MID-CITY, NEW ORLEANS

“We need a plan,” Jade said, grabbing a salted French fry from the wicker basket and swiping it through a puddle of ketchup. After leaving Heavenly Met—and escaping Mr. Simms, who’d cornered them by the altar on the way out—they’d immediately decamped for much needed sustenance.

Jade’s growling stomach had never been more thankful.

“I don’t trust Ms. Simms’ record-keeping.” Seated across from her, Nathan pushed his half-eaten plate away from him. “I need to re-check with the state about that marriage license. I looked last week, when I first met with Miranda Smiley, and I know for a fact that that she’s listed as unmarried—which proves your theory that the license has been forged. In the meantime, we need a search warrant.”

Shoving the rest of the fry into her mouth, she turned that piece of information over in her head. “Is it hard to get one of those?”

“We need sufficient evidence, something more than this.” He gestured toward the printed copy of the wedding certificate that sat on the table. “Something more than what might or might not be a fraudulent signature to a marriage that may or may not have happened.”

This time when Jade swirled a fry in the ketchup, she did so slowly, buying herself some time as she digested his somewhat hurtful statement. “I thought . . . ” She cleared her throat. “I thought you believed me on this.”

Gray eyes snapped up to meet her own. “I believe you,” he said gravely, “but having never seen Charlie Zeker’s signature before, I doubt your claim would hold up in the court of law. It’s not enough.”

Not enough.

Words she’d been hearing all her life.

She hadn’t been enough when it came to matching up to her sisters’ successes, no matter what Sammie argued to boost Jade’s self-esteem. She hadn’t been enough, with all of her higher education behind her, to do anything more than switch tracks and start at the bottom of the totem pole. She hadn’t even been enough when it came to John Thomas, who’d never pushed for anything more than a silent girlfriend who did as he bid. If she’d been enough, wouldn’t he have cared more?

Jade was tired of not being enough.

“I know enough,” she snapped, irrationally irritated by Nathan’s lack of faith in her. “What do I need to do to prove it? Do you want me to find a copy of Zeker’s signature somewhere else? Will that do it?”

“Yes.”

Her chin jerked back. “What?”

Shoving his plate to the side, Nathan dropped forward on his elbows, eyes lit with determination. “That’s exactly what we have to do.”

“And your plan involves . . .? We can’t just go breaking into Miranda Smiley’s house without a search warrant,” she said. “And after this afternoon, I highly doubt she’ll be welcoming us into her home anytime soon. I can just imagine how well she’d take to finding us back on her front porch.”

“Yeah, not so much. But the fact that the state doesn’t have the marriage documents mingled with your suspicion that they’ve been forged? It’s a good lead. A better lead than Shawna Zeker.” Nathan sat back, scrubbing a hand over the growing stumble on his face. “Still doesn’t solve the problem that this is a goddamned mess.”

Emboldened by the exhaustion she heard in his voice, Jade straightened her leg under the table and tapped his foot with hers in comfort. The same way he’d done for her weeks ago at his parent’s house.

“Isn’t this why you became a homicide detective?” she murmured quietly, letting her foot rest atop his. “To figure out how to solve all the ‘goddamned messes’ in the world?”

He shook his head. “Not the world. Just N’Orleans.”

Way to put a foot in it, Jade. “I’m sorry, I—”

“I tried the world thing, once, back when I was a marine.”

And now she was feeling even more oafish, more verbally incompetent, than she had moments earlier. Struggling to find something worthy to say, she blurted, “I remember you saying you were a marine.”

Yes, Jade, point out the obvious, why don’t you?

She tried again. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

You are not getting any better at this.

The half-smile Nathan gave her barely lifted his lips. “War usually isn’t easy.”

“You’re right,” she stammered, “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Because you’re trying to understand something that you couldn’t possibly.”

The words weren’t sharply spoken. If anything, they were like a wisp of a cool breeze across the skin, there but hardly felt. Strangely, she didn’t think he’d meant for them to be an insult . . . just the way she hadn’t meant to totally stumble over her words and come off sounding like an idiot.

“But to answer your question, the world is full of deaths. I did my fair share of trying to keep people alive, both my brothers and the locals in Iraq.” He dropped his gaze to the table, and snagged a cold fry from the basket. He dunked it in the ketchup, stared at it, and then dropped it on his plate. “I’ve got what people would call a hero complex.”

Before she could think better of it, she quipped, “Isn’t the first step to recovery admittance?”

“Guess so,” he said evenly with a roll of his big shoulders. “The one time I went to a therapist he told me that part of recovery was fixing your addiction on something else.”

Jade furrowed her brow. “Are we talking addiction?”

“Kinda one and the same for some people, don’t you think?”

Without waiting for her to respond, he shifted forward and withdrew his ever-ready pack of gum. He tossed it onto the table, then followed it up with a pack of cigarettes still tightly wrapped in plastic.

“Are you offering?” She stared at the two packs in confusion. “I don’t smoke.”

“I didn’t,” he said, using one hand to place the gum pack on top of the Marlboro Reds, “Then I went to the Middle East and realized I was capable of a whole lot more than just smoking cancer sticks.”

Even though the remaining words were unspoken, she heard them loud and clear. He was responsible for death.

“You asked me once why I joined the NOPD—do you remember what I told you?”

At the question, she strained her memory to recall a day that hadn’t occurred all that long ago but felt like eons earlier. His words came back in bits and pieces, and she slid them together into one complete puzzle.

“You said that you replaced your addiction to the military with an addiction to the NOPD.”

Chin jerking down in a quick nod, Nathan said, “It wasn’t an addiction to the marines. It was an addiction to death—or, rather, the reverse of death.”

“Life,” Jade whispered, somewhat stupidly. Of course, life was the only opposite of death. She was on a roll tonight.

“I obsessed over it, in the only way someone with survivor’s guilt possibly can.”

Jade’s stomach dropped. “Did you have friends—?”

“Yes,” he said swiftly, cutting her off before she could travel that path, “Thank God there weren’t more. But even though I was lucky enough to see my brothers go back home to their families, I obsessed over how many of the locals lost their lives. They didn’t deserve what happened to them, having their homes burned in fires or having to escape and go elsewhere with nothing but the clothes on their back.” His gray eyes burned valiant silver. “What sort of life is that? What sort of life leads you to only know fear?”

Jade thought of Nathan’s childhood, and wondered if he realized how close to his own words he had endured for over a decade. There was a difference, she understood, between living in a home that was unstable and a country that was unstable, but still . . . Had he ever known what it was like to live or had he spent years living in the shadows, behind a façade that wasn’t fully accurate?

“So, you joined the NOPD,” she said slowly. “And a career as a homicide detective allows you to try to help the families of deceased loved ones, families not so unlike the ones you couldn’t save in Iraq.”

He blinked back at her, perhaps startled by how clearly she’d read him. “Yes.”

With the tip of her finger, she pushed the gum pack off the cigarettes and toward him. The Reds she clutched in her hand and dropped them into her purse. His expression didn’t change.

“I wouldn’t recommend starting,” was all he said, very nonchalantly, “It’s a bitch to quit.”

Pointedly, she said, “But you quit.”

“I did.”

“And now?”

He seemed to understand what she was asking, perhaps even more than she knew what she’d been asking. So, maybe she shouldn’t have been all that surprised when he hooked his foot around the leg of her chair and tugged her close. The sudden movement jolted her forward, and Jade found herself with her hands on the table holding up her weight.

“Now,” he said in a husky murmur, “I need something else.”

“Yeah?” She inched her chin up, trying the best she could to ignore the hot anticipation threading through her veins and hardening her nipples beneath her work shirt. Feigning disinterest was futile, especially when her voice cracked as she asked, “What do you need?”

“You.”

Yup, there was no such thing as ‘disinterest’ when it came to Nathan Danvers. Feeling more than a little lightheaded from the adrenaline, Jade scanned the dark bar. It was nothing to write home about, that was for sure—she doubted even the lone bartender realized that their drinks had sat empty for over twenty minutes.

“Should we go?” she asked, already gathering her purse and workbag. “My apartment isn’t far. Neither is your house.”

“Here.”

Her gaze snapped up to meet his. “Here?” she repeated dumbly.

His eyes were hot, turned on, and she highly suspected that it wasn’t the only part of him alert and interested. That part of him was hidden beneath the table where he still sat.

“You like being adventurous.”

“Sí, well”—Jade looked down at the table littered with leftover food and peanut shells—“I’m not doing it on top of the fries. You can be bottom.”

His burst of laughter warmed her insides. He came to stand by her side, hand held out for her to take. “Do you trust me?”

“You asked me that last time, right before you blindfolded me and tied me to your bed.”

“Which you also liked,” he said, entwining their fingers and raising their hands so he could place a gentle kiss on her knuckles. “You liked it a lot.”

I like you a lot.

Yeah, she definitely was not saying that out loud, no matter how true it might be. She stared pointedly at his mouth, knowing that it drove him wild with need. “Sometimes a girl wants to be treated nicely.”

As expected, his gaze turned molten. “You saying I haven’t treated you nice, honey?”

She worried her nose would grow like Pinocchio’s when she fibbed, “I think you’ve got more in you to give.”

Abruptly, he wrapped a solid arm around her waist, anchoring her body to his muscular frame. His warm breath teased her hairline, sending shivers rocketing down her spine. “I think you’re right.”

“You do?” Her voice shook as she spoke, which did nothing to create the illusion of disenchantment. Fact was, everything Nathan Danvers said or did left her craving more. More of his presence. More of him. It was a bit of a hindrance, the way she so enjoyed spending any amount of time with him.

His mouth claimed hers in a deep kiss, bypassing the flirtation stage as he rocked her to her very core. He pulled back, just far enough to say, “I’m going to give you everything I have until you don’t even remember your own name. And before that, I’m going to give you my trust,” before grabbing her hand and dragging her out the front door of the bar.

Oh.

Why did he know exactly what he needed to say to butter her up?

If Jade liked him a lot before, she had the feeling he didn’t plan to stop until he owned her heart and soul.

She just didn’t know what he’d do once her heart and soul were marked as his.