Give Him the Slip (2 page)

She
was
awfully thirsty. Maddie tapped her foot, then
sighed. At this point, what was one more sin?

She opened the fridge. Hmm... the agent must have recently visited
the grocery store. Lots of meat, cheese, eggs. Looked to be a South Beach dieter
except for the three gallons of low-fat milk. She spied a twelve-pack of spring
water and a six-pack of imported beer. Maddie reached for the water, but
somehow, her hand grabbed the beer.

Boldly, she rummaged through Ms. Winston's drawers to find a bottle
opener and, after hesitating over a bag of Double Stuf Oreos, grabbed a
half-empty package of pretzels from her pantry. She sat at the table, drank her
stolen beer, and finished off the bag of pilfered pretzels. When she belched
aloud without even trying to smother the sound, Maddie knew she'd lost it.

"Maybe I'm having a heat stroke," she said to Oscar. Or
post-traumatic stress syndrome. But it couldn't be that. There was nothing at
all "post" about this stress.

Something told her that drug-dealing, crooked-cop murderers
wouldn't give up the hunt for her just because she didn't go home last night.

Grabbing her beer, she tossed the empty pretzel bag into a plastic
trash can, then walked past one, two, three bedrooms and another bathroom to
the front deck. Maddie gazed out at the bayou, where late-morning sunlight
strained through the thick green canopy of trees and vines that stretched
across the murky water of the swamp. Long strands of Spanish moss dangled from
the branches of the live oaks like gray-green tinsel, adding an eerie
atmosphere to an already fantastical morning.

"I can't believe I'm in trouble again," she said softly.
This time, she hadn't sought it out. This time, she hadn't fallen for a
seductive man's line. This time, all she'd done was clean house!

The urge to cry came over her then, but Maddie fiercely fought it
back. She'd sworn off crying at the same time she'd sworn off studly men. She
was stronger now. She'd survive this.

But as she returned to the kitchen to gather her purse and her pet,
despite her best intentions, a pair of big, fat tears overflowed her eyes and
slid slowly down her cheeks.

Luke Callahan set the plastic bottle of mustard on the ship store
counter and said, "That ought to do it."

Perched like a heron atop a three-legged stool behind the counter,
Marie Gauthier sighed heavily, her frown deepening the lines in skin tanned
dark and leathery. "Ah, it be a sad day,
cher,"
she said,
ringing up his purchases. "Me, I'll be missing that old coot. I thought
the service was fine and fitting."

Luke nodded and cleared his throat. "Terry liked a good
party."

"Mais
yeah." Marie neatly stacked Luke's
groceries in a brown paper bag. "That man, he loved a
fais do-do,
and
he loved the bayou. It's the right place for his ashes to rest."

Luke agreed. Spreading Terry Winston's ashes was the single part
of this god-awful day that had felt right.

"And now, what about you,
mon ami?.
My man, he say
you're taking the
Miss Behavin' II
away from Caddo Bayou. Are you
leaving us for good? The ladies here, they will be brokenhearted."

"I'll be back." Luke lifted the grocery bag into his
arms and offered her the first genuine smile he'd managed in a month. "I'm
going fishing for a few weeks. One of my brothers just bought a new thirty-foot
Grady-White. I'm meeting him in Lake Charles and we're heading out toward the
Keys."

"An extended fishing trip?
Mon Dieu.
My man, he be pea
green with envy when he hears that. So, it's true, then? You're trading in your
gun and badge for a fishing pole and bait?"

Luke's smile slowly died as the sick sensation in his stomach
returned. He'd broken the rules when he went after Terry's killer. He'd
resigned before they could fire him. "Beyond fishing for my supper for the
next few weeks, I'm not sure what I'm going to do."

Marie Gauthier reached across the counter and gave Luke's arm a
comforting pat. "Ah, it's none of my business, anyway. My Pierre, he
always tells me I'm a nosy old woman. You take your time,
mon ami.
These
are grievous wounds you've suffered. The bullets, they are bad enough, but
losing your partner... That Terry, he was like a father to you. You give
yourself time to heal, Luke. You come back to us when you're whole again."

When he was whole again. Yeah, right.

Luke tried to put the old woman's words out of his mind as he
exited the store and made his way across the parking lot toward the wooden pier
and the
Miss Behavin' II.
The day had been a killer, and he was anxious
to put it behind him. He wasn't scheduled to meet Matt for two more days, but
after the strain of Terry's send-off, Luke wanted some downtime, some time
alone. Time to decompress.

The months of constant danger during the undercover assignment in
Florida had worn him down. Saying good-bye to Terry Winston had damn near
killed him.

He'd held up all right in the heat of the moment. The gun-fight in
the Miami warehouse, stealing the car, the mad race to the ER while trying to
staunch Terry's wounds and his own. He'd even managed when, after fighting for
weeks in the hospital, Terry called calf-rope, squeezed Luke's hand, and died.

It was the aftermath that did him in. The reality that Luke's
mistake had gotten his partner and friend killed was a devastating burden to
bear. He'd gone a little crazy bringing the killers to justice. It cost him his
job, but he didn't regret it.

What he regretted was losing control of himself last night when
Terry's friends set out to honor his memory in a way the old bastard would have
appreciated. Terry's farewell had started at sunset with a party the likes
Caddo Bayou hadn't seen in years. Lots of food and drink, music and dancing.
Luke had kept it together until the band played a rendition of Jimmy Buffett's
"Lovely Cruise." At that point, he'd sat down on a bench and bawled
like a baby.

He'd hit the booze hard after that in a misguided attempt to dull
the pain, and the rest of the night remained fuzzy in his memory. The
festivities had continued past dawn, culminating in this morning's church
service and the trip into the swamp to spread Terry's ashes. The remnants of a
hangover still throbbed in Luke's head and the lack of sleep dulled his
thinking.

A dog's bark jerked Luke back to the present, and his mouth
twisted in a hint of a grin as the stray mutt who'd adopted him during the past
week came bounding toward him from the woods where he'd been off exploring. A
mix of golden retriever, boxer, and who-knew-what-else, the dog must have been
dumped on the highway by an uncaring owner. The mutt had made his way to the marina
the same day Luke returned to Caddo Bayou.

Luke had tossed the dog a bite of his burger, and from that moment
on, the mutt considered himself Luke's. Luke took longer to come around to the
idea, but finally, last night, he'd sealed the deal by giving the dog a name.

"Whoa, there, Knucklehead," Luke said as the dog went up
on his hind legs, planted his front paws on Luke's shirt, and licked his face.
Luke pushed the mutt off him, saying, "The slobber factor is getting out
of hand. If you're going on this trip with me, you're gonna have to get some
control."

His tail wagged, his tongue dangled out one side of his mouth, and
he looked so stupidly friendly that Luke let out a laugh. He reached down and
scratched the pooch behind the ears before continuing toward the
Miss
Behavin' II.
The dog bounded aboard ahead of Luke, then waited at the door
for Luke to let him inside. Like a flash, he disappeared toward the starboard
stateroom where he'd claimed the queen-sized bed for his own.

As Luke stowed the last of his supplies for the upcoming fishing
trip, he wondered why he'd been a sucker for the mangy hound. He hadn't had a
pet in seventeen years. A man in Luke's business had no business owning a dog.
Since his job was eighty-five percent travel, he couldn't properly care for a
pet.

"Well, that's not a problem anymore, is it?" Luke
slammed the cabinet shut with more force than necessary. He didn't want to
think about the job. He didn't want to think about what the hell he was
supposed to do with the rest of his life. He hadn't felt this lost since the
day his father booted his butt out of Brazos Bend.

Well, he didn't have to think about any of that now. For the next
three weeks, he'd think of nothing more serious than which bait to attach to
his line. Old Marie Gauthier was right. He needed time. He'd give himself time.
That's exactly what Terry would have told him to do.

Up at the flybridge helm, Luke fired up the twin Mercruiser
three-liter sterndrives, then he struck the lines and pulled away from the
Caddo Bayou Marina, headed on a southerly course. He knew his way without
consulting a map. He and Terry had made this trip dozens of times over the
years, first with the smaller
Miss Behavin' I,
then after their dot-com
windfall, aboard this boat. This was the first time Luke had made it alone.

Well, alone but for a mutt named Knucklehead.

Luke cruised for hours before the lack of sleep caught up with
him. After guiding the boat into a protected inlet, he sank the anchors, then
sought his bed. The hum of the air conditioner drowned out the songs of
Mississippi kites and cardinals drifting on the air, and Luke Callahan drifted
off to sleep.

He dreamed of a bikini-clad redhead playing topless beach
volleyball and awoke to a bloodcurdling scream.

A slurping sound tugged Maddie from the oblivion of sleep, and she
opened her eyes to find a hairy monster of a dog with his snout buried in
Oscar's bowl, his long red tongue fishing for a snack. Maddie screamed and
launched herself at the dog, forcing him away from the fishbowl. Unfortunately,
in the process, her knee thumped the bowl and tipped it over. Oscar and water
washed onto the wood floor.

"Yah!" she squealed, diving for the flopping goldfish,
putting her body between Oscar and the sharp-toothed canine. Oscar flipped
beyond her reach and Maddie lunged forward again, going down on her front as
she finally trapped the fish beneath her cupped hands. She lay flat on her
stomach in the pool of tepid water, trying to catch her breath and calm her
pounding pulse.

"What the hell is going on here?" inquired a deep,
resonant voice.

Maddie spied the bare feet first. Her gaze crawled slowly upward
over moderately hairy, tanned and toned calf muscles, well-defined thighs, and
a rather impressive... holy hell... the man was naked. And armed. Armed and
naked.

Naked!

Maddie jerked her gaze away from both his package and his pistol,
dragging her stare up his long, lean length all the way to his face. She
recognized the features. He was the man from the party barge, the one with the
minnow bucket. The shirtless, sweaty, sexy one with the six-pack abs.

Great. Wonderful. Obviously, Ms. Winston had a special guest.
Maddie should have considered the possibility, considering the name of the
boat,
Miss Behavin' II.
When she'd stepped aboard to pee, she'd never
thought she might be boarding the
Love Boat.

Maddie sat back on her heels and attempted a polite smile.
"Hello."

"Who the fuck are you?"

Well. He might be pretty to look at, but somebody needed to take a
bar of soap to his mouth. "My name is Maddie Kincaid and you can lower the
gun. I'm here to see Ms. Winston."

The gun didn't budge, and when he spoke, his tone was a jagged
shard of glass. "Who sent you?"

"Is Ms. Winston here? Ms. Terri Winston?"

"Who. Sent. You."

Were she not so scared, she'd be annoyed by his tone. "A
friend of hers. Mr. Callahan. Mr. Branch Callahan of Brazos Bend, Texas."

Surprise flashed in his eyes before fury settled in. He took a
threatening step forward. "If that's the case, tell me why I shouldn't
shoot you on the spot."

"What!" Maddie pulled her gaze away from the pair of
angry red scars on his torso. The marks looked fresh. They looked like...
bullet wounds. Oh, dear.

He eyed her wet shirt and shorts, and his bayou green eyes
narrowed suspiciously. "Are you a hooker?"

She blinked. "Pardon me?"

"How much did the old man throw at you?" he asked,
leaning against the doorway, all naked and malicious. "If it's less than a
couple grand, you've sold yourself short. That's what he paid the last whore he
sent to lure me back to Brazos Bend."

The last whore? Maddie plucked her wet T-shirt away from her
breasts. "Wait just one minute. I don't know who you are, and frankly, I
don't care. I'm sorry if I've interrupted a romantic encounter between you and
Ms. Winston. I know I'm the trespasser here, and that automatically puts me in
the wrong. Nonetheless, you can drop the name-calling. And it wouldn't hurt you
to put some clothes on, either!"