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She started walking toward the door of the house. She didn’t invite him to follow. He followed anyway. She turned around. “You may want to talk to Mr. Keene. He’s in the kitchen on the phone with the FBI.”
“FBI?” Nate stepped inside the house. “The child has been missing for all of thirty minutes, why would Keene call the feds?”
“That’s not my place to say.”
“Humor me. There’s a child missing.”
He saw reason overcome duty. “Fine. The family has been receiving threats for the last several months, directed at Spencer.”
He studied her in the gloom of the entryway. Alert, no-nonsense and levelheaded, this woman seemed once again something more than what her job title hinted. “You sure you’re just the nanny?”
A flicker of something appeared in those quicksilver eyes. “What do you expect? A bodyguard? The Keenes have one of those.”
Her words didn’t drip with sarcasm, but it was there. She seemed offended he didn’t trust her. “Sorry. You don’t talk like a nanny and with the threats, other precautions might have been taken.”
Another lift of her shoulder. Again, kind of sexy. “Look, I’m just a former real-estate agent. The housing market sucks, and I needed a job. Besides, the only threats have been letters and, maybe, a rock through the production office’s window. Nothing to necessitate locking down the kid. The FBI is looking into it as a courtesy to Mr. Keene since he consults with them on his films. My job is to keep the kid with me when he’s not with his parents…something even a former real-estate agent can manage.”
He couldn’t stop his lips from twitching. He liked her prickly and smart-assed. Suited her. And made those mysterious gray eyes crackle. “Okay, I get the picture. So why aren’t you as concerned as everyone else?”
“Who says I’m not?” she challenged, lifting her chin. Her skin was smooth and golden, her cheeks broad and high. Her hair frizzed around her face, making her hard edges a bit softer. She was altogether an intriguing woman. “Do I have to run about like a chicken missing its head in order to be worried?”
“No.” Yes. Every woman he knew reacted in that way. Were real-estate agents any different?
“So I don’t panic. Won’t help find Spencer. Oh, and by the way, I don’t know what was in the notes they received. Only what I heard from the staff. You’ll have to ask Mr. Keene.”
She’d anticipated his next question. Odd.
He stood a moment watching her as she pushed through the swinging kitchen door. Then he followed and found Carter Keene, careworn and sweat-soaked, holding the corded phone Nate’s mother insisted on keeping. He spoke intently to whoever was on the other end of the line. When he saw Nate, he cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. The cavernous kitchen felt oppressive with the man’s apprehension. Nate preferred Annie’s calm assurance or Tawny’s wailing melodrama over the desperation in Carter Keene’s eyes.
“Nate? Thanks for coming. You know about the threats against Spencer in California?”
Nate nodded. “Ms. Perez told me a little.”
The former star of Miami Metro, now turned director, looked at Annie. “Tell him what he needs to know. I’ll join you out back when I finish talking to Agent Burrell.”
Annie gave Carter a look, as if communicating something. Were they involved somehow? With Carter’s former reputation, it wouldn’t surprise him. Nannies had to be easy plucking, but this one didn’t seem the type to dally with the boss.
Yet after ten years in law enforcement, nothing truly surprised him.
The nanny motioned Nate through the back door and onto the bricked patio as if she were the hostess of Beau Soleil. As if she were the one in charge. He bristled. This was his damned house. Okay, not his, per se, but his family’s. Something about this woman both soothed and rankled.
“Look, I need to call for backup. Do you know if Keene has talked to Blaine Gentry about the situation?”
She shook her head and averted her gaze. “I don’t know who Blaine Gentry is.”
“The sheriff.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes searching the property behind the house. “What’s out there?”
She pointed to the horizon toward where the land sloped off toward the Bayou Tete. She also ignored his question.
“The bayou.” He combed his hand through his hair, wicking the sweat from his forehead. “So is the sheriff aware of this threat situation? He’s hasn’t mentioned it to our department. And is there anything you can tell me about Spencer that might help me? A special toy? Activity? Perhaps he did something naughty and doesn’t want to be discovered?”
Annie’s eyes glazed into thoughtfulness, and he could almost see the cogwheels in her mind turning. A furrow crinkled her forehead. She blinked once. Then twice. “You know, I think I know where he might have gone.”
“Where?”
“To see the alligators.”
“Alligators? We don’t…” His voice trailed off as she turned, breaking into a jog as her feet hit the thick grass of the lawn. He snapped his mouth closed. “Hey, where are you going?”
“He wanted to see a real alligator. I told him we’d find one later, but he’s not good at waiting,” she called back.
Nate jogged after her. “Surely he wouldn’t wander off with no one seeing him? To the bayou? By himself?”
“You don’t know children well, do you?”
He didn’t answer. No, he didn’t know children at all. Why would he? But he didn’t think a child could make it down the stairs, through the kitchen and across the wide lawn without making noise or at least one person seeing him. It didn’t seem plausible.
The distance to the bayou was a good piece. Thanks to numerous hurricanes, fallen oaks lay uprooted, their grotesque limbs stretching toward a cloudless sky, blocking their progress to the river. Finally they reached the edge of the property. “To your left.”
She veered, spying the worn path leading down the embankment toward the river. Her footing was steady, though the path was steep. All the while her eyes methodically searched the silted bank below.
“Spencer!” she shouted, quickening her steps.
Nate pounded behind her, slipping often on the eroded bank, before catching his footing. He skidded to the bottom and saw the boy, standing near the water, kicking at an old tire that had lodged in some reeds. Nate held up at the bottom of the path, but Annie made a beeline for the boy.
Spencer turned his head and grinned. “Look what I found, Annie. A tire. We can make a swing like Tony made in the book.”
Annie scooped him up and gave him a tight squeeze.
“Ow! Stop it, Annie.” Spencer squirmed, kicking his legs.
“I ought to paddle your behind, Spencer Keene,” Annie said, setting the boy on the bank away from the river. “You’ve nearly given your mother a heart attack.”
He wrinkled his nose. “What’s a heart attack? And I don’t want to get a paddle. Why would I get a paddle?”
The nanny sighed and sent her pretty eyes heavenward, mouthing something. Was she counting? Then she dropped to her knees and cupped Spencer’s chin.
“Hey, who’s he?” the boy asked, trying to rip his face from Annie’s hand. He pointed a chubby finger toward Nate.
“That’s not important now. I want your eyes to meet mine. Now.” Her voice was firm. Very firm.
Spencer stopped struggling, his gaze moving to Annie’s, the first inkling of uh-oh in his eyes.
“Don’t you ever, ever, go somewhere by yourself without asking first. Ever.” Annie’s voice shook and at that moment, Nate knew that however the woman had first appeared to him, she’d been frightened for her charge. Or maybe she was overcome with anger.
What he could see of Spencer’s chin started to wobble. “I wanted to see the alligators. You said I could.”
“That’s no excuse. You did not have permission to come here by yourself. Do you know how dangerous this is? We’ve talked about this. About how you aren’t allowed to go anywhere alone.”
A fat tear plopped onto Annie’s wrist. “Don’t be mad at me, Annie. I just wanted to see the alligators—”
Annie shook her head. “No. I am mad at you because you could have been hurt. Badly. Don’t ever do that again.”
Nate started to intervene. They needed to alert everyone at the house, Spencer had been located and was safe, but as he watched Annie tug Spencer into her arms, saw the small boy cry on her shoulder, something stayed him. Annie wrapped her arms about the boy and rocked him slightly, before lifting and carrying the child toward him.
“Here,” she said, shoving the boy into his arms. “Carry him up the hill. He’s too heavy for me.”
Nate flinched as the child wriggled. So much for tenderness. Spencer cocked his head back and stared at him with big brown tear-filled eyes. “Who are you?”
Annie started scrabbling up the hill, not bothering to look back at where Nate stood holding the child. “Obviously, I’m her minion.”
“Oh,” the child said, pursing his lips into an O. “What’s a minion?”
Nate sighed and walked toward the little-used path that would take him back to Beau Soleil. “Someone who has to follow the directives of a master.”
“What’s diwectives?”
Nate smiled. “What she tells me to do.”
“Oh. Then I’m a minion, too,” Spencer declared. “I want down. I can climb good.”
Nate set the child down because his calves screamed and his back didn’t feel much better.
Spencer dropped to his hands and knees and made like a monkey scrambling up an incline. The child’s bottom wagged in the air, and he started making monkey sounds. Nate almost smiled because he’d forgotten the silliness of children, but he remembered the seriousness of the situation and recalled Annie’s face as she passed him, handing off the boy. She’d been too emotional to deal with the child.
A twinge of something unknown plinked in his chest. Odd, and not comforting, was the knowledge he’d become fascinated by the plucky nanny in such a short time, almost from the moment he’d first spotted her behind the wheel of the rented Chevrolet. Some primal urge inside him wanted to crack her veneer and dig beneath her mask of supreme capability to the sweet vulnerability he’d just glimpsed.
Hell. Not what he needed. A prickling awareness for someone obviously not interested in him. For someone staying a few weeks at the most. For someone hiding something. His instincts told him so, and if there was one thing Nate could claim about himself, it was having good instincts. Something was off about the nanny.
By the time he emerged from the path, Annie had Spencer by the hand and people were bearing down on them, including the director and his wife.
Catastrophe averted.
But something told Nate things were just starting to heat up. Or maybe that was his blood. He never thought of himself as a Mary Poppins man, but that nanny was doing weird things to him. And he didn’t like it.
* * *
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, after a supper of Creole fried chicken and a summer salad, Annie sat in the wood-paneled den of Beau Soleil, watching as Tawny balanced a teacup on her knee and stroked Spencer’s head. He sat on the floor putting puzzles together while his mother read a fashion magazine and occasionally chatted with Picou about psychics, mediums and the truthfulness in séances. For once, Spencer seemed content with the task, biting his lip as he tried to force pieces where they couldn’t possibly fit.
Annie knew how that felt. She’d been living a giant jigsaw puzzle for the past year. Not fitting no matter how much she tried to shove the pieces in.
Like this job.
First, she was less than good in her nanny undercover role. She’d probably screw the kid up before she finished the assignment. And second, she had no leads on the perpetrator. Zip. Zero. Nada.
This afternoon had scared her. Putting her in as the nanny hadn’t been fair to Spencer. Prime example—alligators. Why hadn’t she explained to him how dangerous alligators were? Or the truth about animals with sharp teeth? Why hadn’t she gone over rules with him about where he could go at the old mansion, and who he could go with? She should have briefed him on what to expect at Beau Soleil.
But she hadn’t. She’d been too tired. Wanted a shower. And had been more than happy to hand the child over to his mother.
She’d have never done something so sloppy when she’d been with the Bureau. Of course, she’d never been in charge of a kid. Never had to go undercover. But it had proven to her yet again she wasn’t cut out for raising children. She didn’t have the knack. Her failed almost-marriage to a man with a daughter had proven as much. She and Mallory had been oil and water.
Spencer looked up at her and smiled. Her heart unwillingly swelled in her chest.
Damn.
Okay, so she could see the attraction of kids. They were a pain in the butt, but when they smiled like that, or lay their little heads so trustingly on your shoulder, well, all bets were off on the old ticker. Spencer’s smile did funny things to her.
She smiled back.
He went back to work on the puzzle, and his mother turned toward her. “I hope you’re planning on doing a better job of keeping up with my son, Amy. We fired the last nanny, you know.”
Annie shoved her magazine onto the table crowded with knickknacks as irritation gnawed at her. She needed to grab hold of some coolness. The last nanny had been fired for sexting with her boyfriend while hiding out in the pool cabana during Spencer’s fifth-birthday party over a month ago. It had been an awkward discovery especially since her boyfriend sat right next to her, naked and at attention. Annie really didn’t see sexting in her future.
Spencer looked up. “Mom, her name is Annie.”
Tawny wrinkled her nose. “Funny birdie, you remember everything.”
“Taw—Mrs. Keene, my aim is to take care of Spencer every moment he’s in my care.” She wanted to point out he’d not been in her care when he disappeared. He’d been in his mother’s. Instead she silently counted to ten.
“He was with you when he went missing, Tawny,” Picou interrupted, licking her thumb and turning the page of her Southern Living magazine.
Tawny frowned. “Well, she was on duty. Her day ends when Spencer’s does.”
“But you told her to leave him with you,” Picou persisted, her eyes on the magazine, but her intent clear. “That sends mixed messages. Either he’s with you or he’s with her.”
Tawny didn’t say anything more. Her silence was almost petulant. She picked up the magazine and her lips started moving as she read silently.
“Are you ready for bed, Spencer?” Annie asked, hoping to shift the tension in the room. It was tough being on the Keenes’ payroll even though technically she wasn’t. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold her tongue over Tawny’s unreasonable expectations.
“No,” Spencer said, shaking his head emphatically.
Tawny dropped her hand onto his head and rubbed his silky brown hair. Her message was unmistakable. Spencer wasn’t going to bed until the actress was ready. For some reason Tawny was hostile to Annie. She’d yet to figure out why the normally bouncy actress went all snake eyes on her.
Annie shifted in the comfortable armchair and glanced about the room. A floral rug anchored the space beneath a bank of windows that allowed a study of the bricked patio with its still-blooming containers of verbena and begonias. Comfortable, slipcovered furniture scattered the room, with built-in bookcases taking up a whole wall. The room was feminine without being nauseating, and Annie liked it better than any other room she’d seen in the colossal house.
A huge portrait of the Dufrene boys dominated the space over the fireplace, tripping her thoughts back to the man who’d rattled her today. Nate Dufrene had suspected she was not really a nanny. Almost blew her cover. Thank goodness Ace had the IT guy build her a real-estate site in Nevada. Hopefully, if someone went looking, they’d see Annie Perez as a failed chica real-estate agent desperate to make rent. Outside of the fake career, that’s pretty much what she was anyway. Well, half chica.
But then again, most “someones” weren’t detectives with prying chocolate eyes and a nose for truth. If Nate poked around too much, he’d discover she’d never sold a house in her life.
She studied the portrait. Nate’s dark hair had been clipped short and his expression was a mixture of boredom and tolerance. He’d not been happy about sitting still in button-up clothes next to his younger brothers. It was fairly obvious.
“Those are my sons,” Picou said, catching Annie staring at the portrait. “Nate is the tall one. The others are Abram and Darby.”
Annie smiled politely. “All nice-looking boys.”
“Aren’t they? Yet I can’t seem to collect any daughters-in-law, which is a shame. I’d love to have a grandson like Spencer someday.”
“Like me?” Spencer asked, scrambling to his feet, abandoning the puzzle pieces. He preened and gave the older woman the same dimpled smile his father had been delivering since his Tiger Beat magazine days. Killer.
Picou’s eyes widened. Yep. Got her.
The older woman wore a patterned blue caftan, replete with a girlish bow pinned on the side of her platinum hair. It looked utterly ridiculous, but yet, somehow fitting for the matriarch of the Dufrene clan. “Just like you…or a girl might be nice.”
“A girl? Girls are dumb. They like purses and stuff.” Spencer delivered a disgusted look.
Annie glanced back at the young Nate and recalled how the older Nate made her feel. Not just apprehensive, but interested. He’d grown into a long, tall, sexy drink of water, his youthful cheeks melting into a lean jaw and whiskered chin. Bright eyes fading to weary. Hair curling just behind his ears. Broad shoulders tapering to square, masculine hands. Yes, the man was on her radar, damn it.
Why couldn’t her rational mind control her irrational desires?
It was not like her to feel so attracted to a cop. Or, rather, someone so similar to her. She’d always liked the shy guys, the ones who seemed bumblingly inept, with sweet smiles and simple outlooks on life. Seth had fit the bill.
Nate Dufrene did not. He felt dangerous. Not biddable. Not sweet and complacent—more like intense, deep water with a strong current.
Annie had a job to do and the farther she stayed away from Nate Dufrene, the better. She didn’t need him hanging around, chipping away her façade, tempting her with his haunted eyes. Something about him compelled her to draw near when she needed to pull back—especially since she still had to split an astronomical mortgage on a condo with the last mistake she’d made. And that note was due at the end of the month.
She caught Picou regarding her with a thoughtful expression. Annie pulled her gaze away from both the portrait and Picou. The glint in the woman’s eye made her squirm. Not going to happen, lady. Annie wasn’t barking up that particular tree.
“Time for bed, Spencer.” This from Tawny.
Finally.
Annie rose from the chair and held out her hand. Spencer took it, rubbing his eyes with the other hand while yawning. Once again something warm stole across her heart. He reached up for her to pick him up, so she did, enjoying his arms curling around her neck. He looked back at his mom and Picou. “Mom, Annie’s not in trouble, is she? She told me I could see the gators, but I didn’t wanna wait.”
Annie froze, her back to Tawny and Picou.
“Of course not, birdie. And I’ll take you to see the gators, okay?”
“’Kay,” Spencer murmured, stifling a yawn.
“Good night, birdie. Love you,” Tawny called as Annie walked to the door. “And goodnight to you, too, Amy.”
Annie bit off a retort.
Tawny had gotten that one in on purpose.
CHAPTER FOUR
NATE LEANED BACK AGAINST the supple leather of his desk chair, his heavy sigh interrupting the silence of his office. He’d been through the files for the third time that week, looking for anything that might grab him, might stand out enough to follow, but there was nothing. Dead end in every direction.
He grabbed the files and bagged evidence and carefully placed them back into the cardboard box, setting it on the short filing cabinet. His office needed organizing. In fact, his whole house could use a good cleaning. His housekeeper, Gloria, cleaned the toilets and changed the sheets once a week, but she couldn’t make heads or tails of the cold-case boxes lining the wood floor of the living room.
Damn it. Radrica Moore’s killer would go unpunished.
He shoved the lid onto the box. Then he hesitated. He didn’t want to give up. Wouldn’t be fair to Radrica. To her mother, who still mourned the death of the thirteen-year-old honor student. He pulled off the lid and propped it against the box, staring into the contents.
There was very little physical evidence in the case. The body of the African American girl had been found in stagnant water of the flooded timberland just off the Mississippi River, badly decomposed. The cause of death had been inconclusive, though the coroner found evidence of possible defensive wounds. The Rapides sheriff’s department classified it as a homicide, but had nothing else to go on.
Nate padded into his kitchen, opened the fridge and surveyed the contents: six pack of Abita, leftover barbecue from the Wing Shack and a package of luncheon meat he didn’t remember buying. He grabbed an Abita and shut the door.
As he cracked open the beer, he shifted his thoughts from the cold case lying dead in his office to the incident at Beau Soleil that afternoon. Even though the boy had been found safe and sound, something bothered him about the whole deal.
Annie Perez.
Maybe that’s who had him at attention.
And not in a way he welcomed.
When he’d reached the reunion between the “missing” Spencer and his over-the-top mother, he noticed how easily Annie faded into the background—purposely, it seemed.
She’d skirted the gathering, melding herself into a quiet statue on the perimeter, but her eyes had been searching the group of people gathered as if weighing some unseen force.
But maybe that’s who she was. Cautious, still and serious. Nothing wrong with being quiet, even if intensity flowed out of every pore of the woman.
Desire snaked into his belly.
Exactly what he didn’t need. He lifted the bottle and took a swig, swiping a hand across his mouth. It had been a while since he’d dated. Maybe too long. He’d been busy this past summer with more requests for help on cold cases than he could handle. The state budget had police and sheriff departments cut to the bone, and word had gotten out about his talent with homicide cases that had no pulse. His consulting jobs were freebies, and sometimes when things were slow, Blaine gave him leeway. Not that it really mattered. He didn’t work them for the money anyway. He worked them for the satisfaction of getting what he’d never have—completion.
He walked back to his office and stared at the database open on the computer screen. The Annie Perez he’d met earlier today hadn’t been a real-estate agent in California. Didn’t mean she hadn’t been one someplace else, which was why he reserved judgment on the woman and stopped poking around looking for info on her. He had no real reason to check her out—she’d done nothing wrong. Still, something told him it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to know her a little better.
The only thing he couldn’t figure out was whether his interest was strictly professional. He really didn’t want to think about it being anything more. He was good at hunches; bad at lying to himself.
* * *
WHEN ANNIE WOKE UP the following morning, she felt as if she’d been run over and left for dead. Spencer had ended up in her bed at some point. She’d forgotten when. Some vague notion of 2:24 a.m., muttering “climb in” and then spending the rest of the night being kicked by a mule.
She rolled over and looked at the mule sleeping peacefully on his back, mouth slack, brown hair sticking up like Billy Idol and jammies riding up over a plump little tummy.