Stone’s clients? Or informants stopping by to ruin someone’s life? She didn’t have time to care.
She parked, climbed out of the van. Squaring her shoulders, she marched up to the porch. The door stood ajar, and from the sound of things, whoever was inside wasn’t happy. Good. She had wished Stone nothing but misery over the past six years as she’d watched her brother and sister-in-law struggle to pay back the remainder of a debt that wasn’t theirs.
The thought of Cade and Finn knifed Deirdre in the chest, their betrayal of her, and the anguish on their faces as she’d stormed away flooding through her. She shoved the image down, hard.
Angry masculine voices rang out from inside Stone’s office. A wiser person might have headed back to the car to wait until whoever was ruining Stone’s day stormed back out to their bikes. But the opportunity to see Stone under fire was too sweet to miss, and she couldn’t risk him locking the door behind these guys once the fun was over. Adrenaline kicked her pulse into high gear, as she slipped, unnoticed, through the dark green door, gauging the scene in a heartbeat.
Apparently Stone was having a very bad day.
Three men roughly the size of gorillas had Stone cornered between a mission-style desk, two Stickley-esque armchairs and a wall of glass-covered bookcases, but the P.I. didn’t seem to have the brains to realize he was about to get the stuffing kicked out of him.
He lounged against a sliver of wall like a model in some sexy blue jeans ad, all hard muscle, testosterone and mystery, his long black hair caught back from sharp cheekbones, a bored expression on his darkly handsome face. “…and here your momma thought you couldn’t read,” he said.
The gorilla with the shaved head and a swastika tattooed on his skull sneered. “I had plenty of time to work it out. You were front-page news for months. Got me all excited, thinking I’d get to see you out in the prison exercise yard.”
Prison? Deirdre puzzled.
Stone shrugged one broad shoulder, his black T-shirt clinging to muscles an Olympic athlete would have envied. “Life is full of disappointments.”
“Yeah, but you never can tell what fun might be waitin’ just around the corner.”
The other two men chuckled.
“There we were, Stone, on our way to Colorado, when we stop to suck down a cold brew. And plastered right there on the wall by the bar is a blow-up of the article about you getting thrown off the force.”
Deirdre caught her lower lip between her teeth. She had wondered what made Stone become a private investigator. Being thrown off the police force just might do it. But didn’t a cop have to do something pretty serious for that to happen? Stone didn’t even look ruffled.
“I wanted to do my Al Capone imitation for the camera that day,” he said, “but some people just can’t take a joke.”
Swastika scowled. “When I told the bartender you were the one who busted me, he was happy to give us your address.”
“Yeah, well, they say everybody needs a hobby. I happen to be his.”
“He said it was your fault his old lady left him.”
Stone grimaced. “I confess. I did it. I shoved his hands down that other woman’s pants.”
Rage fired in Swastika’s eyes. “Still acting so high-and-mighty! You’re no better than the rest of us cons! Any other poor son of a bitch would have had their ass thrown in prison for what you did! Fucking cold-blooded murder! But your father-in-law, the police chief, couldn’t stomach throwing the force’s golden boy to the animals.”
Deirdre waited for the explosion. Stone should be furious—the lowlife was accusing him of murder, for God’s sake! Cade would have broken the gorilla’s nose by now, and, Deirdre admitted, probably would be getting pulverized by Moe and Curly, there. But Stone examined a piece of lint on his black T-shirt as if it were the most pressing thing he had to deal with at the moment. He flicked the speck off his bunched biceps. “Due process is a beautiful thing. Gotta love truth, justice and the American way.”
A chill ran down Deirdre’s spine. Stone was all but admitting he’d killed someone. Murdered them, if Swastika’s accusation was to be believed. And Stone wasn’t denying it. For an instant she thought about quietly backing out of the door, but she dug in, stubborn. She didn’t know where else to go.
“Don’t talk to me about justice, Stone,” Swastika fumed. “You send me to prison for breakin’ someone’s neck in a bar fight, but you can gun down an unarmed man and your badge gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card?”
“Not free.” An edge crept into Stone’s voice, his tone even softer. “Never free.” Deirdre saw his eyes flash, then go flat again, emotionless. She wondered what darkness Stone’s words had betrayed.
“Face it,” Stone drawled. “I got dealt the lucky hand this game. Better cut your losses and walk away. Think about how you can play your cards better next time you end up in front of the docket. I might even be able to give you a few pointers.”
“Hell, you hear that?” Swastika’s fuzzy haired crony grumbled. “He doesn’t even have the brains to deny he got special treatment!”
“You owe me, Stone!” Swastika snarled. “And I’m not leavin’ here until I get some of my own back!”
Deirdre swallowed hard. She could understand where King Kong was coming from. If she’d been his size six years ago she might have been tempted to take a swing at Stone herself. Once again she was the queen of rotten timing.
Stone couldn’t have gotten the crap beat out of him the hundred other times she’d wished him ill. No, he had to wait until she actually needed him standing upright with his brain functioning to take on three house-size cons at once.
“Ten years,” Swastika griped. “I spent ten years in the joint.”
“And I’ve spent eight off the force. Let’s call it even.”
“Just tell me how much it cost, Stone,” Swastika demanded. “To make your murder rap go away.”
“Hedron, I know how it is for you,” Stone said, quietly persuasive. “You go and get yourself all drunked up and crazy, and there’s my ugly mug staring at you from Conlan’s wall. So he stokes you up and sends you over here looking for a fight. Why not? Conlan’s got nothing to lose. But you, Hedron, you’re gonna lose plenty, breaking parole. All you’re gonna get here is another aggravated assault charge and a few broken bones in the bargain.”
Two of the cons looked downright edgy, Deirdre marveled. But the ink the tattoo artist squirted into Hedron’s skull must have pickled the part of his brain that dealt with impulse control. He didn’t look daunted in the least.
“Hell, man, I’m not worth it,” Stone said.
He meant it, Deirdre thought astonished, wondering at the shadows that suddenly stormed in his remarkable eyes.
Stone spoke so quietly, so evenly, as if he were trying to talk someone down off a ledge. “Just get the hell out of here, climb on your bikes and head for the nearest bar,” Stone urged. “We’ll forget this whole thing.”
Swastika’s eyes narrowed, as if he could sense a chink in Stone’s armor, was trying to sniff out the best place to draw blood. “You know, I remember that pretty little wife of yours.” Stone was married? Deirdre glanced at his left hand—no ring in sight.
“Police chief’s baby girl, wasn’t she?” Hedron taunted. “Did she go crying to daddy to save your ass?”
A muscle in Stone’s jaw twitched. “That’s none of your damn business.”
“Oh, I think it is. Tell me, Stone. Why did I spend ten years with only my hand and Miss November while you spent it screwing a real-live woman’s brains out? Come on, Stone. Explain it to me.”
Something shifted in Stone’s face, hardening the planes and angles, turning his gray gaze flinty. “Sorry. I only use reason on animals that are at least in throwing distance from me on the evolutionary scale. My dog, for instance.”
Hedron’s lips snaked over teeth whose repair would have paid for a dentist’s summer home. “You still think you’re untouchable, don’t you, you arrogant son of a
bitch. I’m not leaving until I prove that you bleed red just like the rest of us.”
Stone’s eyes narrowed, his powerful body taut, ready. No, Deirdre realized—not just ready—eager to fight. “I bleed plenty red,” Stone said. “But today I’m all out of Band-Aids.”
“Stop it!” Deirdre cried out. All four men nearly jumped out of their skin, heads jerking around to look at her, but only Stone’s gaze pierced deep, stark recognition registered on his face.
“What the hell? Deirdre?”
He recognized her, remembered her after six years, Deirdre realized, stunned. Cornered as he was, Stone lunged, trying to bulldoze his way between Swastika and Curly in an effort to put his body between her and the other men. But she’d obviously shattered his concentration. He didn’t even see Swastika as the giant man’s fist drove into his midsection. Air whooshed out of Stone’s lungs, and Deirdre expected him to go down, out cold, but he stayed on his feet, bellowing warning.
“Get out of here!”
Good advice, Deirdre realized. But instinct kept the soles of her shoes glued to the floor. It wasn’t a fair fight. McDaniels never deserted—Pain shot through her, the letter and its ugly truth surging into her mind.
So what if she wasn’t a McDaniel. She couldn’t leave Stone to get pulverized. The man wasn’t going to do her any good in the hospital.
“Lookit Stone’s face,” Swastika gloated. “We’ve got his girlfriend.”
Stone sucked in a painful breath. “She’s not…my girlfriend.”
Deirdre met the bikers’ gaze with a fearless one of her own. Well, almost fearless. “I wouldn’t date Jake Stone if he was the last man on earth.”
“Then how about giving me a test drive, sweet thing, and we’ll call it even? It’s been a long time since I had me a woman.”
The con turned toward Deirdre, the stench of cheap whiskey rolling over her in suffocating waves as Swastika closed in on her.
Stone lunged, lightning fast, just as Moe swung some kind of club—a blackjack, Deirdre realized from fights in the nightclubs she’d sung in so long ago. Stone dodged, the blur of black leather glancing off his jaw instead of breaking it.
Deirdre cried out, her voice drowned by Stone’s bellow as he fought to keep his feet under him. Deirdre grabbed Stone’s arm, tried to steady him, but the P.I. tore away from her.
“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled. But Swastika’s arm snaked around her ribs, yanking her back hard against him. The stench of cheap liquor made Deirdre’s stomach churn, panic welling through her. Helpless. She felt so helpless. No. She’d sworn she’d never be helpless again.
Deirdre drove the sharp edge of her heel hard against the ex-con’s instep, just like the Captain had taught her. Swastika howled as she yanked free.
“Run!” Stone yelled, plunging between her and the raging men. She had a straight shot to the door. But the blows had dulled Stone’s reflexes, slowed his speed. Even if she could reach her cell phone, Stone would be toast before anyone could get here.
She didn’t owe Stone any kind of loyalty. He was the last person she should be defending. And yet…She stared, suddenly frozen, as a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of the P.I.’s mouth.
“It’s red,” she cried, inanely.
All four men looked like she was insane. “What the hell?” Swastika snarled.
“His blood,” she insisted. “It’s red!” Her cheeks flamed. “You’ve proved he bleeds, now why…why don’t you all leave.” She thought longingly of her cell phone, wished she’d had the brains to call before she’d barged into the office. But then, Moe, Curly and Swastika didn’t know she hadn’t. She drew herself up as if she were a six-foot Amazon instead of a five-foot-three midget the three stooges there could snap with one hand. “I called the police from my cell phone before I came in here,” Deirdre said.
Swastika chortled. “Sure you did, lady.”
Deirdre glared right into Swastika’s mud-colored eyes. “The dispatcher said they’d be right here. Her name was Joan.”
“Joanie?” Stone feigned recognition. “She’s a hell of a looker, that one. Too bad you won’t have a chance to romance her, Hedron. She doesn’t like men in orange jumpsuits.”
Swastika’s buddies glanced uneasily toward the door.
Swastika sneered, pacing toward Stone. “He’s laughing his ass off at you,” he told Moe and Curly, taking a menacing step toward the P.I. “You two can be cowards if you want. I’ll beat the shit out of him myself.”
In a split second Stone coiled like a whip, sprang into action. Whatever grogginess he’d felt from the blows evaporated. Deirdre watched, stunned as Stone hurtled his body through space, fists cracking bone, long powerful legs executing rib-crushing kicks to Swastika’s midsection in such fast succession he drove the man across the room.
Moe and Curly gaped as if they’d fallen into a Lethal Weapon movie. Moe dropped his blackjack. Curly fumbled for something in his pocket—a knife. But he was shaking so hard he struggled to open it. Dee grabbed a bronze statue of lady justice from Stone’s desk, slamming it down toward the con’s head. Curly ducked, the heavy base grazing his temple, exactly the kind of blow the Captain always said only made combatants madder than hell.
Only strike if you’ve got a clear shot, the old man had drilled her. Hit to kill. A woman’s got only one chance to surprise an attacker. She’d already used that up when she’d stomped Swastika’s instep flat. But Curly wasn’t coming back for more. He and Moe cowered like whipped dogs as Stone kicked Swastika square in the face. The con doubled over, blood spurting from his nose. Stone bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his whole body ready to fly into action as he turned toward the other two men. “Who’s next?” he dared them. “Any more takers?” But Swastika’s streaming nose was as effective as a flag of surrender. The three cons bolted out the door.
Deirdre braced her trembling body against a chair, trying to remember how to breathe, as she heard the bikes’ engines fire up, roar down the street. But before she could get oxygen into her straining lungs, a hard hand gripped her shoulder. Stone whipped her around to face him. He crushed her against him for a heartbeat, his big body hard and overwhelmingly male. Then, as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go.
Deirdre stared, momentarily struck dumb. Mr. Cool was mad as hell. Not roaring mad—roaring mad she could handle. Quiet, nuclear-meltdown kind of mad—eye-of-the-hurricane kind of mad. Tornado-warning, head-to-the-basement-before-you-get-blasted-to-smithereens kind of mad. Deirdre pulled away from his grip, unconsciously tried to take a step back. Her bottom collided with the chair.
Stone swiped the blood from his bottom lip with the back of his hand. A strange flutter awoke in Deirdre’s middle. She had seen just how lethal a weapon those hands could be moments before. Skilled and powerful—his eyes alive with rage. She stared at his mouth, lips knee-meltingly sexy, as if he could drive a woman’s common sense right out of her body if he kissed her. She wondered if he knew she was immune to all that animal magnetism.
The last thing she wanted in her life was a man—someone who thought he could tell her what to do, someone to report in to, someone who might slip past her guard to find things she had to keep buried.
“What in the hell did you think you were doing barging into the middle of a fight like that?” Stone pinned her with his glare. Deirdre met his gaze, determined not to let him see how much the encounter had shaken her.
She clenched her fists to keep her hands from trembling. Story of her life. Deirdre McDaniel—great in a crisis, but once it was over, she’d start shaking like a scared puppy.
“I was trying to hire a private investigator,” she said, with as much cool as she could muster. “Preferably one who wasn’t in traction. I still need to, by the way. Hire you, I mean.”
Stone scowled. “What the hell do you need a P.I. for—never mind,” he said, sounding so damn certain, Deirdre wanted to deck him. “I’m all booked up.”
After everyth
ing she’d gone through in this hideous day, she wasn’t about to back down. Stone might be an arrogant bastard. He might even have killed someone, just like Swastika had said. But he hadn’t been thrown in jail for it. And somehow, the instant she’d seen his name in the phone book, she’d felt in her gut that he could help her. She’d learned from hard experience how bad it could be when she ignored her instinct. But he didn’t look like a man who would easily change his mind. He’d said no. Case closed. But Deirdre doubted he’d ever met anyone as stubborn as she could be.
“I’ll pay double what you usually get,” Deirdre said boldly.
“A thousand dollars an hour?”
Deirdre faltered. Maybe the man didn’t have his office in some sleazy low-rent building, but this wasn’t the Taj Mahal, either. Surely that sum was ridiculous. No one could possibly…then she glimpsed the edgy humor in his eyes. He was just trying to pull her chain. “Damn you, very funny. I’ll pay you whatever you’re worth.”
Stone arched one thick black eyebrow. “About as much as pond scum. At least, that’s what you seemed to think last time I saw you. You hated my guts on sight.”
He remembered that? She’d only seen the man a few times. She’d been front and center when he’d told Finn the life-shattering news about her father. And she’d been around a few more times when he’d come to organize a payment schedule with the newlyweds. Hell of a way to start out a marriage—a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Cade had sold the antique plane that had been his most cherished possession to save Finn’s dreams for the old house she’d loved. And Deirdre had told Stone off with true McDaniel flare. Back when she’d still believed she had fighting blood in her veins.
“Why the hell should I help you?” Stone challenged.
“Because I…” It was harder than she’d imagined, telling the horrible truth to a stranger. Or was it something about this man that made her throat feel too choked to let the words squeeze past? “I need to find someone.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
Stone frowned. “Your father went missing? From the background check I did on all of you before I contacted Ms. O’Grady, Captain McDaniel is a capable, crusty old son of a…gentleman. He’s probably out hunting rattlesnakes or wrestling alligators. He’ll turn up when he feels like it.”