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  Hey, all you had to do was look over the past year to know that whatever I touched turned to chaos when it came to women.

  “We both go back to life as it was before, I guess.”

  Even as I said the words, I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. Almost like an ice pick. It reminded me of the wound on my arm. I looked at where the overcoat I was wearing had been cut, the bandage visible underneath.

  “I see,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her.

  She began to stand up.

  I suppressed the desire to get up with her. Desire? Hell, it took every ounce of energy I had.

  “I guess this is goodbye then.”

  I nodded and traced a line on the tablecloth with my thumb. “Goodbye.”

  She stood for long moments, as if waiting for me to say something else. Then she gathered her purse and turned to walk away.

  “Oh, Molly?” I said.

  She stopped but didn’t turn back to me.

  “I just wanted to say, you know, thanks for what you did with Zoe.”

  Nothing, until she uttered a simple, “You’re welcome.”

  Then the best damn thing that ever happened to me walked right out of my life. And, stupid fool that I am, I let her.

  MOLLY SAT ON THE PLANE, staring through the window unseeingly. She’d managed to get on the next flight out, which was later that night. It hadn’t been difficult. Her things had still been packed from her move from one hotel to another. And she’d had plenty of time to see to a couple of additional items.

  She’d thought about calling her mother, letting her know she was coming home. Then she’d wondered what the use would be. She’d probably ask what kind of souvenirs she’d picked up for her. Her mother wouldn’t understand that this hadn’t been a vacation. This trip had been about bringing Claire’s killer to justice. And she’d seen to that.

  But she was taking home one souvenir, wasn’t she? A broken heart.

  She leaned her forehead against the glass and closed her eyes as the engines geared up for takeoff.

  Home. She was going home.

  She waited for relief to hit her. For the guilt about how distant her relationship with her sister had become to abate. Instead she felt a weight heavier than the aircraft itself parked on her shoulders.

  Images from her visit to the Big Easy glided through her mind like a slide show. Waiting for Alan outside his apartment and sticking her purse in his door to prevent him from closing it…going to the Goth bar and watching Alan become jealous at the attention she was getting from other men…their naked bodies joining in a kind of union she hadn’t known until now could exist.

  Well, she thought, sitting back and sighing. That was going to help, wasn’t it?

  She plucked at the flight magazine in the pocket in front of her and flipped the pages. Only she couldn’t see anything past the hot tears that had flooded her eyes.

  Goodbye, Claire. Goodbye, New Orleans.

  Goodbye, Alan.

  THIS HAD TO BE ONE OF the longest days of my life. Of course, it probably didn’t help that I hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. Still, even though it was ten o’clock, I didn’t think I’d be getting any sleep tonight, either.

  I’d covered a lot in one day. I’d sorted through everything in the Quarter Killer case, sat down to dinner with Zoe and the latest addition to the family, aka her husband, then helped Emilie and Laure see to Val’s funeral arrangements—a black event scheduled two days from now that I wasn’t looking forward to. But every time I blinked, Molly came to mind.

  By now she’d be on a plane back home. If she wasn’t home already. I’d called the hotel before going to the girls’ place and asked to be put through to her room. Not to talk to her. Rather, I’d just wanted to see if she was there.

  The hotel operator had explained that she’d already checked out.

  I trudged up the stairs to my apartment, the slit in my coat sleeve catching my attention. While I’d changed the shirt underneath before going to dinner, I didn’t know what I was going to do about the constant reminder of what had transpired last night.

  Or what I was going to do about the constant reminders of Molly everywhere I looked.

  Oh, I had no physical reminders. Our affair had been too brief for that. But I’d read somewhere that to love an hour was to love a lifetime. I’d thought the comment idiotic at the time. Now I knew how true it was.

  I got my keys out as I neared the door. A sound came from inside my apartment.

  The first thing I thought of was last night, when I’d come back to find Astrid holding a knife on Molly. Now, putting down the leftovers Zoe had packed for me, I slid my firearm from its holster and unlocked the door as quietly as possible…then stood looking at the last thing I would have expected to find.

  A dog.

  I looked back out into the hall, then inside again, certain I was seeing things. The black and white pup gave a bark, then ran behind the couch, peering out at me. I slowly put away my gun, picked up the leftovers, then closed the door.

  Christ. What was the world coming to when someone broke into your house and left a puppy behind?

  I spotted an item hanging on the back of the bathroom door. An overcoat exactly like the one I had on. But new, the tags still hanging from the sleeve, a note pinned to the collar. I neared it, noticing the way the dog scrambled backward, his nails clicking on the wood floor as he went, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He barked again, the force of which caused him to ricochet back a full foot.

  I shook my head and cursed as I tore the note from the coat and opened it.

  Alan. The coat is a gift from me to you. Wear it in good health. Rourke, well…Rourke needed a home. And you needed something to help turn your house into a home. Take care of him and yourself for me. Love, Molly.

  I walked into the kitchen, where Molly had spread papers out on the floor. There was business next to it but not on it. I scratched my chin. Then again, I supposed it was better than in the middle of my sofa.

  Also put out were two dog bowls, one with dry food, the other with water. I put the leftovers on the counter, then rummaged through them. I found a slice of meat loaf and tore off a piece.

  “Here doggy, doggy,” I said, crouching down and holding out the meat.

  A small furry head popped around the corner, though the rest of his body remained hidden.

  “Come here, you mangy mutt,” I said under my breath, then smiled and waved the meat. “Are you hungry?”

  The rest of his plump body appeared, and he leaned forward and appeared to lie down. I didn’t realize he was scooting closer to me until the distance began to disappear.

  Finally he was near enough to take the meat. But he didn’t.

  “Here,” I said, placing it closer to his mouth.

  He tentatively sniffed it but didn’t take it.

  I looked at the meat. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s about my take on it, too.”

  I sighed, then scooped up the fur ball, holding him up to stare into his big, watery brown eyes as he stared back.

  Then he licked my chin and wagged his little tail simultaneously, nearly wiggling straight out of my hand.

  I chuckled and held him out farther. I held a finger up. “Now, if you’re going to be staying here, we’re going to have to lay down some ground rules. Number one is no licking of the face. I don’t know where your tongue has been.”

  So he licked my finger.

  I put him back down and shrugged out of my coat, watching as the pup went around and around my ankles.

  Rourke. Only Molly would do something so thoughtful after I’d essentially treated her like crap.

  And all I could think of were ways to make it up to her. Because one thing I was sure of, as the little terror barked and pulled at the hem of my pants, was that I wasn’t going to be stuck taking care of the pup alone.

  24

  MOLLY HAD BEEN HOME a week. And if she hadn’t exactly forgotten about New Orleans, she was at least goi
ng through the motions of getting back to her old routine.

  She sighed as she parked her car in front of the one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old house in the Old West neighborhood that she’d chosen over a swanky new condo on the outskirts of town. All around her the leaves were changing color, filling the air with the pungent smell of autumn. She got out, collected her purse and a bag of groceries, then locked up before heading for the three-story structure that had once been a single house but had been renovated and divided into condos five years ago. Her place kept the atmosphere of the old nineteenth-century house, with fireplaces in the living room and bedroom, large and airy rooms and natural woodwork throughout.

  Since returning to Toledo, this had been the most difficult part of the day. At work she could find ways to keep busy, keep her mind occupied so she didn’t think of Alan so much. But when she got home…well, it seemed Alan was the only thing she could think about.

  She’d really never noticed how empty her life had been before. How lonely. She’d been content to work at the job of her choice, volunteer at the Red Cross two hours a week, come home to make a simple dinner, then either read a book or catch the latest episode of one of her favorite TV shows.

  Now…

  Well, now she saw herself in a way that only stepping outside her normal existence could have made possible. And she didn’t much like what she saw. She knew she needed to make some changes, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of what. She supposed she could take a couple of classes that had nothing to do with her job. Try a hobby. Maybe take up running. Forge a closer relationship with her mother and her new family.

  Still, none of that seemed capable of filling the void that had taken up residence around her heart.

  She unlocked the outer door, then checked her mailbox among the line of others. Nothing but junk mail. She tucked it into the grocery bag, then moved up the stairs, noticing the slightly musty smell that came with the old place. She let herself inside her apartment.

  “Hello, Molly.”

  She turned so fast she dropped the bag of groceries.

  There, sitting on her couch, wearing his new trench coat and worrying his hat in his hands, sat Alan.

  She moved her free hand over her heart. “God. You scared the daylights out of me.”

  He smiled slightly, then got up.

  He looked good. More than good. He looked great. His hair was neat and combed. His handsome face freshly shaved. And nowhere on his person was a single wrinkle.

  Molly waited for her heart rate to settle down, then realized it probably wouldn’t. Because while what had triggered it initially may have been fear, coming home to find Alan in her apartment made her heart pound with hope.

  She busied herself with collecting the groceries that had scattered over the floor. “What are you doing here?”

  “And here I thought your first question would be how did I get in,” he said, closer than she expected. She stood up to find him right in front of her. He chuckled softly. “Then again, you never did ask the type of questions I expected you to. Which is probably why I’m having such a damn hard time getting you out of my mind.”

  Molly didn’t know what to say. Alan was standing right here in her apartment, fulfilling every wish she would never have dared say aloud, and all she could think about was how out of place he looked.

  “How did you get in?” she asked.

  “We cops have a few tricks up our sleeves.” He shrugged.

  “What’d you do with Rourke?”

  “Zoe’s looking after him at the house.”

  She nodded, happy on a level she couldn’t explore just then that he’d kept the puppy she’d adopted for him from Akela and Claude. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Alan the way he’d been. Which was as lonely as she was.

  “How did you get in?” it was his turn to ask.

  “I sweet-talked your landlord,” she said with the smile that had likely won him over.

  He shifted his feet. “Look, Molly, I’m not going to pretend that I think my being here is right….”

  She searched his eyes, wondering where he was going.

  “Truth is, I think I’m the last person you should be involved with.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  He blinked as if the answer should be obvious. “I’m older than you, for one.”

  She crossed her arms. “So?”

  “I have a lot of emotional baggage.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  He looked down at the hat he still held and smiled. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

  “If you came here to ease your conscience by dumping me all over again, Alan, then no.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  “You see, despite everything I just said and every damn argument I make to myself, the truth is I don’t want to go another day without you in my life.”

  Before Molly knew that was she was going to do, she was nestled in the warm cradle of his arms, her cheek pressed against his shoulder.

  “Jesus, how I’ve missed you,” he murmured, and she felt his lips on her hair. “I’ve missed this.”

  She had, too. So much that she suspected she was about to cry.

  There had been so little warmth in her life. And she understood now that she was partially to blame for that. Every time her sister had tried to get closer to her, she’d pushed her away. Perhaps as a type of self-defense mechanism to prevent herself from getting hurt. Or maybe because she hadn’t known any differently.

  But as she held Alan, she knew an incredible desire to change that. She wanted to start reaching out. Touching people. Letting them touch her. Because to do otherwise would be a disservice to the lesson she’d learned. A lesson Claire had taught her. That life was precious. And that she needed to live every sweet moment of it to the fullest.

  “Molly, I can’t promise that I’ll always be the man you want me to be.”

  She pulled back. “I never asked you to be anyone other than who you are, Alan.”

  He brushed the backs of his knuckles over her cheek. “I know that. But when I’m a heel to you…well, I feel like the worst jerk on earth.”

  “So don’t be a heel.”

  He grinned at her. “You make it sound like all this is simple.”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  He looked dubious.

  “You’re here, Alan. That means you want me, not just for a night or two. And since we’ve already established that I want you…well, where’s the problem?”

  His gaze skimmed over her face, lingering on her mouth. “Oh, the fact that you live in Toledo is one.”

  “Not if I move down to New Orleans to be with you.”

  He squinted at her.

  “Alan, I want you to be in my life. And if moving is what it takes, just tell me when the next flight is.”

  He stared at her, then kissed her suddenly, as if he couldn’t quite believe what she was saying but was awfully glad of it.

  He took her hand and led her toward the door.

  She laughed. “Where are we going?”

  “To the airport. I don’t want to leave Rourke alone with Zoe for too long. She’ll corrupt him. He’ll forget all the rules I’ve been teaching him.”

  Molly dug in her heels, then pulled him back to her, kissing him hungrily, erasing the past week, making up for lost time.

  “He’ll be okay,” she whispered, nipping his bottom lip.

  Then she took his hand and led him toward the king-size bed in her bedroom.

  I WATCHED HER SHAPELY backside as she led the way, wearing a grin I didn’t think I’d be able to wash away with lime soap.

  What a woman, huh? And while I still didn’t know what god I’d pleased to deserve this incredible gift, I vowed to spend the rest of my life thanking him for it.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4752-3

  SUBMISSION

  Copyright © 2006 by L
ori and Tony Karayianni.

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