The Gazebo

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 everything 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.”

Deirdre’s cheeks burned. “I’m not looking for the Captain…I mean, I’m searching for my real one. Uh, my birth father. A man named Jimmy Rivermont.”

“You’re adopted?” One brow arched in astonishment. “I never would have guessed it.”

“I’m not.” Deirdre drew in a deep breath, saying the words she’d practiced a dozen times on her drive to Stone’s office. Practice hadn’t made it any easier. “My mother slept with this guy when the Captain was out of the country on some mission. I found this.”

She withdrew the yellowing envelope from the purse she’d abandoned when she’d tussled with the Three Stooges. She held the thing out to Stone. He took it, scanned the envelope, then the letter inside, his gray eyes so fierce, so intent, Deirdre felt some of the crushing misery in her chest lift.

She’d been right to come here, she thought, watching him absorb the letter’s contents. With Stone’s razor-sharp intelligence, street smarts and tenacity, he’d get to the bottom of all this in a hurry. He’d find the truth and tell it to her, no matter how harsh it was or who got hurt in the process. He’d proved that when he’d told Finn about her father.

Deirdre winced, remembering the way her sister-in-law adored the Captain, how many times she’d said how lucky Deirdre and Cade were…

Deirdre ripped her thoughts away from her best friend and the hundred small kindnesses the Captain had done to make Finn feel a part of the family. If only he’d reached out the same way today, when Deirdre’s heart lay trampled, bleeding. Suddenly Deirdre felt something almost tangible touch her face. Stone. He was leveling that terrifyingly sharp gaze at her.

She felt as if he were unscrewing the top of her head, trying to get a look inside. Deirdre met his gaze, defying him to see past defenses she’d had up forever. A force field nobody had been able to penetrate since she was an awkward teenager, so hungry to be loved. Sometimes it made her sad to know that now no man ever would. She’d been alone too long.

After a moment Stone took her hand, folded her fingers around the letter with unexpected gentleness. “Here’s a bit of free advice. You’ve got a real nice family back home, from what I remember. Digging around after some guy who might have made a sperm donation—well, I don’t advise it. I mean, I wouldn’t advise it even if I was willing to take your case, which I’m not.”

His hand engulfed her smaller one, long fingers so strong, an artist’s hands. Who would have guessed Jake Stone would be capable of tenderness. “Go home, Deirdre. Forget you ever saw this letter.”

“I can’t. I need to know where I belong.”

“Go home to your father and your brother and that sweet Finn O’Grady. Go home to your little girl. Emma.”

He even remembered Emma’s name? Some part of her marveled before disappointment washed over Deirdre, followed by desperation. “It’s not up to you to make that decision. Help me. Please.”

Stone would never know how much that plea cost her. She looked into those stormy gray eyes, the irises ringed with a thin line of blue, the black lashes so thick and rich Emma’s high school friends would have envied them. But there was nothing soft about the emotions roiling beyond those lashes. Stone’s gaze, full of power, full of heat, full of fight. Traits Deirdre would do anything to have him use on her behalf at the moment.

Anything? A voice whispered in her head. Her gaze flicked, unbidden, to Stone’s mouth. A James Bond kind of mouth that kissed women senseless in secret fantasies all over America, and then vanished once the danger was over to seduce someone else. The kind of mouth Deirdre would never let within kissing distance of her own.

The phone rang. Deirdre jumped, startled, expecting him to ignore it. Stone glanced down at the caller ID. A faint smile played about his lips, something that irritated Deirdre driving shadows out of the investigator’s eyes.

He palmed the receiver and held it to his ear. “Trula Devine,” he said in a voice so rich it could probably unsnap a woman’s bra without so much as a touch. Of course, Deirdre doubted anyone with an outlandish name like that would put up much of a fight. “Hey, baby, you finally decide to put me out of my misery and call? Damn it, woman, you’ve been making me crazy!”

Stone hovering over the phone waiting for a woman to call? It just didn’t seem in character. But then, if she’d learned one thing on the road with the band all those years it was that most men didn’t have much restraint when their libidos were involved. Stone wouldn’t be the first man who’d turned idiot over a woman.

“What about the money?” Stone asked, a smile quirking his mouth—the slightly swollen place at the corner of his lips making him look all the more maddeningly sexy—as if he’d just come up for air after one soul-sucking kiss. “Hell, yes, sugar. I’ll pay. Whatever you want.”

Deirdre could hear a murmur from the other end of the phone. Stone laughed, and for an instant Deirdre felt a stab of envy, wondering what it would be like if he ever turned that thousand-watt smile onto her.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Yeah, Trula. You’ve still got the best legs in Vegas. With that body of yours you could bleed a man dry and he’d be smiling all the way to the bank to empty his accounts for you.”

Deirdre clamped her mouth shut, some of the grudging respect she had for Stone melting away. It was nauseating, the way Stone was talking. It irritated the blazes out of her—on principle of course. She didn’t want his mind on some other woman’s legs. She wanted it on the case she was hiring him to solve.

Stone turned away, tension evident in his shoulders, his voice suddenly stern. “Fine. I’ll pay whatever you want. But no more games, Trula…you heard me. When you wouldn’t pick up the phone I even stopped over. You weren’t there. I didn’t know where you were…”

Controlling bastard! He expected this Trula woman to check in with him before she stepped out of the house? The thought made Deirdre’s temper burn.

Breathe, Deirdre, she thought, trying to keep the lid on. Long, deep breaths. You can’t lose your temper. It doesn’t matter if Stone is a pig to his girlfriend. You need this man…even if he is a first rate son of a—Count backward from one hundred. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight…

Stone chuckled, the sound raking at Deirdre’s nerves, startling her, scaring her. Making her wonder for an instant if he’d seen…No, Deirdre told herself. That laugh was for Trula Devine. Piercing as Stone’s eyes might be, he couldn’t read Deirdre’s mind.

“Do I love you?” he asked in that low, rough-edged voice that made Deirdre feel as if he’d run his hand over her skin. “What do you think, woman? You better have your dancing shoes on next time I knock on that door, and be ready to tango. That’s an order.”

He hung up the phone, glanced at Deirdre from beneath hooded lids. What was he trying to do? Hide the fact that he was aroused from talking to his sex kitten? Or exploit the fact that the conversation had made Deirdre uncomfortable?

“You’re still here?” Stone asked, feigning surprise. “I thought I made it clear my caseload is too heavy to take you on.”

“An army of men like you couldn’t take me on!” Deirdre fumed. “Maybe you’re used to ordering women around like they’re—they’re slaves or something, but—”

“Oh, honey, believe me, there’s nothing, er, involuntary about the way Trula serves me.”

“You did everything but order her to wrap herself up in cellophane so you could run right over.”

Stone grinned. “I did tell you I was busy. Of course, I can’t wait to pass on your suggestion. Believe me, Trula will love it.”

“You know what? If I’d had any idea how you treat women, I would have hit you over the head with that statue and let the Three Stooges use you for a punching bag.”