Kitabı oku: «Bridal Jeopardy»
There he was, in the corner of the room, his gaze fixed on her again.
In that instant, the other people in the room seemed to vanish. Or maybe they had turned into shadows, because the man in the corner was the only distinct thing she could see. She fought for breath—fought for sanity, if she was honest about it.
She thought of crossing the room and … touching him. That idea leaped into her mind, and she wondered where it had come from. Touch a stranger? Why?
Yet the compulsion was so strong that she started toward him.
She knew that at any moment he would come striding toward her. He would reach out and put his hand on her arm, and then what?
Everything would change.
Bridal
Jeopardy
Rebecca York
(RUTH GLICK WRITING AS REBECCA YORK)
Award-winning, USA TODAY bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as REBECCA YORK, is the author of more than one hundred books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for the Mills & Boon® Intrigue line. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also an author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.
Norman, who’s always there for me
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Excerpt
Prologue
The horror of that day had replayed over and over in Craig Branson’s mind. What if he, Mom, Dad and Sam had gone to a different restaurant? What if they’d stayed home and ordered in? Life as he knew it would have continued on the same happy track.
But Dad had just brought in a big ad buy at the local TV station where he was promotions manager, and he’d been in the mood to celebrate his hard work.
“Where should we go to dinner?” he’d asked his twin sons, two dark-haired, dark-eyed boys only a few people could tell apart.
Craig and Sam were identical twins, born when a single egg had split in their mother’s womb. Twins were supposed to be close, but there was more between these two eight-year-olds than anyone else knew. There was a hidden bond and a fierce love born of the connection they could never explain to anyone else.
They’d looked at each other and begun a silent conversation about the merits of various choices.
Then Sam had spoken for the two of them. He’d asked to go to Venario’s, an Italian restaurant. If they ate at Venario’s, they could order an extra pizza and have it for breakfast the next morning.
Mom had protested that pizza was no kind of breakfast, but Dad let the boys have their way. If it made his twins happy to bring home pizza, he was all for it, as long as they had a nice portion of chicken or veal for dinner.
That evening they’d sat across from each other at the square table topped by a snowy cloth, silently debating the merits of ground beef or ham on their take-home pizza. Almost as soon as they’d come home from the hospital, they’d been able to read each other’s thoughts, a skill they instinctively kept hidden from the world. Mom suspected, but she had never asked them about it because the idea was too outlandish for her to wrap her brain around. She was a down-to-earth woman who wanted her sons to be strong and independent, even when their inclination was to present a united front.
At the next table, a group of men was talking loudly; their voices annoyed Mom and Dad, but they didn’t interfere with the Branson boys’ happy conversation.
That was another what-if that had tortured Craig for the twenty-two years since that night when his whole world had been shattered.
What if he and Sam hadn’t been so focused on each other? What if they’d been paying more attention to their surroundings?
Could Craig have saved Sam’s life?
He didn’t know because it all had happened so fast.
The door burst open, and two men had charged into the restaurant with guns drawn, already shooting as they ran. The guys at the next table hardly had time to react. One of them tried to stand and went down in a hail of bullets. Another one collapsed in his chair. And the third fell to the side, hitting Mom as she screamed in horror.
People all over the confined space were crying out and hitting the floor. But the chaos around Craig had hardly registered. His total attention was focused on Sam, who had been sitting closer to the scene of disaster.
He’d made a strangled sound and had fallen forward, his head hitting the table as blood spread across the crisp white cloth. His chest had been a mass of pain that Craig felt as though it were his own body on fire.
He’d leaped out of his seat, charging around the table to his brother’s side, slipping from his father’s grasp as he reached for Sam, struggling to maintain the fading connection between them. Panic rose inside him, and he’d clutched at his brother with his hand and with his mind.
Sam, don’t leave me.
Craig?
Sam. I can’t hear you, Sam.
I...can’t...
Those were his last memories of his brother. He had started screaming then, his cries drowning out the sound of a siren approaching.
His father’s arms had folded him close, protecting him from harm. But the harm was already done.
Sam was gone, vanished as though he had never been—leaving an aching gap in Craig’s soul.
Despair and anger raged inside the boy who lived. But even at the age of eight, Craig knew that he would find out who had killed his brother and avenge his death.
Chapter One
The light from the computer screen gave a harsh cast to Craig Branson’s angular features, yet he couldn’t conceal the feeling of elation surging inside himself.
He’d only been eight when his twin brother had been cruelly ripped away from him, but on that terrible day, he’d vowed that he would find the killers and bring them to justice. Now, finally, he had a lead on one of the shooters in a gangland assassination twenty-two years ago.
The restaurant where crime boss Jackie Montana and two of his men had been gunned down had been full of witnesses. Many of the patrons had identified the killers from their mug shots. They were two hired hit men named Joe Lipton and Arthur Polaski who had taken jobs all over the U.S.
Although the cops knew the assassins’ names, the men fled the scene and disappeared from the face of the earth. Now Craig knew why.
Unable to sit still, he stood and strode out of his office, then paced into the hall of the brick ranch house where he’d lived in Bethesda, Maryland, for the past few years.
It was in an upscale neighborhood just outside the nation’s capital, the perfect place for the career he’d started planning even before Sam’s funeral. He would make sure he was tough enough, smart enough and well trained enough to find his brother’s killers. To that end he’d graduated from college at George Washington University, then enlisted in the army and gone to officer-candidate school right after basic training. From there he got his first choice of assignments, the military intelligence service. After learning everything he could about investigative techniques, he returned to civilian life and started his own detective agency.
When his dad died nine months after Mom, he inherited all the money he’d ever need—if you considered his unassuming lifestyle. He had no family. No wife and children, because he knew he was lacking something that most people took for granted—the ability to connect with others on a deep, personal level. He craved those things with a fierce sense of loss because he’d had them with Sam. When his brother had been ripped from him, his anchor to the human race had been severed.
Although that was a pretty dramatic way to put it, he understood the concept perfectly. Other people formed close friendships and loving relationships. He’d never been able to manage either, although he thought he faked it pretty well. He had friends. He’d had physically satisfying affairs with women, but he had always known that marrying one of them would mean cheating her out of the warmth and closeness she deserved.
Failing that, he’d focused on his work, partly because it was intensely rewarding to put bad guys away and partly because it was a means to an end.
He would find who had killed his brother, and he would make sure they would pay for what they had done.
He’d traveled around the U.S., and he maintained contacts with police departments all over the country. One of those contacts had just paid off big-time.
He walked back to his desk, activated the printer and made a copy of the report that had come in from a lieutenant named Ike Broussard in the New Orleans P.D. According to the detective, the body of one of the men who had shot up that restaurant, Arthur Polaski, had just turned up dead on private property outside the city. The local police had identified him by dental records, and the murder weapon was with him.
A very neat package. Maybe too neat.
Craig skimmed the report again. Polaski was beyond his reach, but that didn’t mean there would be no justice for Sam. The hit man hadn’t been operating on his own. Every indication was that he’d been working for a local New Orleans bigwig named John Reynard.
As a boy, Craig had focused on bringing Polaski and Lipton to justice. But as he’d matured, he’d come to understand that the shooters were just hired thugs working for someone who wanted a rival crime boss dead. Now Polaski had led Craig to John Reynard.
Craig worked into the evening, collecting information on his quarry. Finally, when he saw that it was almost ten, he got up and stretched, then fixed himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich, which he took back to the computer, along with a bottle of beer. One advantage of living alone was that he didn’t have to stick to regular meal times, eat at the table or stop work while he fueled up. Once he knew about Reynard, it was easy to find a boatload of information on the man. He was in his early sixties and owned an import-export business in New Orleans, probably a front for drug smuggling. But the cops apparently didn’t look into his company too carefully, undoubtedly because Reynard was very generous with his bribes and also contributed significant amounts to local charities. Public record presented him as an upstanding citizen, although it was interesting that two of his former wives had died while married to him.
Craig took a swallow of beer as he came to an intriguing piece of information. Reynard was about to tie the knot again. In the society pages of the Times-Picayune, there were pictures of him with his bride-to-be at several charity events. She was a very lovely blonde woman named Stephanie Swift who looked to be half the age of the man she was going to marry.
Craig shook his head. He could see why Reynard was attracted to the woman. But what did she see in him?
As Craig studied her wide-set eyes, her narrow nose, her nicely shaped lips and the blond hair that fell in waves to her shoulders, he felt an unexpected jolt of awareness. Something about her drew him, and he struggled to dismiss the feeling of attraction to her. He didn’t want to like her. What kind of a woman would marry a lowlife like Reynard? Could it be that she was too stupid or unaware to understand what kind of man her fiancé was? Or maybe she was attracted to his money, and she didn’t care what the man was really like.
He made a snorting sound, then warned himself to stay objective. That usually wasn’t a problem for him, but apparently it was with Ms. Swift, and letting himself feel anything for her would be a big mistake.
With another shake of his head, he clicked away from a smiling picture of her with Reynard and went back to her dossier. Apparently she came from a family that had been prominent in the city. But the Swifts must have fallen on hard times because now she spent her days in the dress shop that she owned in the French Quarter.
Well, she’d be able to give up that business and get back to her society lifestyle once she married Reynard.
But maybe in the meantime she’d be useful to Craig. What if he got to know her before he made a move on Reynard? Yes, that might be the way to go.
* * *
THE BELL OVER the shop door jingled, and Stephanie Swift looked up. It was a delivery man, carrying a long cardboard box. When she saw the logo on the package, she stiffened, but she kept her voice pleasant as she spoke to the deliveryman.
“Thanks so much.”
He nodded to her as he set the package down on the counter and left her Royal Street shop.
Before the bell stopped jingling again, her assistant, Claire Dupree, came out of the back room, where she’d been unpacking merchandise that had arrived from New York that morning. Claire was a pretty, dark-haired young woman who wanted to get into fashion, and she’d offered to work for Stephanie at minimum wage for the chance to learn the business. She was a quick study, and Stephanie had come to rely on her.
“You’ve been expecting your wedding dress. Is that it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Claire eyed the box. “I’m dying to see it.”
“We’ll open it in the back room,” Stephanie answered, struggling to sound enthusiastic. She’d known all along that John Reynard was the wrong man for her. Or she’d known that perhaps there was no right man, given the way she failed to connect with anyone on a truly intimate level. But she’d held out hope for...something more.
Then fate had overtaken her hopes.
Still, she wasn’t going to let on to her assistant that she had doubts about her upcoming wedding. She was too private a person to talk about her secret worries. And she couldn’t shake the nagging impression that it might be dangerous to reveal her state of mind to anyone. Besides, even if she weren’t marrying John Reynard out of love, maybe it would turn out okay.
That was what she told herself, even when she feared she was heading for disaster. Too bad she was stuck with the bargain she’d made.
“Should I open the box?” Claire called from the next room.
“I’ll be right there,” she answered, then took a couple of deep breaths as she looked around the shop that had been the major focus of her life for the past two years. It was feminine and nicely decorated, a showplace where women could relax while they browsed the dresses and evening outfits that Stephanie imported from designers on the East Coast and Europe.
She’d always dressed well and loved fashion, but her interest morphed from an avocation into a business when her father had given her the bad news about his gambling debts.
She’d wanted to scream at him, but she hadn’t bothered raging about his lack of regard for anyone but himself. The criticism would just roll off his back like rain off a yellow slicker.
Instead, she’d taken her sense of style and the money that her mother had left her and bought a small shop in the French Quarter, a shop that had done well until a downturn in the city’s business cycle had put her in jeopardy.
She stepped into the back room and found Claire talking on her cell phone. When she saw Stephanie, she clicked off at once.
“Sorry. I was just checking in with Mom.”
“Sure,” Stephanie answered, distracted. She knew that Claire’s mother was living in a nursing home and that her daughter spoke to her frequently.
Taking a pair of scissors, she began to carefully open the dress box. The top came off, revealing layers of tissue paper. Beneath them was an ivory-colored sleeveless gown decorated with seed pearls and delicate lace. She’d seen it at a wedding outlet in New York and had used her professional capacity to order it at the wholesale price.
“Beautiful,” Claire breathed as she touched the delicate silk fabric.
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you try it on? I can help you with the buttons up the back.”
“Not now.”
Stephanie slipped the dress onto a hanger, then turned away to put it on the rack in back of her, where it dangled like a headless hanging victim.
She winced, wishing she hadn’t thought of that image.
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing she wished. What if she’d never met John Reynard? What if her shop hadn’t taken that downturn? What if she met a man who could connect with her in ways that she could only imagine?
She made a disgusted sound. As if that was going to happen.
“What?” Claire asked.
“Nothing. I’m not really feeling well. Do you mind if I get out of here for a few hours?”
Claire gave her a sympathetic look. “Oh, no. You’ve got that reception with John this evening.”
Stephanie felt a wave of anxiety sweep over her. She’d put the reception out of her mind, but now she knew what had been making her feel unsettled—even before the dress had arrived. “Lord, I forgot all about that.”
“You’d better go home and rest. You don’t want to disappoint him.”
“Right.” Once again, she wished that she’d never met John Reynard. Wished that he hadn’t listened to her dad’s sob story, then stepped in to pay her debts—and Dad’s. But she’d taken his money because her father had begged her to let John Reynard handle their problems. And at the time, it had seemed the only way out. She’d been willing to let her shop go under. She could always find a job with someone else, but that wouldn’t work out so well for Dad. He’d lose the house—his last tie to the luxurious past that the family had enjoyed. And she’d known deep down that would kill him.
If she were the cause of that, her guilt would be too great for her to bear. Which was the irony of this situation. She’d never really felt close to her parents, yet she was compelled to make sure her father ended his days in the manner to which he was accustomed. Probably because she’d never felt like a dutiful daughter—and Dad had made sure she understood that.
Claire’s voice broke into her troubled thoughts.
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks.” She thought for a moment. “If Mrs. Arlington calls to ask about her ball gown, tell her it hasn’t come in yet.”
“Of course. Don’t trouble yourself about it,” Claire repeated.
Stephanie nodded, wishing she could really relax and stop worrying about her future.
Chapter Two
After three days in New Orleans, Craig was getting a feel for the city and the power base that ran it. The Big Easy was so different from any other American urban area that it might as well have been in a foreign country. The atmosphere was hot and sultry. The houses were painted bright colors. The landscape was almost tropical, and the people exuded a laid-back attitude that belied the hard times that Hurricane Katrina had caused.
He’d avoided his contact with the police department because he was in the city under an assumed name—Craig Brady. Unlike Craig Branson, Brady had inherited considerable wealth and lived off his investments. The persona was one he’d established several years ago when he’d been hired to take down a finance guy who was using a Ponzi scheme to line his own pockets. Craig had posed as an investor ripe for the picking and nailed the guy.
The Brady persona made a good cover for investigating John Reynard. But so far Craig had stayed away from the man. He wanted to establish himself as being in the city for profit and fun. To that end he’d gone prowling around, sampling the food, the jazz and the strip clubs along Bourbon Street.
He’d also found a high-stakes poker game at a private gentleman’s club, where he could pick up some money and also some information. The minimum bet was fifty dollars, but that had been of little risk to Craig. He might not be good at intimate relationships, but he was excellent at reading people, and he used that skill to win a couple of sizable pots.
Then he’d allowed himself to lose half of it back, which put the men around the table in a friendlier mood than when he’d been raking in the chips.
“So where do you meet high-class women?” he’d asked as he and his new friends helped themselves to the club’s bourbon.
“The United Hospital Fund is holding a charity event at Oak Lane Plantation, out along the river.”
“Sounds interesting,” he answered
“Tickets are a thousand clams a pop.”
“Well, it’s for a good cause,” Craig allowed. “And you’re saying that some of the ladies are single?”
“The young gals looking for husbands come out in droves.”
He’d found out where to buy a ticket and purchased one, pretty sure from his research that John Reynard would be there.
After buying the ticket, he’d gone to one of the rental shops in town and gotten a tuxedo. Not his usual attire, he thought as he stood in front of the mirror, adjusting his bow tie. But he guessed he’d do.
His hand shook for a moment, and he pressed his palm against his thigh, annoyed at his unusual reaction. It came from being so close to Sam’s killer, he told himself, but he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it.
He couldn’t contain the mixture of anticipation and nerves racing through him. He’d been waiting a long time to confront the man who had been responsible for his brother’s death, and now the meeting was almost here.
Well, confrontation wasn’t exactly the right word. He was going to have a look at John Reynard and start planning his attack on the man. After all these years, there was no rush. Reynard wasn’t going anywhere. And neither was his beautiful fiancée. As Craig thought of Stephanie Swift, anticipation tightened his gut.
Stephanie Swift was not the main event, but she could be a means to an end, he told himself.
Craig walked to the parking lot and picked up his rental car, then headed out of town to Oak Lane Plantation.
The mansion house was ablaze with lights when he arrived, and he found a space among the Cadillacs, BMWs and Mercedes that dominated the parking area.
Inside he accepted a flute of champagne from a waiter hovering near the door because he didn’t want to look out of place among the men and women enjoying themselves at this upscale gathering.
The mansion, which was often rented out for private functions, was lavishly furnished with period tables and chests interspersed with more modern chairs and sofas and Oriental rugs on the polished pine floorboards.
He wandered from the front hall to the other rooms on the main floor, watching the guests talking, drinking and eating. As promised, some of the ladies were young, and many gave him speculative looks, although he didn’t stop to talk to any of them.
But he had his story ready if needed.
He was from out of town and considering settling in the city, and he thought this gathering would be an excellent introduction to the local social life. He’d act as if he was looking for new investments—and open to suggestions from the New Orleans financial elite.
He made his way slowly through the crowd and finally spotted John Reynard on the veranda. He was talking with a group of men and women who all seemed to know one another. And Stephanie Swift was at his side.
Craig had been taken with her picture. He hadn’t been prepared for the reality of the woman. His breath caught as he looked at her from the doorway leading outside. She was stunning in an emerald-green gown that perfectly set off her blond beauty.
She must have known he was staring at her because she looked up, and he would have sworn she had the same reaction to him that he was having to her. Her breath hitched, and she went absolutely still.
Apparently Reynard sensed something. Bending close to her, he spoke in a low voice. From twenty feet away, Craig couldn’t catch the words, but he understood the proprietary way the man spoke. This woman was his property.
She must have said something reassuring, because Reynard went back to his previous conversation. But the moment had been telling. From Stephanie’s reaction, Craig knew that she understood her place in her fiancé’s world.
He lingered in the doorway and took a small sip of his champagne, thinking that he’d like to approach the couple, but he wasn’t going to press his luck. After a long moment, he turned away and went in search of the buffet table. He’d paid a lot of money to enjoy this reception, and he might as well get a decent meal out of it.
* * *
STEPHANIE WATCHED the broad shoulders of the man who had been staring at John—and her. She’d noticed him right away, noticed how his tuxedo accentuated his rugged good looks. She knew she had never seen him before. Who was he, and what was he doing here? For a moment he’d looked interested in John, then he’d switched his attention to her, and she’d felt as if there was an invisible wire connecting the two of them, drawing them to each other.
She hoped John hadn’t caught the intensity of her interest in the man because she knew he was jealous of any interactions she had with other guys. John had staked his claim on her, and she fully understood that playing any role but the one she’d been assigned was dangerous. Before she’d agreed to the marriage, her suitor had done his best to charm her, and she’d tried to convince herself that marriage to him wouldn’t be so bad. But once he’d known she was his, there had been subtle changes. He didn’t outright say that he owned her, but she got that message.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she murmured.
“Where are you going?” her companion asked.
“To powder my nose.”
He nodded, and she moved back through the mansion toward the grand staircase. The ladies’ room was on the second floor, and she was glad to escape from John and the society types who populated the party.
As she walked through the main floor, she scanned the crowd and was relieved and disappointed not to see the mysterious stranger. He couldn’t have just come in for a few minutes and left. Not at the price he’d paid for the ticket to this event.
Then she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and she turned quickly. There he was, in the corner, his gaze fixed on her again.
In that instant, the other people in the room seemed to vanish. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that they had turned into shadows, because the man in the corner was the only distinct thing she could see. She fought for breath, fought for sanity if she was honest about it.
What are you doing to me? she asked, the question never leaving her lips because she spoke only in her mind. Still, she had the weird feeling that he could hear her, although he gave her no answer.
She thought of crossing the room and...touching him. That idea leaped into her mind, and she wondered where it had come from. Touch a stranger? Why?
Yet the compulsion was so strong that she started toward him. Then she stopped after two steps and clenched her fists.
He was standing with the same rigidity, and she knew that at any moment he would come striding toward her. He would reach out and put his hand on her arm, and then what?
Everything would change.
She didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t want to find out. No, that was a lie. She couldn’t afford the luxury of finding out.
The temptation was so overwhelming that she had to force herself to turn away and hurry up the stairs. With a sigh of relief, she closed the ladies’ room door behind her, putting a barrier between herself and the man who had drawn her like no other.
Marge LaFort glanced up from where she sat at one of the dressing-table stools. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she lied.
“You look like...”
“Like what?” she demanded as the other woman’s voice trailed off.
Marge shrugged. “I’m not sure. Is that handsome fiancé of yours giving you a hard time?”
“No. Of course not,” Stephanie denied. In fact, she had forgotten all about John Reynard when she’d been caught in the stranger’s web. Or was he caught in hers? She didn’t know which.
She walked through the dressing area and into the bathroom, where she used the facilities, not because she needed to but because it would seem strange to simply come here and take refuge.
To her relief, when she emerged, Marge was gone. Or was that good? What if Marge went straight down to talk to John?
Stephanie dragged in a breath and let it out, wishing that she didn’t imagine every person in the mansion as a spy for John Reynard, yet she knew that he did have a network of informants—or at least people who were anxious to stay on the good side of such a powerful man by feeding him information about people and events he might think important.
For example, she knew there were some new customers who had come to her shop to check out John Reynard’s fiancée. And some of them were probably reporting back to him, much as she hated to think it. But she supposed she’d have to live with that, and maybe he’d trust her more when they were married.
She stayed at the dressing table for several more minutes, fussing with her hair, wondering whom she was hiding from—the dark-haired man or her intended. When she finally emerged and came downstairs, she didn’t see the stranger. That was a relief. Now she only had to deal with John.
* * *
MEN WERE WATCHING HIM, Craig realized as he filled a plate with boudin balls, Cajun rice and crawfish étouffée. Tough-looking types who didn’t exactly fit in with the other guests at this fancy event. Since they were dividing their attention between Reynard and Craig, he had to assume that they were the other man’s bodyguards. Apparently Craig had caught Reynard’s attention. Or perhaps Reynard had noticed the silent exchange when Craig and Stephanie had made eye contact. At any event, he decided it would be best to leave.
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