“You would know, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that why you quit medicine?”
That was a low blow. And way too close to the truth. He put up his hands in surrender. “Give me a break. I’ll look at her.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Sorry. I have this thing about doctors.”
No kidding! “That’s okay. I have a thing about spoiled rich girls.”
She was about to argue with him, he could tell, but clamped her mouth shut.
“I still can’t wrap my mind around . . . do you believe all this stuff about mafias and baby selling?”
“I have to. Angus is pretty convincing. Plus, I’ve already had an alarming voice mail from Nick.”
“I don’t suppose . . . that car parked out on the street,” he mused aloud. “Could it be your ex?”
“No, he’d come right in.”
“What then? Oh, no! Surely it’s not some gangsters watching your house.”
“I wondered the same thing.”
“Samantha! You need to call the police! Right now!”
Chapter Twelve
When the mob knocks, don’t answer . . .
“I can’t call the police,” Samantha told him. “They’ll arrest Angus, and Lily Beth might be in danger from Nick. It’s time that we need, time to figure out a solution.”
“What’s with this ‘we’ business?” He already felt the walls closing in on him. He was being pulled into something that should have him running for the hills.
“Can’t you locate your brother?”
As if Aaron is the answer! “I wish! He goes somewhere almost every night, and comes back just before dawn.”
“A married woman,” she surmised.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, if it is a married woman, Tante Lulu will have a bird. Believe me, she eventually hears about everything on the bayou.”
“That’s for sure. She’d be signing him up for a novena at Our Lady of the Bayou.” He shrugged then. “I would have guessed he had something going on with our neighbor, Delilah, the alligator farmer, but he only met her recently, and this affair, or whatever it is, has been going on for more than a year. Well, it’s his business.” He shrugged again.
“Can you bring him here when he gets back?”
“You ask a lot,” he remarked.
“I know,” she said.
And yet you still ask.
Me! Your least favorite person in the world! Probably holding your nose as you do.
There has to be a way to capitalize on that.
No, no, no. I do not want to capitalize, or anything else, with her.
“I don’t know why you think Aaron is the answer to your problem. Aaron doesn’t own a plane. He’d have to go to Remy LeDeux and borrow one, which would take more time, and would bring another person into this so-called secret. And not just him. Tante Lulu would no doubt hear about it and be poking her nose into the whole affair.”
“You’re not helping,” she said, but she wasn’t really being critical. She wrung her hands nervously.
He took one of her hands in his and straightened out the fingers before linking her hand with his and laying the joined hands on his thigh. Why he did it, he had no idea.
Guess I’m still a sucker for a person in distress. Kids with cancer, parents on drugs, broken families.
Why Samantha allowed it was an even bigger question.
Maybe she just needs a hug.
Now there’s a thought that could merit me a slap. Hand holding, okay. Hugs, not okay.
Back to the subject at hand. “Here’s what I think you should do. Short term. We should somehow whisk them from here out to Bayou Rose Plantation. God knows, there’s plenty of room there. And no neighbors within viewing distance. I know, I know, it’s not a permanent solution, but like you said, they need time to decide what to do.”
“You would do that for them?” she asked, teary-eyed.
He was still holding her hand, and still kind of liking it. Who knew hand holding could be so . . . sensual? It was certainly zapping out every good sense particle in his rusty brain. “I wouldn’t do it. We would,” he emphasized . . . a bit distractedly as her thumb caressed his thumb. Holy frickin’ hell! Now he was really liking it!
“But . . . but . . . I can’t leave here. All these animals.” She blinked the tears welling in her green eyes from seeping out, followed by more seemingly innocent thumb sex.
Tears? Somehow, he didn’t see Samantha as the weepy type.
Or had he just fallen into a trap? Had she planned this all along? A rich girl like her could probably hire her own airline and a dozen bodyguards besides.
He guessed he would have to give her the benefit of the doubt. With a sigh, he conceded, “You’ll have to bring the animals with you. A dog, a cat, and a bird shouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“Holy shit!” Clarence said again.
“And five puppies,” she added. “And a pig. And two other cats.”
He dropped her hand like a hot lead sinker.
She blinked away more tears, like sparkling emeralds, stunned at the idea of his generosity, no doubt, or stunned that he was so gullible. “I can’t believe you would be willing to go out on a limb like that for people you don’t know. For me.”
He was surprised she hadn’t said “For little ol’ me.” That would have proved his suspicion of a trap. Poor (rather rich), fragile (Hah!), Southern belle in need of a strong shoulder (like, say, mine) to lean on. Bull-shit! And, hey, he should be offended by that remark about him not going out of his way to help people, but he supposed his loner attitude and his snarkiness toward her gave the impression of callousness. Whatever. I already committed myself, and I’ll be damned if I back down now. If she’d let me. “Darlin’,” he said with a deliberate drawl . . . I can play Rhett to your Scarlett any day. “You have no idea what I’m going to ask in return.”
Frankly, he had no idea, either.
But the possibilities were tantalizing.
She blushed. Obviously entertaining some of the same ideas.
It was not surprising that Clarence piped in with, “Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!”
“Let’s go into the kitchen and have a cup of coffee while we make plans,” she suggested, hopping up off the sofa suddenly, which caused the dog, which had been lying flat out on the floor in front of the fire like a hearth rug, to yelp with surprise. No stirring from the exotic cat, though. It was sprawled across one of the chairs . . . probably a priceless antique . . . didn’t even bother to raise its head off the one arm. Its tail lay over the other arm, hanging practically to the floor. The pig had jumped off its perch on the stool and was lying next to the dog.
What a madhouse!
“Don’t you have anything stronger?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? I told you I’m of Scottish descent. There’s always Scotch on the premises.”
She smiled at him as he stood to follow her. There were no longer any tears in her eyes. Forget about sparkling emeralds, he decided then. Her eyes were murky green pools designed to lure a guy in and make him do things he didn’t even know he wanted to do. And he was the dumb trout who’d taken her bait. Hooked, lined and hot damn sinkered!
It was probably some Southern voodoo kind of crap. Maybe he should ask Tante Lulu for a spell to ward off Samantha’s allure. He could only imagine the old bat’s reaction. She’d be calling for a fais do do, a party down on the bayou, and the theme would be, “Daniel LeDeux Ain’t Gay, hallelejuah!”
But then he watched Samantha’s buttocks move in the red silky pants as she walked out of the room. Was there anything prettier than a heart-shaped ass on a woman? And he decided, maybe not. And those long limbs . . . man, what a creative male could do with those!
Hot damn hell! He decided he could live with the spell or whatever the hell it was, thank you very much!
Any lewd thoughts he might have been entertaining were interrupted abruptly by a loud pounding on the front door
. They looked at each other in question.
He arched his brows.
She shrugged.
The dog halted in its tracks toward the kitchen.
The cougar cat stopped mid stretch.
The pig raised its head and sniffed the air.
Then they all erupted with their respective sounds of alert. Barking, growling, meowing, and oinking. A female squeak of dismay, as in, “Oh, Rhett, the Yankees are comin’!” A male grunt of disgust, as in “What next?” All of which alerted the bird to voice its opinion, and the puppies and other cats to join in the chorus.
More pounding on the door.
“Let’s just ignore it,” she whispered.
The German Shepherd let loose with a wild howl that could probably be heard a block away, definitely through a measly door. Then the old dog lay down on the floor, its muzzle between its front paws, all tired out from the effort.
“I doubt whoever is there will just go away. Let me handle it,” he offered, also in a whisper. I gotta get my Rhett on once in a while, he joked with himself. Then, he added, “Do you have a gun?”
“No. Damn, I knew I should have bought a gun. Just this evening I decided to ask Tante Lulu if she had an extra one. But I didn’t have a chance to call her yet.”
He gave her a glance of surprise; he hadn’t been serious. That’s all he . . . she . . . needed. Southern belle with a pistol. She’d probably shoot her eye out. At the least, everyone up and down the bayou would know about it, thanks to the Mouth of the South.
Daniel was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland . . . or rather, Alex in Wonderland . . . and he’d fallen down some crazy-ass Southern rabbit hole. Forget Scarlett O’Hara. His Alice would be wearing some silky red short shorts. And high heels. And nothing on top. And “Pretty Woman” would be playing in the background.
He could hear Aaron laughing in his head. Twins were like that sometimes. They shared long-distance thoughts and feelings. In fact, some scientists claimed that even during sex . . . well, never mind! Suffice it to say, it gave new meaning to multiple orgasms.
To the Aaron in his head, Daniel said, Hey, it’s my fantasy. If I want bimbo Alice, I get bimbo Alice.
More Aaron laughter.
Daniel and Samantha walked softly toward the front door where Samantha peeked through the security hole and declared in a whisper, “I think it’s the mafia.”
“How can you tell?”
“Well, it’s not Nick. And there are two of them. And they look . . . mafia-ish.”
He pushed her aside to look for himself. What he saw was two men, their faces distorted through the fisheye lens in the peephole. They were scowling with impatience at their knocking not being answered. Definitely not Welcome Wagon, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or a passing traveler in need of directions. No Gone with the Wind Yankees, either. The short one wore a tight “Sleep With the Fishes, Motherfucker” T-shirt over a muscular chest and bulging biceps; there were tattoos on his neck and forearms. The other dude . . . taller, but equally muscular . . . wore a T-shirt with the logo “Pit Bulls Rule” under an open denim shirt. There was a livid scar on his cheek that lifted one side of his mouth in a perpetual grin. The Mutt and Jeff of creeps!
Daniel could swear he saw the shine of a pistol under the denim shirt. He amended his assessment to “the Mutt and Jeff of dangerous creeps.”
Okay, definitely mafia-ish.
“Samantha Starr! You in dere, chère. We doan want no trouble here. Jist open the door, yes.” This from Mutt, the short one.
Okay, definitely Dixie Mafia-ish.
“Call 911,” Daniel advised Samantha.
She shook her head.
Daniel wasn’t convinced that her way was the best way, but there was no time to argue. He kicked off his shoes, toed off his socks, and used both hands to mess up his hair. He tugged out his T-shirt that had been tucked inside the waistband of his jeans. As an added touch, he undid the button on the fly of his pants and zipped down halfway.
“What are you doing?” she asked in an undertone.
“Pretending I was in bed.”
“Why would you be . . . oh!” Her cheeks bloomed with color.
He put a forefinger to his lips, signaling silence, then put the security chain on the door and opened it several inches. “Yeah? What do you guys want?” he snarled at the two figures on the doorstep.
Surprised, they backed up a step. They had to have seen him enter a short time ago, but apparently they hadn’t been expecting a man to answer the door, or him in particular, as evidenced by Mutt’s remark, “You ain’t Angus Starr.”
“No shit, Dick Tracy,” Daniel countered, starting to close the door.
But the taller, scar-faced dude, Jeff, stuck his booted foot into the opening. “Wait a fuckin’ minute. Where’s Samantha Starr? Bet she knows where that stupid-ass brother of hers is, guar-an-teed.”
“Angus isn’t her brother, exactly,” Daniel commented, as if that mattered. “He’s actually the son of one of her father’s—”
Scar face made a growling noise.
“Why do you want Angus anyway?”
“None of yer damn bizness, you!” Mutt said, putting his hand inside his pants pocket, as if reaching for a weapon.
“Hold on. I’ll go get her,” Daniel said.
Stepping behind the door, he acted quickly. Messing Samantha’s hair into a sexy mess, he pressed her up against the wall and, before she could yell or kick him in the nuts, he leaned down to kiss her, hard and deep, even nipping at her bottom lip so that she would open for him.
Then he forgot why he’d made a move on her.
He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, open and searching.
She made a low moan that encouraged him to do more.
Not that he needed any encouragement. With hair-trigger speed, he was in full-throttle sex machine mode. James Brown would be so proud.
She put her hands on his shoulders and drew him even closer.
He put his hands on her butt and ground his hips against her.
Those thoughts Daniel had entertained earlier today, about her height and his being a match-up in the sex department, turned out to be true. Breast to chest, belly to gut, thigh to thigh, cock to. . . .
Yeah, there was something to be said for similar physiques mating. An anthropologist could write a book on the subject.
Forget all the analysis. Daniel had never been turned on so hard and so fast in all his sorry life. He might have been a bit of a hermit these past few years, but he hadn’t been celibate, not totally, until recently. Sex was nothing new to him; he’d had his first two-person encounter when he was fifteen. He wasn’t in the same league as his brother when it came to the fairer sex, and didn’t want to be, but there had been more women for him than he could count on both hands since then. Not many long-term relationships, but that was unimportant. What was important was that he couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d gotten laid. More than a year, at least. Still . . .
But this . . . this was beyond imagination. In fact, his heart was thumping so hard, he feared he might have a heart attack, and didn’t even care.
Thump, thump, thump.
She licked his neck when he came up for a breath.
Thump, thump, thump.
He could actually feel her hardened nipples against his chest . . . or imagined he could.
Thump, thump, thump.
She raised one leg and rubbed her inner knee against his outer thigh.
Thump, thump, thump.
“Open this door, or, sure as skunks shit, I’m gonna shoot a hole in it big as that Angus’s fool head.”
“The fool head what’s gonna be gator bait by mornin’.”
Both Daniel’s and Samantha’s heads shot up. Apparently, the thumping hadn’t been Daniel’s heart after all, but the continued pounding on the door by the Dixie Mob duo.
“Ooops,” he said, stepping back.
Samantha looked dazed. Her mouth was wet and kiss-swollen.
The one strap of her silk top had slipped off a shoulder. He could swear there was a hickey on her neck, though he didn’t recall doing that. Maybe it was just whisker burn.
“Just the right effect,” he murmured.
She flinched as if he’d slapped her.
He hadn’t meant that exactly how it sounded, but he had no time to explain. Grabbing her by the waist, he yanked her to the opening in the door, molding her tightly to his side.
“Mon Dieu! Angus dint tell us he had a hoochie mama sister,” Jeff remarked on first seeing Samantha. “You an uptown hooker or sumpin’, ma jolie fille?”
Mutt chuckled and said, “No question what you been doin’, babe!” He emphasized his words with a lewd thrust of his hips.
Daniel squeezed Samantha tighter in a silent message not to let them rile her into saying something she shouldn’t.
She apparently got his message. “What do you guys want? It’s almost eleven o’clock, and I need my . . .” She gave Daniel a fake sultry look. “. . . sleep.”
“Yeah, right.” Mutt chuckled some more.
Then Jeff’s jaw dropped open as he stared at something over Samantha’s shoulder.
Oh, crap! Daniel hoped Angus hadn’t awakened and come downstairs. But nope, it was someone . . . something . . . else.
“Son of a fucking pig! Didjya know there’s an oinker in yer house?” Jeff asked Samantha.
“Yes, she’s a pet,” Samantha replied. “Don’t say anything insulting. Emily is already depressed.”
The two jerks were no longer looking at Samantha like she was hot stuff. More like batshit crazy.
Shaking his head to clear it, Jeff then demanded, “Let us in. We jist need ta talk ta Angus, and we’ll be on our way.”
There was no question in any of their minds what he meant by “talk.”
“Angus isn’t here,” Samantha lied. “I haven’t seen him in ages, and I have no idea why you’d think he’s here now.”
“So, it’s been nice, but scram,” Daniel added and tried once again to close the door, to no avail.
Just then a siren could be heard in the distance.
Mutt and Jeff stiffened and looked in that direction.
The sirens had no connection to their situation, unless one of the neighbors had called, but these goofballs didn’t know that. “Samantha called 911 when she saw your car parked on the street,” Daniel lied. “Guess the police are finally getting around to investigating.”