Close To The Edge

It hadn’t escaped him that men were falling over themselves vacating nearby tables and filling the rest of the stools to get closer to the woman. He gave it another fifteen minutes before all hell broke loose.

Stally’s muttered curse brought his gaze back to the pool table. The other man had managed to sink three balls before missing the fourth.

“Looks like you may have met your match, Boucher,” Remy suggested, raising a finger to summon the waitress for another round.

“Your confidence is overwhelmin’. Watch and learn.” Within short order, he sank his next three balls, and concentrated on dispatching the lone eight ball remaining. Raised voices from the direction of the bar had him mentally shaving five minutes off his original estimate. With unhurried motions, he lined up his last shot.

“Move over, buddy. It’s my turn.”

Stally’s demand came just as Lucky was about to send the cue ball barreling into the eight. He lifted his head. “What are you babblin’ about?”

With a threatening expression, the other man said, “You scratched. Just now. The tip of your stick touched the felt. I seen it plain as day.” He glanced around at the other customers in the vicinity, as if looking for support. But it wasn’t the swell of onlookers that had Lucky bending to his shot again. It was the sudden activity at the bar. Another man had made his move, and was trying to engage the blonde’s attention.

“Right corner pocket.” Lucky dispatched the last ball in short order, then straightened, his gaze on the woman, as he reached for the two fifties lying on the side of the table.

Stally’s hand slapped down over his. “Like I said, you scratched. We’ll play the game over.”

“Why?” Lucky barely spared the man a glance. “Do you figure to play better the second time around?” Goldie was off his stool, he noted, one hand clamped around the blonde’s arm. The other man was rising, as well, to lean menacingly across the woman. She looked like a very small, very defenseless rabbit trapped between two snarling wolves.

“You’re a funny guy.” Stally’s voice lacked real appreciation. “But I said we’ll play it over, so that’s what we’ll do. Unless you want everyone here to know that you’re a coward, as well as a cheat.”

“Um, if I may make an observation,” Remy said diffidently, “he didn’t scratch. Boucher doesn’t cheat at pool. With women, yes. Can’t be trusted around them. Wise men lock up their daughters when he’s in the vicinity.” There was a low murmur of agreement from the crowd that had gathered. “But pool…no. You got beat, my friend, fair and square.”

“Thank you so much,” Lucky told Remy with mock politeness. “Remind me to return the favor someday.” He shifted his attention from his friend’s grin to the man who still held his hand clapped over his. “It appears, mon ami, that no one agrees with you. So pay up, if you ever want to play here again.”

It was long tension-filled seconds later before the man’s grip loosened, and his hand was lifted away completely. “Wise choice.” Lucky gave him a careless smile and scooped up the money, tucking it into his jeans pocket. His attention already diverted by the scene unfolding at the bar, he said, “Better luck next time.”

“I’m not gonna forget this. What’s your name—Bullshit?” Lucky stilled, re-focused on the man at his side. “Yeah, I ain’t gonna forget you, Bullshit. This ain’t over.”

He barely heard Remy’s groan. Didn’t notice the sudden scrambling as men hastened to back away from the table. One moment the taller man was spitting on the floor between them, and the next moment Lucky was behind him, holding a cue stick across his throat, cutting off his oxygen.

“I am normally a very forgivin’ kind of guy,” Lucky said conversationally. Stally’s hands were on the stick, trying to wrest it away, so he exerted more pressure on it. “You can call me a cheat. That is only your opinion, n’est ce pas? You can even call me a coward. After all, that’s a matter of perception.” An edge of steel entered his tone. “But you do not, ever, joke about my name. My grand-mère has always been a stickler about that. It’s Boo-shin.” He gave it the French pronunciation, with the final letter almost silent. The man gave a strangled gasp as a response. “Or if you can’t manage that, Boo-shay is acceptable. Let me hear you try.” He loosened the pressure slightly.

“Boo-shay,” the man gasped, his voice hoarse.

Lucky freed him suddenly, his tone again amiable. “There, that was not so hard, was it?” Stally bent over, wheezing, and Lucky clapped him on the back. “I’m sure it was just a misunderstandin’ on your part.”

“You’re crazy,” the man sputtered, backing away even as he uttered the words.

Lucky’s gaze went again to the bar, and he winced. Goldie and the stranger were trading punches, as the blonde was attempting to sidle out from between the two of them. With a crash, Goldie sent the other man into a table and jumped on him. The woman ducked to the floor. Ambling in the direction of the battle, he said, “At times like these, it is difficult to disagree with you.”

Several patrons had surrounded the men, shouting encouragement and jeers. Money changed hands as bets on the outcome were made. The woman was easing toward the exit, but her escape was thwarted by a ponytailed biker who stood and grabbed her arm as she passed by. Lucky walked faster. Before he could reach the pair, she moved swiftly, ramming her knee into the man’s groin, doubling him over. Then she sailed out the door.

Three other men began to follow her. Lucky beat them to the exit. “Goldie’s offerin’ a hundred to anyone who helps him out.” Two of them stopped, turning to look speculatively at the couple on the floor. The third kept moving.

“She’s not for the likes of you, friend.” Lucky stiffarmed the man, preventing him from passing by. There was a loud crash as Goldie was tossed over the bar and into the bottles lined up in back of it. “It would be much healthier for you to watch the show in here.”

“Hell with you, Boucher. You just want her for yourself.”

It was easy enough to dodge the punch the man aimed at his stomach. But as the crowd shifted, pressing in closer to the battle near the bar, Lucky was thrown off balance. He didn’t quite manage to duck the left jab the man threw. It snapped his head back, and for a moment he saw stars. The man pushed by him, then tripped over Lucky’s outstretched leg. A well-aimed push had him flat on his face, and in the next moment Lucky’s knee was in his back. Taking the man’s head between his hands, Lucky rapped it smartly against the floor, felt the guy go limp. Giving it another rap for good measure, he rose, wiggled his jaw gingerly.

“Looks like you’re goin’ to have a bruise, my friend.”

Lucky sent a disparaging glance at Remy, who looked as though he was enjoying himself hugely. “As always, your assistance is greatly appreciated.”

“I had your back,” Remy assured him, tipping the bottle of beer to his lips. With a meaningful glance toward the door, he noted, “You know, that blonde isn’t your type either.”

Lucky pushed out of the bar, his friend’s words echoing in his ears. High-class former debutantes were about as far from his usual female companions as it was possible to be. He liked to believe, however, that it was by choice. His.

When he hit the sidewalk he became aware that a slight mist was falling. Perfect. Hunching his shoulders, he jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and headed down the street. Given the events of the evening, he didn’t need any further proof of his earlier conviction. Blondes were trouble. Always.

Keeping an eye on the clock on her office wall, Jacinda Eloise Wheeler unbuttoned her plain white shirt with one hand and undid her jeans with the other. Shimmying out of the denim, she stripped off her socks and leaned against the corner of her desk to draw first one, then the other thigh-high nylon over her legs. With any luck she could slip into the Sisters of the South Auxillary gathering before dinner was served. That timing, she hoped, would save her from her mother’s inevitable disapproval.

There was a tiny noise behind her. Whirling, she saw her office door swing open, a dark shape of a man filling it. A strangled scream escaped her throat, even as she reached behind her, searching her desktop for a weapon. Her fingers closed around a heavy paperweight just as the figure stepped into the room.

Then her eyelids slid closed in relief. “Damn you, Boucher, you scared me to death.”

Lucky’s face was lit with unmistakable male appreciation. “If you had shown just a little bit of those riches back at the bar, cher, your evenin’ might have been a bit more productive.”

For a moment she stared at him blankly, before following his gaze to her chest. She dropped the paperweight and yanked her shirt closed, felt her cheeks firing. “A gentleman,” she pointed out from between clenched teeth, “wouldn’t have looked.”

“What have I ever done to give you the impression that I’m a gentleman?”

He managed, she thought, to sound affronted. And he was right. Of all the descriptives she could come up with, gentleman would never make the list. He looked more like one of Lucifer’s henchmen, handpicked to roam the earth wreaking havoc on the female population. The light rain had dampened his black hair, which was always kept just a shade too long. Right now it nearly touched his collar in the back, though he’d claimed he was leaving early to get a haircut that afternoon. Given his aversion to shaving, his jaw was most often shadowed. They’d long ago reached a compromise so that he used a razor at least every other day, making him due again tomorrow. His eyes, as dark as his hair, usually held a wicked gleam that, if rumors could be believed, had led hundreds of unwary female hearts to their ruination.

The lazy bayou cadence of his languid drawl put most people at ease, but the more wary would never mistake him for harmless. Not with that slight hint of menace layered beneath the lazy affability. Given his penchant for jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with suggestive sayings, he looked like exactly what he was—a man who had grown up in the swamps and had lived by his wits in the back alleys of New Orleans. The fresh bruise blooming below one eye only added to his aura of danger.

He ambled into the room and propped his hips against a chair to survey her. “What were you doin’ in Frenchy’s tonight?”

“I am not going to stand here half naked and have a conversation with you!”

His mouth twitched. “A shame, since you make such a picture half naked.” When she reached for the paperweight again, he made a production of raising his hands and turned his back with exaggerated care. “What could you possibly be plannin’ after startin’ a riot in Frenchy’s? Wrestlin’ a few alligators? Leapin’ tall buildings with a single bound?”

“I’m meeting my mother for dinner.” And, she realized, with another quick glance at the clock, she was almost certain to be late. Giving up the battle, she slipped the shirt off and let it fall to the floor. “Hand me that dress, will you?”

He reached for the sedate black dress hanging over the back of the chair and held it up to study it. “A present from a nun?”

She snatched it from him, yanked down the zipper, and stepped into it. “From my mother.”

“That explains it. But it doesn’t answer my question.”

Struggling to zip up, she said, “I got a tip this afternoon about that missing girl, Cheryl Kenning. Remember her?”

“Twenty-year-old, reported missin’ by her grandparents. The NOPD found her hookin’, didn’t they?”

“That’s the one.” She jammed her feet into her high-heeled pumps. “I discovered that she was working for Goldie, and with a little digging I was able to come up with a list of his hangouts.”

Without asking permission, he spun around to frown at her. “And you thought you’d just ask him to point you in her general direction?”