Dare to Love Again (The Heart of San Francisco Book #2): A Novel (38 page)

“Thank you, Mr. McClare.” A haze of pink braised her cheeks as she gave him a timid smile. Her classically pretty features reminded him of a grown-up Meg, which is probably why she evoked such a protective instinct in him. His smile inched into a grin. That and the fact she was totally immune to Blake’s blatant efforts to entice her into any kind of relationship.

Letters in hand, she tipped her head in a playful pose he seldom saw, her usually reticent manner giving way to a twinkle in her eye. “So this is it, then,” she said with a quick glance at the grandfather clock that registered five o’clock sharp, “the beginning of the weekend when Mr. MacKenna becomes a nephew as well as an employee.”

Yes . . . and a
son as well as a nephew
. “Indeed,” he said with a tight smile, shuffling a stack of papers into a manila file folder. “So now if I dock his pay, I answer to my niece.”

He grinned at Miss Peabody’s husky chuckle, which offered a rare glimpse into a private, young woman who was as professional as she was pretty.
And smart enough to stay away from rogues like
Blake
. He released a silent exhale as he turned the folder over to her, his grin taking a wry tilt.
Like I used to be.

“Goodness, Mr. McClare, I can’t imagine how much fun it would be in your family, sir.” She clutched the file to her chest with a hint of longing in her eyes. “With such colorful characters like Mr. MacKenna, Mr. McClare, and Mr. Hughes, you all must laugh quite a bit.”

“We do.” He reached for the family photo on the credenza,
thumb grazing the polished cherrywood frame as he studied it with deep affection.
Except possibly tonight.
He felt an immediate twinge in his chest over the dinner he’d planned at the Palace before the wedding tomorrow. The one where he’d reveal to Cassie’s parents—his brother Quinn and his wife—that their daughter was not just marrying one of Logan’s employees, but his illegitimate son as well. The forbidden union of two blood cousins, saved only by the fact that Cassie was adopted, without a drop of McClare blood in her veins. He glanced up, holding the picture frame aloft with a proud smile. “Tomorrow we’ll have a new picture taken, and for better or worse, Mac will be in it.”

“Definitely better,” Miss Peabody said with a gentle smile. “Given the work ethic of Mr. MacKenna, Mr. McClare, and Mr. Hughes, I’d say you have a knack for hiring excellent staff.”

“Present company front and center, Miss Peabody, I assure you.”

The blush returned. “Thank you, sir. Is there anything I can get for you before I go?”

Yes, a bottle of Chivas Regal would be lovely,
to steel my nerves.
“No thank you—I’ll be leaving shortly myself, so you have a good weekend.”

“Thank you, sir, you too.” Her smile was warm as she quietly closed the door.

“I certainly hope so,” he whispered, wheeling around to stare out the window, the picture slack in his hand. Cait certainly hadn’t taken the news of Jamie’s paternity well, but then she had good reason. Jamie represented a twenty-six-year-old lie in the flesh, a betrayal of her love, and Logan bitterly regretted he hadn’t told her sooner. It had been a stupid mistake, a moral error on his part, and a total lack of judgment. But his reluctance had been motivated by fear rather than insight and common sense, something that almost never happened, and he’d give anything if he could
just take it back. If he’d learned one thing through all of this, it was that fear distorted wisdom every single time. Fear that she would have never given him a chance. He exhaled a weary sigh. And the same fear that kept her from trusting him ever again. He stared at the picture with Cait on one side of the family and him on the other, and a dull ache thumped in his chest. He had hoped by this time to be standing by her side in all pictures taken, but he knew now that it would be a good, long while before he could ease her toward the altar again. He set the photo back on the credenza, gently grazing her face with his thumb. But he’d do it—if it took every ounce of charm and prayer in his arsenal.

His finger absently glided across the glass of the frame, tracing each face in the picture until he paused on Alli’s, heart cramping over the pain Nick Barone had caused. “We’ll get you through this, sweetheart,” he whispered, vowing to investigate any man in the future who even looked at her cross-eyed. “And so help me, if I ever get my hands on Barone—”

Whoosh!
The door flew to the wall, along with Miss Peabody, face flushed and eyes as round as the knob gripped in her white-knuckled hand. “I tried to stop him, sir, truly—”

Logan shot to his feet. “What the . . . ?”

Nick Barone stormed in with his typical tight-lipped scowl, expensive suit rumpled and Italian leather shoes buffed to a shine. He tossed a ruler he’d obviously snapped in half onto Logan’s desk, the jagged pieces as sharp as his tone. “What is it with women and sticks, anyway?” he muttered, hurling his Homburg onto one of two leather chairs. Slapping massive hands on Logan’s desk, he leaned across with fire in his eyes. “I’d sit back down and get real cozy if I were you, Supervisor, ’cause you and me? We’re gonna have a chat.”

A tic pulsed in Logan’s cheek. “So you’re back to finish her
off, are you? What—ripping her heart out the first time wasn’t enough?” His cool gaze shifted to Miss Peabody with a stiff smile. “Thank you, Miss Peabody. If you’d be kind enough to call security before you go, I’d appreciate it immensely.”

“Y-yes, s-sir,” she stuttered, palms and back flush to the wood door as if she thought Barone might charge at any moment. “W-would you l-like me to call the p-police too?”

Barone whirled around, causing Miss Peabody to jerk so hard, the poor woman’s body rattled along with the door. His glare pinned her in place, obviously cauterizing her to the spot. “I
am
the blasted police,” he shouted.

“Yes, Miss Peabody,” Logan said with icy calm, “please ask Captain Peel to send two officers over immediately to escort Nick Barone to a cell.”

“Freeze!” Barone’s command carried the weight of authority, paralyzing the terrified receptionist against the door. He jerked a badge from inside his jacket and practically rammed it at Logan. “Lieutenant Detective Ryan Nicholas Burke, Chicago P.D.”

Logan’s smile was as steely as the badge beneath his nose. “And just why should I believe you, Barone? Because you flash a tin badge you probably lifted from some cop?”

“It’s Bur-kee,” he snapped, enunciating both syllables through clenched teeth, “long
e
, you blasted bigwig, and after the bald-faced lie you told Allison, you can bet your sorry tail I have proof.” He shoved the badge in his jacket and pulled out a folded letter, flipping it on the desk.

“M-Mr. McClare—do you still need me to call Captain P-Peel?” Miss Peabody hadn’t moved a muscle except her lips, body pasted to the door like she was sweating glue.

Logan scanned the letter from the district attorney of Cook County and expelled a heavy breath, almost irritated that Barone
was legit. “No, Miss Peabody, it appears our intruder, no matter how obnoxious, has credentials, so no police or security is required, thank you. Have a good weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday. And close the door, if you will.”

“Yes, sir, good night.”

The latch clicked and Logan pitched the letter across the desk to Barone . . . or Burke—or whoever the devil he was—before leaning back in his chair, elbows propped and hands clasped. “It appears you have explaining to do, Lieutenant Burke, as to why you would lie to my niece, me, Captain Peel, and his aunt.” He glanced at the clock before he pierced him with a cool gaze. “I have a prior commitment, so I will give you exactly five minutes before I throw you out.”

Burke’s facial muscles flickered, as if he were reining in a temper Logan knew all too well that he had. Massaging his temple, the detective finally released a weary sigh, an unexpected humility replacing the temper in his eyes. “Tell me, Supervisor,” he said quietly, “have you ever kept the truth from someone you love to protect them as well as yourself?”

Logan froze, the query a bull’s-eye as surely as if Burke had fired a gun. Drawing in a halting breath, he released it again slowly, the tension in his face relaxing along with it.
Unfortunately, yes
, he thought with keen regret, surprised that he and Burke shared any common ground at all. Giving a slow nod, he appraised the officer with a solemn gaze. “I repeat, Detective Burke—you have five minutes. State your case.”

———

A long, tremulous breath seeped from Nick’s mouth along with the rest of the anger he’d carried all the way from the station when Harmon had attempted to lock him up. And all because Logan McClare stuck his nose in where he didn’t belong. Suck
ing in more air, he slowly expelled it again as he eased into one of the cordovan chairs, finally allowing his body to relax for the first time all day. He stared at the Supervisor’s granite jaw and cold, slate-gray eyes and wanted to rail at Alli’s uncle and call him every foul name in the book. For lying through his teeth about who Nick Barone was when no such person even existed at all. But the truth was, he couldn’t. Not after the soul-searching he’d done while he lay in a hospital with a bullet in his chest, mere inches from his heart. Because had he been in Logan’s shoes, he would have investigated Nick Barone too, and done everything McClare did and more to protect his niece.

His niece.
Nick swallowed hard.
And God willing, my wife.
A connection too strong to continue a battle with Logan based on misconceptions and anger. Bitterness had skewed his perception of both Alli and her uncle from the start, distorting his mind and hardening his heart. But for all his wealth and political influence, Logan McClare was no more like Aiden Maloney than Alli was like Darla Montesino. Nick absently rubbed the side of his chest where the bullet had lodged, right next to an arsenal of bitterness just as hard. A bitterness that had prompted him to condemn both Alli and Logan on the spot. Grief pierced his heart.
Just like Maloney
had with my parents and uncle
. He closed his eyes and kneaded the back of his head, where the gash from the butt of Neil’s gun still throbbed as much as his guilt.

“You have three minutes left,” Logan said in a dispassionate tone, and Nick peered up, hardly able to believe what he was about to do.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wish I’d looked out for my family half as well as you look out for yours. But the truth is, Supervisor McClare, I did too little, too late, and it made me a very angry man.” Inhaling deeply, he sank back in the chair and started at the
beginning in a low drone, from the murder of his parents to the robbery and subsequent murder of his uncle, a man who’d been a key cog in the corrupt and merciless hierarchy of the Irish mob.

He talked about his vendetta against Aiden Maloney and a political machine so corrupt that Nick had vowed he would make them pay as an officer of the law. Fueled by revenge, he’d risen in the ranks quickly until he joined forces with the district attorney to bring down as many of the Irish mob as he possibly could. They’d struck pay dirt when his own uncle—Aiden Maloney’s attorney—had finally had enough and begun feeding Nick proof of Maloney’s extortion. His uncle had meticulously duplicated file after file, one by one, willing to turn state witness against Maloney and other members of the mob. Until they silenced him.

“They murdered your uncle in his own house?” Logan whispered, his shock evident.

Nick nodded. “Gunned him down, right before they tore the place up, apparently looking for missing records they were tipped off about.”

Ridges popped in Logan’s brow. “By whom?”

Nick’s jaw hardened to rock, the roiling of his stomach clear indication he still had some soul-searching to do. “My ex-fiancée, a scheming debutante my uncle introduced me to.”

Logan leaned in, expression calcifying along with his tone. “Wait—she wasn’t pregnant with your child, was she?”

“What?” Heat swarmed his neck like fire ants swarmed the bodies of dead rats in the sewers and alleys of the Barbary Coast. “What the devil kind of question is that?” he ground out, jerking hard on his ear.

“A legitimate one, considering the real Nick Barone abandoned a pregnant fiancée in New York’s Little Italy.” Logan’s lips went flat. “Right after he robbed her blind.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “Pardon me?”

Logan folded his arms on his desk, eyes in a squint. “Tell me, Burke—how the devil did you pick your phony name anyway?”

Nick’s eyes narrowed to razor-thin. “DeLuca, the assistant D.A., wanted an ethnic cover, so I used my middle name with an Italian surname I picked from city records.”

“And you never bothered to check if anybody owned it or not?” Logan’s tone rose several octaves, suggesting Nick was clearly an idiot.

Blood braised Nick’s cheeks, his lips as flat as McClare’s face was gonna be if he continued this line of questioning. “The-city-records-confirmed-it,” he bit out, “no Nick Barone, either in New York
or
Chicago.”

Shaking his head, Logan sloped back with a chuckle. “Well, apparently Andrea Nicolo Barone—thief, murderer, and con man on the lam—preferred his middle name to his first.”

Nick blinked, staring for several seconds before the faintest of grins tugged at his lips. “So that’s who Allison thinks I am—some lowlife who’d abandon his pregnant fiancée?”

“In the flesh,” Logan said with a flash of teeth.

It was Nick’s turn to shake his head, the grin breaking free. “Well, then heaven help me if she has a stick in her hand when I see her.”

Logan rested his head on the back of his chair, his smile fading as he studied Nick through pensive eyes. “What happened then—with the fiancée?”

Fiancée.
The very word sucked the humor right out. “Seems she had an old family friend I didn’t know about—a stinking sack of dung by the name of Aiden Maloney. Didn’t discover she’d double-crossed me until one of my uncle’s files disappeared—the one I’d been working on in my study, hidden in a secret compartment
of my bookcase.” He nodded toward the letter on Logan’s desk. “DeLuca is a paranoid type who suspected a leak in both of our departments, so he didn’t want the records stored either place. Especially since they required extensive decoding on my part based on a formula from my uncle. So I worked on them one at a time, hiding some beneath the floorboards in my grandmother’s attic while DeLuca kept the rest at his place.”