Chapter 2

Five minutes later, they were walking hand in hand down Bourbon Street, taking in the sights and finally able to talk without having to shout. It felt completely natural holding his hand, like they’d been dating for months.

“You were saying you work in the Houston crime lab?” Remy prompted, bringing her back to the conversation they’d been having in the club before Kim had interrupted them.

Triana nodded. “Technically, it’s called the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, but that’s such a mouthful that everyone calls it the crime lab. I do trace-evidence analysis there.”

It looked like Remy was about to say something, but he had to hesitate as an older couple came dancing down the center of the street wearing nothing but the tiniest of swimsuits. Triana would have liked to say that was uncommon, but it wasn’t. Bourbon Street brought out all kinds.

Remy steered her around the half-naked couple, not even batting an eye. “You went to LSU for chemistry, right? How’d you end up in Houston?”

“They have a great intern program, and I got a chance to go there during my senior year. One semester in the lab and I was hooked. It took a little while to get a job there, though. I had to end up going to Alabama to get my master’s in forensic science first, but I’ve been working there for four years now.” She tucked her hair behind her ear with an embarrassed smile. “You probably think it’s nerdy, but I love it.”

Remy shook his head. “Nah. I’ve worked with the people from the Dallas ME’s office a couple times, so I understand the hard work that’s involved in your job. I think it’s cool. I’m just surprised your mom let you go to Alabama. I would have never in my life imagined that.”

Triana laughed. “Yeah, it was a tough sell convincing her I needed to go there. She finally agreed, but only after I vowed never to attend an Alabama football game. I also had to promise to walk the other way if I ever crossed paths with Nick Saban.”

Remy thought that was hilarious, but Triana wasn’t joking. Her mother had never taken kindly to Coach Saban leaving LSU, and then coming back into the college ranks and coaching for rival Alabama was an unforgivable crime.

“So you’re in town visiting your mom?” he asked as they passed by a trio of musicians playing jazz on the sidewalk. There was a crowd gathered around listening, and Remy leaned over to toss a five-dollar bill in the hat sitting on the curb, giving a wave to the performers in passing.

“Yeah,” Triana said. “I try to come back and spend time with Mom as often as I can. I don’t like her being by herself so much in that big apartment above the shop now that Dad is gone.”

Remy was silent for a while. “I was sorry to hear about your father. Sorry I didn’t make it to the funeral, too. I only heard about it through the grapevine months after the fact.”

Triana nodded, having to take a breath before answering. It had been over two years since her father had been murdered, but sometimes it still felt like yesterday.

“You don’t need to apologize. Mom was amazing, pulling everything together as fast as she did, but there were a lot of people she couldn’t reach. I wish I could have been more help to her, but I was a complete mess.”

Remy stopped and tugged her close, wrapping his arms around her right there in the middle of a throng of passing people. “Hey, you had every right to be a complete mess. You’d just lost your dad. I know how close you two always were.”

Triana rested her cheek against Remy’s muscular chest and closed her eyes. The warmth from his body seeped into her, comforting her down to her very soul. She had gotten most of the tears out a while ago, but his touch had a few more leaking out. Remy was right. She’d had a special relationship with her dad. He was so big and gruff that he’d frightened a lot of people. And yeah, he’d been known on more than one occasion to wade into brawls at his club and break them up all by himself, whether the people involved were armed or not. But he’d always been a gentle giant to her. She missed him like crazy.

Triana could have stayed in Remy’s arms just like that for the rest of the night, and reluctantly pulled away with a small smile. If Remy noticed she had to wipe a few tears from her face, he didn’t call her on it.

They started walking again, and she squeezed his hand a little tighter now than she had before. They strolled along in comfortable silence for a bit before Remy got around to asking the question most people usually brought up at some point.

“Did they ever catch the person who did it?” he asked tentatively, as if he dreaded continuing to talk about the subject. “Or even come up with a motive?”

“No. To both questions,” she said with a shake of her head. “At first the police thought it was a robbery gone wrong, since they found him on the floor in the middle of his club, but there was still money in the register behind the bar and in his office. They didn’t even touch his wallet.”

“I talked to one of my friends at the JPSO shortly after I got the news,” Remy said softly. “They didn’t want to get into the details, but they implied the attack had been very…violent. Was there any thought that maybe it was personal?”

Her dad had been shot multiple times, so yeah, violent was one way to put it. “That’s the current theory, not that it has helped much. Dad came from a rough background before he met Mom. There were probably quite a few people who didn’t like him. The police found a lot of blood at the club that wasn’t Dad’s, too, but they were never able to figure out whose it was.”

Remy looked at her in surprise. “They’re not working on it anymore?”

She shook her head. “One of the detectives calls my mom every once in a while and tells her they’re still trying, but I don’t expect much now.”

Which was why Triana had been paying a private investigator to look into the case for the past five months on the off chance he could find something to jump-start the investigation. She was tempted to mention it to Remy but decided against it. In her experience, most cops didn’t think much of private detectives, and she really didn’t want to get into an argument with Remy.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” he said, “I always liked your father. He loved you and your mother, and he didn’t take crap from anyone.”

She laughed, putting thoughts of the PI away for now. “That he didn’t.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“She focuses on the business,” Triana said. “The shop is doing as well as ever, maybe even better than it’s done in years. I’m sometimes shocked at how much money people will spend on this voodoo stuff, but it seems to make her and her customers happy, so who am I to say anything about it?”

They were about to turn off Bourbon and onto Ursulines Avenue, which would ultimately lead them to her mom’s shop, when they came upon another scene that was unfortunately all too common in New Orleans and displayed the dark side of the city. Paramedics were pushing a skinny, young girl of about seventeen out of a club on a gurney toward an ambulance parked along a side street. There was an oxygen mask covering the girl’s face, so it was hard to see much in the way of features, but she looked drawn and gaunt, and her skin was unusually pale.

“What happened?” Remy softly asked someone in the crowd.

Triana didn’t need to hear the answer. She’d seen it often enough here and in Houston to have a pretty good idea.

“Drug overdose,” a woman told Remy. “Meth. The stuff going around lately is a lot stronger than some people are used to.”

Before she and Remy left, Triana heard three other bystanders talking about how dangerous the new crystal meth that had been flooding the streets lately was.

“The stuff used to be cooked up in bathtubs by mom-and-pop labs,” Remy said as they continued down the street. “But now the Mexican cartels have gotten involved with large-scale operations selling crap that’s ten times as pure. People don’t recognize the difference and end up overdosing. We’re seeing a lot of people winding up in the hospitals in Dallas from this stuff.”

“Houston too,” Triana agreed. “Between this new meth and the recent influx of heroin overdoses, it’s driving a complete shift in how our department is handling drug users. We’re finally doing more to get them into treatment, instead of just tossing them in jail. But sometimes it seems like it’s a losing battle, when there’s so much of the stuff flowing in.”

They walked in silence for a while, the mood somber after what they’d just seen on top of the earlier conversation about her father. This part of the street didn’t have as many lights as where they’d just been, and Triana subconsciously moved closer to Remy. If she’d been alone, she would have quickened her step, but she felt safe with him.

“What happened with your parents?” she asked, glancing at him. “They came to Dad’s funeral, but they weren’t together.”

“They split up when I was in college.” Remy shrugged. “I don’t know what the problem was. Neither of them would ever talk to me about it. Maybe it was empty-nest syndrome or something like that. They tried to get back together when I was working with the JPSO, but in the end they got divorced and moved to opposite sides of the country. Mom wanted to be closer to her family in New York State and Dad took a job in San Diego. It had gotten pretty nasty by that point, and I made the decision to stay the hell out of it. We still talk on the phone on holidays and birthdays, but I don’t see either of them too much these days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “So did you move to Dallas and join the SWAT team because you wanted a change of scenery?”

He shook his head. “While I was looking for a change of scenery about that time, that’s not when I moved to Dallas. I was a U.S. Marshal for three years after I left the JPSO.”

Triana did a double take. “Talk about burying the lead. U.S. Marshals do witness protection stuff, right?”

“That’s one of their primary missions, but I mostly hunted fugitives. Maybe it’s a Cajun thing, but I’ve always been good at tracking people down.”

“Okay, that sounds more than dangerous and exactly like something I could see you doing. Why’d you leave the Marshals?”

For a moment, something that looked like pain flashed across Remy’s handsome face, but it disappeared too quickly for her to be sure. When he looked at her, there was nothing but hunger in his hazel eyes. “It’s a long, complicated story best told while both of us are in a warm bed, preferably with our naked bodies twined around each other.”

Heat pooled between Triana’s thighs at the casual remark. While they’d gotten a little naughty dancing, this was the first time he’d given her any indication he hoped they’d end up in bed just as much as she did. The image made her whole body hum with anticipation.

That was what happened when you finally got another shot at a guy you should have made a move on over a decade earlier.

She gave him a sexy smile. “That might be arranged.”

It wasn’t until they were another two blocks down the street that Triana realized Remy had smoothly avoided answering her question about why he’d left the Marshals. She would have brought up the subject again, but she suspected he’d only sidestep it. Something told her he didn’t want to talk about why he’d made the career change.

So instead, they chatted about lighter topics such as the TV shows they watched, foods they liked, and places they’d visited since graduating from high school. Triana was having so much fun, she was disappointed when they finally reached her mother’s voodoo shop and the apartment over it. Even though it was after two in the morning, she didn’t want the evening to end yet.

“The shop hasn’t changed much, but do you want to come in and look around anyway?” she asked hopefully.

He grinned. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Triana unlocked the door, then closed and locked it behind them quietly, so she wouldn’t wake her mom. When she turned back around, Remy was already walking around the dimly lit shop, taking in the shelves upon shelves of knickknacks that had mesmerized her since childhood. The overhead lights were off, so the red, green, and purple neon tubes that edged the display windows were the only source of illumination, but it was more than enough to guide her steps as she moved to Remy’s side. She watched as he picked up the various dolls, candles, beads, tarot cards, potions, books, and other trinkets that filled the store. For such large hands, he handled everything with a surprisingly gentle touch.

“Everything is exactly the same as I remember it.” He turned to smile at her, a warm glint in his eyes. “Well, not everything. You’ve changed quite a bit.”

The heated way he looked at her made her tummy quiver. “Really? How so?”

Remy took her hand and tugged her closer. The tips of her nipples grazed his muscular chest, sending tingles spiraling through her. “I tend to remember you as a shy, somewhat awkward girl who was all knees and elbows back then.”

She laughed softly, a little embarrassed. Yeah, that was a pretty good description of her when she was in high school. She had been what her mom called a late bloomer, so everything had changed her freshman year in college, when her body had made up for lost time.

“And now?” she asked in a near whisper.

He bent his head until his face was so close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin. His left hand came up and found her hip, slowly gliding back and forth across the silky material and heating the skin underneath.

“And now, you definitely aren’t shy, you move like a cat, and all those knees and elbows have turned into some serious curves I’d love to explore, since I’m smart enough to know what I want.”

She blushed at hearing him put all that into words. “No one’s stopping you.”

The glint in his eyes flared brighter for a moment as the neon lights caught them. Then, one of Remy’s hands was in her hair and he was kissing her. A moan involuntarily escaped her lips as his mouth came down on hers and his tongue slipped inside. He tasted so delicious she couldn’t help it.

She slid her hands up the front of his shirt and grabbed his shoulders, squeezing hard as she pulled him even closer, urging him to kiss her harder.

Remy must have understood what she was trying to say because the hand in her hair tightened possessively and his tongue teased hers more aggressively. At the same time, his free hand moved around from her hip to her lower back, fitting her against him so firmly she could feel every ripple and bulge in that perfect body of his. And one of those bulges suggested he was enjoying the kiss just as much as she was.

Triana melted against him, surrendering to a kiss she’d been fantasizing of for over a decade. She’d heard women talking about going all weak-kneed from a great kiss, but she’d never experienced it or even believed it. She believed it now. If Remy hadn’t been holding on to her so tightly, she was sure she would have collapsed to her knees right there in front of him.

Isn’t that an interesting thought?

She whimpered as Remy’s hand slid down her back to cup a nice handful of cheek and squeezed. How had he known she loved having her bottom played with?

Jumping in bed with a guy after a few kisses wasn’t something she would ever consider, but Remy wasn’t just some random guy. He was the guy she’d crushed on all through high school, someone she considered more than a friend even if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

Besides, he was like no one she’d ever kissed before. Good heavens, he had her stomach doing flips and barrel rolls!

Triana was on the verge of asking Remy if he wanted to sneak upstairs to her old room when he pulled away so suddenly she almost fell over. She’d thought for a moment he must have read her mind, but then she realized he’d stepped back to put a disturbing amount of distance between them. At the same time, he reached down to rearrange the front of his jeans, which suddenly seemed too tight for him.

She opened her mouth to ask him what was up when a creaking sound on the stairs behind the cashier counter startled her.

“Triana, is that you down there making all that noise?”

Her eyes widened even as Remy gave her an apologetic smile. He’d pulled away because he’d heard Mom coming downstairs. Damn, he must have some seriously good ears. No shock there. The rest of him was frigging awesome, why not his ears?

She ran her hands over her little black dress as she heard her mom coming down the last few steps. It was a good thing, too. The dress, which was already short, had crept up and would have flashed a load of skin. From the knowing grin on his face, she imagined Remy might have had something to do with that.

Her mother wasn’t a prude by any means, and Triana wouldn’t have been embarrassed if she’d found her kissing a guy. But still, it was better to avoid the whole issue. Her mom was going to be shocked enough to see Remy as it was.

“Yes, Mom, it’s me,” Triana said. “And look who I ran into on Bourbon Street.”

Her mother reached the bottom of the stairs, grumbling about how Triana expected her to see anything with the lights off. When her mother flipped them on, Triana was shocked to see her standing there with a baseball bat over her shoulder like she’d been about to bean whomever she’d heard down here.

Tall and slender, her mother was a graceful woman in her sixties with a spring in her step and dark, curly hair she always wore tied back in a scarf.

Her mother’s eyes widened when she saw Remy, but then a warm smile spread across her face.

“Oh Lord! Remy, is that you?”

Her mother set down the baseball bat, leaning it against the wall, then hurried across the shop in a way that made Triana think she already knew the answer to that question.

“Yes, Mrs. Bellamy, it’s me,” Remy said with a laugh, stepping forward to give her mother a hug.

When her mother pulled away, she looked Remy up and down with a sharp eye. “Goodness, look how much you’ve grown. What the heck have you been eating, entire cows? And stop calling me Mrs. Bellamy. It’s Gemma.”

Remy chuckled. “I’ll try, but you’ve always been Mrs. Bellamy to me, so I’ll probably screw up a few times. I’m sorry we woke you up. Triana was showing me around the shop.”

Her mom threw a glance her way, a knowing look in her dark eyes. “Just showing you around the shop, huh? With the lights out?”

Remy didn’t even bat an eye. “We left them off so we wouldn’t wake you up. The glow of the neon in the display windows is more than enough to see by.”

The smile tugging at the corners of her mother’s lips suggested she knew Remy was full of crap. “Uh-huh.”

“Remy is a police officer in Dallas now,” Triana quickly said before her mother could ask what else they’d been doing down here in the dark, though it was obvious she already knew. “He and three of his fellow officers are in town for training, and I was lucky enough to run into him in a club. I just turned around and there he was.”

Her mother arched a brow, studying Remy thoughtfully. “You just walked into a random club on Bourbon Street and ran into Triana by pure chance? That’s…amazing.”

Remy’s mouth curved. “Right place at the right time, I guess.”

“Maybe,” her mother agreed. “Or perhaps the fates took a hand and made sure you two ran into each other tonight.”

Triana stifled a groan. She might have known it was simple, random luck that Remy had found her in the club, but her mom took this destiny-and-fate thing seriously. While Triana didn’t buy into any of that stuff, she also never mocked her mom for believing in it.

“Where are you boys staying while you’re in town?” her mom asked suddenly, catching Triana completely off guard.

“The DoubleTree over on Canal Street,” Remy said. “The department was able to get a really good deal on the rooms, which is the only reason we’re not stuck in a cheap motel out by the airport.”

The DoubleTree was a nice place and close to a lot of the big attractions near the river, but it was also on the far side of the French Quarter from the shop. Triana winced as she realized Remy was going to have a long walk back tonight, unless he called a cab. Her mother must have been thinking the same thing because she frowned.

“Why don’t you and your friends stay here while you’re in town?” her mother suggested. “I have plenty of space, and it will save your police department some money.”

Triana blinked. Okay, she hadn’t expected that. Inviting Remy to stay was one thing, but letting three guys she’d never even met was out of character for her mother, to say the least.

Remy seemed surprised too, but he recovered quickly. “I appreciate the offer, Mrs. Bellamy—Gemma—but my commander expects us to use the rooms he put all the work into getting for us. Besides, we’ll be stomping in and out at all hours of the day and night. We’d only wake you up all the time.”

Her mother sighed. “I understand. But if you change your mind, tell your friends they’re more than welcome.”

Remy thanked her again and assured her he would keep her offer in mind.

Triana knew Remy was simply being polite. He might be willing to stay there, especially after the kisses they’d just shared, but she was betting his friends preferred having their own hotel rooms in the event they needed a place to take any girls they picked up. Considering how her friends had flirted with them at the club, needing the privacy of a hotel room was an extremely good possibility.

Her mom chatted with her and Remy for a few more minutes before announcing she was going back to bed. “It’s good seeing you again, Remy. I hope you make time to stop in a few nights and have dinner with Triana and me while you’re here.”

“I will,” he promised, glancing at Triana. “In fact, I think I might be spending quite a lot of time here.”

Triana couldn’t help noticing the tingle of excitement that ran through her at the thought of spending time with Remy.

“Oh, and you don’t have to rush off, Remy,” her mother said before disappearing up the steps. “You can turn off the lights and look around the shop for a while longer if you like.”

Remy chuckled as they listened to the bedroom door close. “Your mother is amazing.”

“Yeah, she is, isn’t she?” Triana agreed with a smile. She reached out and slipped her fingers into the waistband of his jeans, tugging him closer. “So, would you like to look around the shop for a while longer…with the lights on this time?”

He grinned, wrapping his arms around her and lightly touched his lips to hers. Triana moaned and buried her fingers in his short, dark-blond hair, intending to yank him down for a serious kiss, but before she could, he pulled away.

“You have no idea how much I’d like to spend the whole night kissing you,” he said softly, his eyes blazing with hunger. “But the first day of cross-training starts in a few hours.”

It was the same thing she would have done in his position, so Triana was surprised at how disappointed she was that he had to leave.

She forced herself to be mature and nod. “I understand. I had fun tonight.”

“Me too,” he said with a smile. “How about I stop by tomorrow after training? We can go out to eat or dance or just hang out and talk, if you want.”

She liked the sound of that. “It’s a date.”