Goes Down Easy

He was right behind, and he heard her gasp when she stopped. He also came close to mowing her down. His hands on her shoulders steadied them both as they stared at the scene that had her shaking.

The back door stood wide open, the window shattered, shards of glass scattered across the floor. Detective Franklin was nowhere to be seen, while Della was in the process of boosting herself up onto the counter beside the sink to rinse blood from her foot.

“Oh, my God, Della.” Perry rushed forward, broken glass crunching beneath her ankle boots. “What happened? Where’s Book? Are you all right?”

“There. On the floor.” Her hand shaking, Della pointed to the kitchen table. Jack saw what appeared to be a brick wrapped in newspaper. “Book said to leave it. He ran out to look for suspects.”

“Why would anyone throw a brick through our window?” Perry’s voice vibrated with anger and righteous concern. “Let me look at your foot.”

Della turned on the water, sucking in a breath. “I jumped to dodge the brick, lost my balance and misstepped. I’ll be fine. But I’m quite sure when Book unwraps it from the newspaper, we’ll find this morning’s headline inside.”

“Someone is taking the story seriously,” Jack said, feeling powerless when he was used to being in charge. “Where’s your broom?”

“The closet next to the pantry,” Perry said, waving him in that direction. “This is going to need stitches.”

“Book said not to touch anything,” Della insisted, though that didn’t stop Jack.

“He can sweep up the glass,” Book replied, coming back in through the door and snapping open his handkerchief. “I want to bag the brick and the paper in case we luck out and pick up any trace.”

Trace? On something as innocuous as a broken window? Jack wondered how deeply the detective thought this case ran. Or if his attention was also personal.

“You think someone involved in the kidnapping is trying to keep Della out of the picture?” Perry asked, pulling a first aid kit from the drawer next to the sink.

“At the very least,” Book said, dropping the brick into the paper bag Jack handed him from the pantry and turning to Della. “A patrol car’s on the way. The officers will interview for witnesses. I want to get this bag to the lab, and the sooner I get it there—”

“Go, Book. Do what you need to do,” Della said, grimacing as Perry wrapped her foot in gauze. “Perry can take me to the clinic to get this taken care of.”

“Let me lock up the shop,” Perry said, hurriedly heading that way. “Kachina is scheduled to come in today at two. We’ll just close up until then.”

“Kachina?” Jack asked.

“One of my employees,” Della said, holding her injured foot in her lap as she waited for her niece to return.

Detective Franklin crossed the room, wrapped his arm around her and helped her down. “I’ll have one of the officers stay here until you get back.”

“No need,” Jack said. This he could do. “I’ll stay and get started on prepping to replace the glass.”

“Jack, you don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t,” he said, cutting Della off. “I want to.”

“This way he’ll have a legitimate excuse to snoop,” Perry said, walking back into the kitchen, keys jangling in one hand. She stared at him, daring his denial.

He didn’t give her one. All he said was, “The only thing I’ll be snooping for is the toolbox. Which I remember you telling me was on the pantry floor.”

“Listen, Jack. How about measuring to replace the whole door?” the detective asked after a telling pause. “The hinges and knob are shot. The wood is warped, and the whole thing is barely hanging on the frame.”

“Not a problem.” Jack swept the glass into a dustpan, dumping it into the trash. Perry was right, even while she was wrong. The repairs would give him a reason to hang around, which would give Della—hopefully—incentive to talk. “I’ll pick up what I need when everyone’s back.”

“Jack, I can’t ask you to do that,” Della protested as both Book and Perry helped her to the door.

“You’re not asking me to do anything.” He stored the broom in the closet, pulled out the canister vacuum to give the floor a thorough once-over, raising his hand in an answering farewell to Book’s nod of thanks.

Then he turned his attention to Perry, who had lingered behind. “I won’t leave the kitchen while you’re gone. I won’t answer the phone. I won’t snoop in cabinets. I won’t touch a thing but the door.”

He laughed to himself at the suspicious look with which she left him. But she truly had nothing to worry about. Getting the door replaced before nightfall would take all of his time. Besides, he’d much rather get the goods he needed directly from the women involved.

Especially the wild-haired gypsy.

HAVING SETTLED DELLA INTO her room’s chintz-covered chaise lounge with a pot of tea, a romance novel and a pillow beneath her foot, Perry headed back to the kitchen to check on Jack’s progress.

Three hours after leaving, she and her aunt had arrived home from the clinic—Della with eighteen stitches across the ball of her foot—to find him anxious to hit the hardware store. Giving him directions to the store she used, Della sent Jack on his way with her credit card, then called the manager to tell him to expect him.

Jack’s having arrived in New Orleans driving an SUV meant Perry hadn’t needed to find a truck to borrow, or wait to have the store deliver the new door—not to mention the fact that his being in the right place at the right time meant no exorbitant bill for emergency labor.

Jack Montgomery was turning out to be handy to have around, and she wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Her father had been the only man she’d ever had in her life, and she’d lost him when she was ten. She’d come here to live with her aunt after her parents’ death, and Della had ignored her childish whining and constant pleas to send her to public school.

Instead, her aunt had honored her parents’ wishes, and Perry had spent the next eight years attending an all-girls private academy. After graduation, she’d taken a few courses at Loyola University, but never felt as if she and higher education made a good fit.

Hardly a revelation, considering the instruction she’d received from Della. Growing up under her tutelage was like sitting and learning at a master’s feet—the main drawback being the social isolation and the lack of opportunities to mingle with men.

Stepping from the stairwell into the shop, Perry found herself puttering behind the counter instead of returning to the kitchen—a classic case of avoiding the man she’d left there. At least she was honest in not trying to fool herself that it was anything else.

She hated her obvious attraction to Jack because she wasn’t sure what to do next. The men she had dated while attending university classes—boys, really, weren’t they?—had given her a rather lopsided look at the opposite sex. Dating for them had been about how far they could get her to go.

With her aunt being a veritable French Quarter legend, Perry had earned the status of trophy lay once her name had become known. Even more humiliating had been finding out that because she wasn’t laying anyone, she was ranked number one on the campus virgin watch.

And that was funny because she’d lost her virginity the summer before her freshman year to the only good man she’d ever known. Gary had not seen her as anyone but who she was. He’d loved her. He’d made love to her. He’d taught her about herself, things she could never have learned from her aunt because they were all about her enjoyment of sharing her life—and her body—with a man.

They’d spent a wonderful six months together—the best she’d even known. But then a job offer had taken Gary, who’d been eight years older, to Seattle. They were at different places in their lives, he’d told her. Devastated, she’d risen to the occasion with a surprising maturity, reminding him of her obligation to Della keeping her in New Orleans and wishing him all the best while her heart crumbled.

Allowing herself to dwell on what might have been with Gary, or later, on the bets being made behind her back, had been a waste of time. University had been the same, and so she’d moved on. For ten years now, she’d managed Sugar Blues, a full circle that brought her back to a life spent in the company of women—not such a bad thing, she supposed. Della didn’t seem to have suffered for living her life alone.

Then again, she had definitely been filled with joie de vivre since Detective Book Franklin had arrived on the scene. Strange, but Perry had always thought Della shied away from relationships because of her gift—not because she hadn’t found a man to hold her interest.

And, of course, that brought Perry’s mind back to Jack. She stopped futzing with the layout of the counter’s incense cones and took a deep breath, forcing her feet to move. She walked into the kitchen to Jack bearing the brunt of the door’s weight on one shoulder.

“Hey, there you are,” he said. “Could you hand me that hammer?”

“Sure,” she answered without thinking, adding, “The claw or the ball pin?”

“Either one’ll work,” he said, taking it from her hand with a wink. “Gotta love a woman who knows her way around tools.”

She ignored the double entendre. “This is a do-it-yourself sort of household.”

“You live here, too, then?”