the yard with a platter. “Looks like we have more supplies on the way.”

  “How about a burger, then steak?”

  “You’re tenth in line, I believe, for burger requests, son. Take a number.” Boyd flipped another, sent it sizzling, then furrowed his brow as he caught sight of his wife on the side deck.

  Dancing in place, she waved her arms, pointed at Jonah, pointed at Boyd, circled her fingers. He got the drift and, though he winced inwardly, gave a subtle shrug of acknowledgment.

  Okay, okay, I’ll talk to him. Damn it.