Falling for Rachel

The Stanislaskis

Book Three

Nora Roberts

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Stanislaskis: an unforgettable family saga by #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

Landlocked in Manhattan, rugged seaman Zack Muldoon needed a tough, no-nonsense lawyer to save his kid brother’s delinquent hide. Public defender Rachel Stanislaski was not what he had in mind—until he discovered there was a lot more to the beautiful, coolheaded attorney than met the eye…and found himself falling for her, hook, line and sinker.

Mary Kay, here’s one just for you

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

PROLOGUE

Nick couldn’t figure out how he’d been so damn stupid. Maybe it was more important to be part of the gang than he liked to admit. Maybe he was mad at the world in general and figured it was only right to get his licks in when he had the chance. And certainly he’d have lost face if he’d backed out when Reece and T.J. and Cash were so fired up.

But he’d never actually broken the law before.

Not quite true, he reminded himself as he pulled himself through the broken window and into the back of the electronics store. But they’d only been little laws. Setting up a three-card monte scam over on Madison for suckers and tourists, hawking hot watches or Gucci knockoffs up on Fifth, forging a couple of ID’s so that he could buy a beer. He’d worked in a chop shop for a while, but it wasn’t as if he’d stolen the cars. He’d just broken them down for parts. He’d gotten stung a few times for fighting with the Hombres, but that was a matter of honor and loyalty.

Breaking into a store and stealing calculators and portable stereos was a big leap. While it had seemed like a lark over a couple of beers, the reality of it was setting those brews to churning in his stomach.

The way Nick saw it, he was trapped, as he’d always been. There was no easy way out.

“Hey, man, this is better than swiping candy bars, right?” Reece’s eyes, dark and surly, scanned the storeroom shelves. He was a short man with a rough complexion who’d spent several of his twenty years in Juvenile Hall. “We’re gonna be rich.”

T.J. giggled. It was his way of agreeing with anything Reece said. Cash, who habitually kept his own counsel, was already shoving boxes of video games in the black duffel he carried.

“Come on, Nick.” Reece tossed him an army-surplus bag. “Load it up.”

Sweat began to roll down Nick’s back as he shoved radios and minirecorders into the sack. What the hell was he doing here? he asked himself. Ripping off some poor slob who was just trying to make a living? It wasn’t like fleecing tourists or selling someone else’s heat. This was stealing, for God’s sake.

“Listen, Reece, I—” He broke off when Reece turned and shined the flashlight in Nick’s eyes.

“Got a problem, bro?”

Trapped, Nick thought again. Copping out now wouldn’t stop the others from taking what they’d come for. And it would only bring him humiliation.

“No. No, man, no problem.” Anxious to get it all over with, he shoved more boxes in without bothering to look at them. “Let’s not get too greedy, okay? I mean, we got to get the stuff out, then we got to fence it. We don’t want to take more than we can handle.”

His lips pulled back in a sneer, Reece slapped Nick on the back. “That’s why I keep you around. Your practical mind. Don’t worry about turning the stuff. I told you, I got a connection.”

“Right.” Nick licked his dry lips and reminded himself he was a Cobra. It was all he’d ever been, all he ever would be.

“Cash, T.J., take that first load out to the car.” Reece flipped the keys. “Make sure you lock it. Wouldn’t want any bad guys stealing anything, would we?”

T.J.’s giggles echoed off the ceiling as he wiggled out the window. “No, sir.” He pushed his wraparound sunglasses back on his nose. “Thieves everywhere these days. Right, Cash?”

Cash merely grunted and wrestled his way out the window.

“That T.J.’s a real idiot.” Reece hefted a boxed VCR. “Give me a hand with this, Nick.”

“I thought you said we were just going for the small stuff.”

“Changed my mind.” Reece pushed the box into Nick’s arms. “My old lady’s been whining for one of these.” Reece tossed back his hair before climbing through the window. “You know your problem, Nick? Too much conscience. What’s it ever gotten you? Now, the Cobras, we’re family. Only time you got to have a conscience is with your family.” He held out his arms. When Nick put the VCR into them, Reece slipped off into the dark.

Family, Nick thought. Reece was right. The Cobras were his family. You could count on them. He’d had to count on them. Pushing all his doubts aside, Nick shouldered his bag. He had to think of himself, didn’t he? His share of tonight’s work would keep a roof over his head for another month or two. He could have paid for his room the straight way if he hadn’t gotten laid off from the delivery-truck job.

Lousy economy, he decided. If he had to steal to make ends meet, he could blame the government. The idea made him snicker as he swung one leg out of the window. Reece was right, he thought. You had to look out for number one.

“Need a hand with that?”

The unfamiliar voice had Nick freezing halfway out the window. In the shadowy light he saw the glint of a gun, the flash of a badge. He gave one fleeting, panicky thought to shoving the bag at the silhouette and making a run for it. Shaking his head, the cop stepped closer. He was young, dark, with a weary kind of resignation in the eyes that warned Nick that he’d been this route before.

“Do yourself a favor,” the cop suggested. “Just chalk it up to bad luck.”

Resigned, Nick slipped out of the window, set the bag down, faced the wall and assumed the position. “Is there any other kind?” he muttered, and let his mind wander as he was read his rights.

CHAPTER ONE

With a briefcase in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other, Rachel raced up the courthouse steps. She hated to be late. Detested it. Knowing she’d drawn Judge Hatchet-Face Snyder for the morning hearing only made her more determined to be inside and at the defense table by 8:59. She had three minutes to spare, and would have had twice that if she hadn’t stopped by the office first.

How could she have known that her boss would be lying in wait with another case file?

Two years of working as a public defender, she reminded herself as she hit the doors at a run. That was how she should have known.

She scanned the elevators, gauged the waiting crowd and opted for the stairs. Cursing her heels, she took them two at a time and swallowed the rest of the bagel. There was no use fantasizing about the coffee she craved to wash it down with.

She screeched to a halt at the courtroom doors and took a precious ten seconds to straighten her blue serge jacket and smooth down her tousled, chin-length black hair. A quick check showed her that her earrings were still in place. She looked at her watch and let out a deep breath.

Right on time, Stanislaski, she told herself as she moved sedately through the doors and into the courtroom. Her client, a twenty-three-year-old hooker with a heart of flint, was being escorted in as Rachel took her place. The solicitation charges would probably have earned her no more than a light fine and time served, but stealing the john’s wallet had upped the ante.

As Rachel had explained to her bitter client, not all customers were too embarrassed to squawk when they lost two hundred in cash and a gold card.

“All rise!”

Hatchet-Face strode in, black robes flapping around all six-foot three and two hundred and eighty pounds of him. He had skin the color of a good cappuccino and a face as round and unfriendly as the pumpkins Rachel remembered carving with her siblings every Halloween.

Judge Snyder tolerated no tardiness, no sass and no excuses in his courtroom. Rachel glanced over at the assistant district attorney who would be the opposing counsel. They exchanged looks of sympathy and got to work.

Rachel got the hooker off with ninety days. Her client was hardly brimming with gratitude as the bailiff led her away. She had better luck with an assault case…. After all, Your Honor, my client paid for a hot meal in good faith. When the pizza arrived cold, he pointed out the problem by offering some to the delivery boy. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm had him offering it a bit too heartily, and during the ensuing scuffle said pizza was inadvertently dumped on the delivery boy’s head….

“Very amusing, Counselor. Fifty dollars, time served.”

Rachel wrangled her way through the morning session. A pickpocket, a drunk-and-disorderly, two more assaults and a petty larceny. They rounded things off at noon with a shoplifter, a two-time loser. It took all of Rachel’s skill and determination to convince the judge to agree to a psychiatric evaluation and counseling.

“Not too shabby.” The ADA was only a couple of years older than Rachel’s twenty-six, but he considered himself an old hand. “I figure we broke even.”

She smiled and shut her briefcase. “No way, Spelding. I edged you out with the shoplifter.”

“Maybe.” Spelding, who had been trying to wheedle his way into a date for weeks, walked out beside her. “Could be his psych will come back clean.”

“Sure. The guy’s seventy-two years old and steals disposable razors and greeting cards with flowers on them. Obviously he’s perfectly rational.”

“You PDs are such bleeding hearts.” But he said it lightly, because he greatly admired Rachel’s courtroom style. As well as her legs. “Tell you what, I’ll buy you lunch, and you can try to convince me why society should turn the other cheek.”

“Sorry.” She shot him a quick smile and opted for the stairs again. “I’ve got a client waiting for me.”

“In jail?”

She shrugged. “That’s where I find them. Better luck next time, Spelding.”

The precinct house was noisy and smelled strongly of stale coffee. Rachel entered with a little shiver. The weatherman had been a little off that day with his promise of Indian summer. A thick, nasty-looking cloud cover was moving in over Manhattan. Rachel was already regretting the fact that she’d grabbed neither coat nor umbrella on her dash out of her apartment that morning.

With any luck, she figured, she’d be back in her office within the hour, and out of the coming rain. She exchanged a few greetings with some of the cops she knew and picked up her visitor’s badge at the desk.

“Nicholas LeBeck,” she told the desk sergeant. “Attempted burglary.”

“Yeah, yeah…” The sergeant flipped through his papers. “Your brother brought him in.”

Rachel sighed. Having a brother who was a cop didn’t always make life easier. “So I hear. Did he make his phone call?”

“Nope.”

“Anyone come looking for him?”

“Nope.”

“Great.” Rachel shifted her briefcase. “I’d like him brought up.”

“You got it. Looks like they’ve given you another loser, Ray. Take conference room A.”

“Thanks.” She turned, dodging a swarthy-looking man in handcuffs and the uniformed cop behind him. She managed to snag a cup of coffee, and took it with her into a small room that boasted one barred window, a single long table and four scarred chairs. Taking a seat, she flipped open her briefcase and dug out the paperwork on Nicholas LeBeck.

It seemed her client was nineteen and unemployed and rented a room on the Lower East Side. She let out a little sigh at his list of priors. Nothing cataclysmic, she mused, but certainly enough to show a bent for trouble. The attempted burglary had taken him up a step, and it left her little hope of having him treated as a minor. There had been several thousand dollars’ worth of electronic goodies in his sack when Detective Alexi Stanislaski collared him.

She’d be hearing from Alex, no doubt, Rachel thought. There was nothing her brother liked better than to rub her nose in it.

When the door of the conference room opened, she continued to sip her coffee as she took stock of the man being led in by a bored-looking policeman.

Five-ten, she estimated. A hundred and forty. Needed some weight. Dark blond hair, shaggy and nearly shoulder-length. His lips were quirked in what looked like a permanent smirk. It might have been an attractive mouth otherwise. A tiny peridot stud that nearly matched his eyes gleamed in his earlobe. The eyes, too, would have been attractive if not for the bitter anger she read there.

“Thank you, Officer.” At her slight nod, the cop uncuffed her client and left them alone. “Mr. LeBeck, I’m Rachel Stanislaski, your lawyer.”

“Yeah?” He dropped into a chair, then tipped it back. “Last PD I had was short and skinny and had a bald spot. Looks like I got lucky this time.”

“On the contrary. You were apprehended crawling out of a broken window of a storeroom of a locked store, with an estimated six thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise in your possession.”

“The markup on that crap is incredible.” It wasn’t easy to keep the sneer in place after a miserable night in jail, but Nick had his pride. “Hey, you got a cigarette on you?”

“No. Mr. LeBeck, I’d like to get your hearing set as soon as possible so that we can arrange for bail. Unless, of course, you prefer to spend your nights in jail.”

He shrugged his thin shoulders and tried to look unconcerned. “I’d just as soon not, sweetcakes. I’ll leave that to you.”

“Fine. And it’s Stanislaski,” she said mildly. “Ms. Stanislaski. I’m afraid I was only given your file this morning on my way to court, and had time for no more than a brief conversation with the DA assigned to your case. Because of your previous record, and the type of crime involved here, the state had decided to try you as an adult. The arrest was clean, so you won’t get a break there.”

“Hey, I don’t expect breaks.”

“People rarely get them.” She folded her hands over his file. “Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. LeBeck. You were caught, and unless you want to weave some fairy tale about seeing the broken window and going in to make a citizen’s arrest…”

He had to grin. “Not bad.”

“It stinks. You’re guilty, and since the arresting officer didn’t make any mistakes, and you have an unfortunate list of priors, you’re going to pay. How much you pay is going to depend on you.”

He continued to rock in his chair, but a fresh line of sweat was sneaking down his spine. A cell. This time they were going to lock him in a cell—not just for a few hours, but for months, maybe years.

“I hear the jails are overcrowded—costs the tax-payers a lot of money. I figure the DA would spring for a deal.”

“It was mentioned.” Not just bitterness, Rachel realized. Not just anger. She saw fear in his eyes now, as well. He was young and afraid, and she didn’t know how much she would be able to help him. “About fifteen thousand in merchandise was taken out of the store, over and above what was in your possession. You weren’t alone in that store, LeBeck. You know it, I know it, the cops know it. And so does the DA. You give them some names, a lead on where that merchandise might be sitting right now, and I can cut you a deal.”

His chair banged against the floor. “The hell with that. I never said anybody was with me. Nobody can prove it, just like nobody can prove I took more than what I had in my hands when the cop took me.”

Rachel leaned forward. It was a subtle move, but one that had Nick’s eyes locking on hers. “I’m your lawyer, LeBeck, and the one thing you’re not going to do is lie to me. You do, and I’ll leave you twisting in the wind, just like your buddies did last night.” Her voice was flat, passionless, but he heard the anger simmering beneath. He had to fight to keep from squirming in his chair. “You don’t want to cut a deal,” she continued, “that’s your choice. So you’ll serve three to five instead of the six months in and two years probation I can get you. Either way, I’ll do my job. But don’t sit there and insult me by saying you pulled this alone. You’re penny-ante, LeBeck.” It pleased her to see the anger back in his face. The fear had begun to soften her. “Con games and sticky fingers. This is the big leagues. What you tell me stays with me unless you want it different. But you play it straight with me, or I walk.”

“You can’t walk. You were assigned.”

“And I can get reassigned. Then you’ll go through this with somebody else.” She began to pile papers back in her briefcase. “That would be your loss. Because I’m good. I’m real good.”

“If you’re so good, how come you’re working for the PD’s office?”

“Let’s just say I’m paying off a debt.” She snapped her briefcase closed. “So what’s it going to be?”

Indecision flickered over his face for just a moment, making him look young and vulnerable, before he shook his head. “I’m not going to turn in my friends. No deal.”

She let out a short, impatient breath. “You were wearing a Cobra jacket when you were collared.”

They’d taken that when they booked him—just as they’d taken his wallet, his belt, and the handful of change in his pocket. “So what?”

“They’re going to go looking for your friends, those same friends who are standing back and letting you take the heat all alone. The DA can push this to burglary and hang a twenty-thousand-dollar theft over your head.”

“No names,” he said again. “No deal.”

“Your loyalty’s admirable, and misplaced. I’ll do what I can to have the charges reduced and have bail set. I don’t think it’ll be less than fifty thousand. Can you scrape ten percent together?”

Not a chance in hell, he thought, but he shrugged. “I can call in some debts.”

“All right, then, I’ll get back to you.” She rose, then slipped a card out of her pocket. “If you need me before the hearing, or if you change your mind about the deal, give me a call.”

She rapped on the door, then swung through when it opened. An arm curled around her waist. She braced instinctively, then let out a little hiss of breath when she looked up and saw her brother grinning at her.

“Rachel, long time no see.”

“Yeah, it must be a day and a half.”

“Grumpy.” His grin widened as he pulled her out of the corridor and into the squad room. “Good sign.” His gaze skimmed over her shoulder and locked briefly on LeBeck. “So, they tied you up with that one. Tough break, sweetheart.”

She gave him a sisterly elbow in the ribs. “Stop gloating and get me a decent cup of coffee.” Resting a hip against the corner of his desk, she rapped her fingertips against her briefcase. Nearby a short, round man was holding a bandanna to his temple and moaning slightly as he gave a statement to another cop. Someone was talking in loud and rapid Spanish. A woman with a bruise on her cheek was weeping and rocking a fat toddler.

The squad room smelled of all of it—the despair, the anger, the boredom. Rachel had always thought that if your senses were very keen you could just barely scent the justice beneath it all. It was very much the same in her offices, a few blocks away.

For a moment, Rachel pictured her sister, Natasha, having breakfast with her family in her pretty kitchen in the big, lovely house in West Virginia. Or opening her colorful toy shop for the day. The image made her smile a bit, just as it did to imagine her brother Mikhail carving something passionate or fanciful out of wood in his sun-washed new studio, perhaps having a hasty cup of coffee with his gorgeous wife before she hurried off to her midtown office.

And here she was, waiting for a cup of what would certainly be very bad coffee in a downtown precinct house filled with the sight and smells and sounds of misery.

Alex handed her the coffee, then eased down on the desk beside her.

“Thanks.” She sipped, winced, and watched a couple of hookers strut out of the holding cells. A tall, bleary-eyed man with a night’s worth of stubble shifted around them and followed a uniform through the door that led down to the cells. Rachel gave a little sigh.

“What’s wrong with us, Alexi?”

He grinned again and slipped an arm around her. “What? Just because we like slogging through the dregs for a living, for little pay and less gratitude? Nothing. Not a thing.”

She chuckled and fueled her system with the motor oil disguised as coffee. “At least you just got a promotion. Detective Stanislaski.”

“Can’t help it if I’m good. You, on the other hand, are spinning your wheels putting criminals back on the streets I’m risking life and limb to keep clean.”

She snorted, scowling at him over the brim of the paper cup. “Most of the people I represent aren’t doing anything more than trying to survive.”

“Sure—by stealing, cheating, and assaulting.”

Her temper began to heat. “I went to court this morning to represent an old man who’d copped some disposable razors. A real desperate case, that one. I guess they should have locked him up and thrown away the key.”

“So it’s okay to steal as long as what you take isn’t particularly valuable?”

“He needed help, not a jail sentence.”

“Like that creep you got off last month who terrorized two old shop keepers, wrecked their store and stole the pitiful six hundred in the till?”

She’d hated that one, truly hated it. But the law was clear, and had been made for a reason. “Look, you guys blew that one. The arresting officer didn’t read him his rights in his native language or arrange for a translator. My client barely understood a dozen words of English.” She shook her head before Alex could jump into one of his more passionate arguments. “I don’t have time to debate the law with you. I need to ask you about Nicholas LeBeck.”

“What about him? You got the report.”

“You were the arresting officer.”

“Yeah—so? I was on my way home, and I happened to see the broken window and the light inside. When I went to investigate, I saw the perpetrator coming through the window carrying a sackful of electronics. I read him his rights and brought him in.”

“What about the others?”

Alex shrugged and finished off the last couple of swallows of Rachel’s coffee. “Nobody around but LeBeck.”

“Come on, Alex, twice as much was taken from the store as what my client allegedly had in his bag.”

“I figure he had help, but I didn’t see anyone else. And your client exercised his right to remain silent. He has a healthy list of priors.”

“Kid stuff.”

Alex sneered. “You could say he didn’t spend his childhood in the Boy Scouts.”

“He’s a Cobra.”

“He had the jacket,” Alex agreed. “And the attitude.”

“He’s a scared kid.”

With a sound of disgust, Alex chucked the empty cup into a wastebasket. “He’s no kid, Rach.”

“I don’t care how old he is, Alex. Right now he’s a scared kid sitting in a cell and trying to pretend he’s tough. It could have been you, or Mikhail—even Tash or me—if it hadn’t been for Mama and Papa.”

“Hell, Rachel.”

“It could have been,” she insisted. “Without the family, without all the hard work and sacrifices, any one of us could have gotten sucked into the streets. You know it.”

He did. Why did she think he’d become a cop? “The point is, we didn’t. It’s a basic matter of what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“Sometimes people make bad choices because there’s no one around to help them make good ones.”

They could have spent hours debating the many shades of justice, but he had to get to work. “You’re too softhearted, Rachel. Just make sure it doesn’t lead to being softheaded. The Cobras are one of the roughest gangs going. Don’t start thinking your client’s a candidate for Boys’ Town.”

Rachel straightened, pleased that her brother remained slouched against the desk. It meant they were eye to eye. “Was he carrying a weapon?”

Alex sighed. “No.”

“Did he resist arrest?”

“No. But that doesn’t change what he was doing, or what he is.”

“It might not change what he was doing—allegedly—but it might very well say something about what he is. Preliminary hearing’s at two.”

“I know.”

She smiled again and kissed him. “See you there.”

“Hey, Rachel.” She turned at the doorway and looked back. “Want to catch a movie tonight?”

“Sure.” She’d made it to the outside in two steps when her name was called again, more formally this time.

“Ms. Stanislaski!”

She paused, flipping her hair back with one hand as she looked over her shoulder. It was the tired-eyed, stubble-faced man she’d noticed before. Hard to miss, she reflected as he hurried toward her. He was over six feet by an inch or so, and his baggy sweatshirt was held up by a pair of broad shoulders. Faded jeans, frayed at the cuffs, white at the stress points, fit well over long legs and narrow hips.

It would have been hard not to miss the anger, too. It radiated from him, and it was reflected in steel-blue eyes set deep in a rough, hollow-cheeked face.

“Rachel Stanislaski?”

“Yes.”

He caught her hand and, in the process of shaking it, dragged her down a couple of steps. He might look lean and mean, Rachel thought, but he had the grip of a bear trap.

“I’m Zackary Muldoon,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Rachel only lifted a brow. He certainly looked fit to spit nails, and after that brief taste of his strength she wouldn’t have put the feat past him. But she wasn’t easily intimidated, particularly when she was standing in an area swarming with cops.

“Can I help you, Mr. Muldoon?”

“I’m counting on it.” He dragged a big hand through a tousled mop of hair as dark as her own. He swore and took her elbow to pull her down the rest of the steps. “What’s it going to take to get him out? And why the hell did he call you and not me? And why in God’s name did you let him sit in a cell all night? What kind of lawyer are you?”

Rachel shook her arm free—no easy task—and prepared to use her briefcase as a weapon if it became necessary. She’d heard about the black Irish and their tempers. But Ukrainians were no slouches, either.

“Mr. Muldoon, I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. And I happen to be very busy.” She’d managed two steps when he whirled her around. Rachel’s tawny eyes narrowed dangerously. “Look, Buster—”

“I don’t care how busy you are, I want some answers. If you don’t have time to help Nick, then we’ll get another lawyer. God knows why he chose some fancy broad in a designer suit in the first place.” His blue eyes shot fire, the Irish poet’s mouth hardening into a sneer.

She sputtered, angry color flagging both cheeks. She jabbed one stiffened, clear-tipped finger in his chest. “Broad? You just watch who you call broad, pal, or—”

“Or you’ll get your boyfriend to lock me in a cell?” Zack suggested. Yeah, that was definitely a fancy face, he thought in disgust. Butter-soft skin in pale gold, and eyes like good Irish whiskey. What he needed was a street fighter, and he’d gotten society. “I don’t know what kind of defense Nick expects from some woman who spends her time kissing cops and making dates when she’s supposed to be working.”

“It’s none of your business what I—” She took a deep breath. Nick. “Are you talking about Nicholas LeBeck?”

“Of course I’m talking about Nicholas LeBeck. Who the hell do you think I’m talking about?” His black brows drew together over his furious eyes. “And you’d better come up with some answers, lady, or you’re going to be off his case and out on your pretty butt.”

“Hey, Rachel!” An undercover cop dressed like a wino sidled up behind her. He eyed Zack. “Any problem here?”

“No.” Though her eyes were blazing, she offered him a half smile. “No, I’m fine, Matt. Thanks.” She edged over to one side and lowered her voice. “I don’t owe you any answers, Muldoon. And insulting me is a poor way to gain my cooperation.”

“You’re paid to cooperate,” he told her. “Just how much are you hosing the boy for?”

“Excuse me?”

“What’s your fee, sugar?”

Her teeth set. The way she saw it, sugar was only a marginal step up from broad. “I’m a public defender, Muldoon, assigned to LeBeck’s case. That means he doesn’t owe me a damn thing. Just like I don’t owe you.”

“A PD?” He all but backed her off the sidewalk and into the building. “What the devil does Nick need a PD for?”

“Because he’s broke and unemployed. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She set a hand on his chest and shoved. She’d have been better off trying to shove away the brick building at her back.

“He lost his job? But…” The words trailed off. This time Rachel read something other than anger in his eyes. Weariness, she thought. A trace of despair. Resignation. “He could have come to me.”

“And who the hell are you?”

Zack rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m his brother.”

Rachel pursed her lips, lifted a brow. She knew how the gangs worked, and though Zack looked rough-and-ready enough to fit in with the Cobras, he also looked too old to be a card-carrying member.

“Don’t the Cobras have an age limit?”

“What?” He let his hand drop and focused on her again with a fresh oath. “Do I look like I belong to a street gang?”

With her head tilted, Rachel ran her gaze from his battered high-tops to his shaggy dark head. He had the look of a street tough, certainly of a man who could bulldoze his way down alleys, pounding rivals with those big-fisted hands. The hard, hollowed face and hot eyes made her think he’d enjoy cracking skulls, particularly hers. “Actually, you could pass. And your manners certainly reflect the code. Rude, abrasive, and rough.”

He didn’t give a damn what she thought of his appearance, or his manners, but it was time they set the record straight. “I’m Nick’s brother—stepbrother, if you want to be technical. His mother married my father. Get it?”

Her eyes remained wary, but there was some interest there now. “He said he didn’t have any relatives.”

For an instant, she thought she saw hurt in those steel-blue depths. Then it was gone, hardened away. “He’s got me, whether he likes it or not. And I can afford a real lawyer, so why don’t you fill me in, and I’ll take it from there.”

This time she didn’t merely set her teeth, she practically snarled. “I happen to be a real lawyer, Muldoon. And if LeBeck wants other counsel, he can damn well ask for it himself.”

He struggled to find the patience that always seemed to elude him. “We’ll get into that later. For now, I want to know what the hell’s going on.”

“Fine.” She snapped the word out as she looked at her watch. “You can have fifteen minutes of my time, providing you take it while I eat. I have to be back in court in an hour.”

CHAPTER TWO

From the way she looked—elegant sex in a three-piece suit—Zack figured her for one of the trendy little restaurants that served complicated pasta dishes and white wine. Instead, she stalked down the street, her long legs eating up the sidewalk so that he didn’t have to shorten his pace to keep abreast.

She stopped at a vendor and ordered a hot dog—loaded—with a soft drink, then stepped aside to give Zack room to make his selection. The idea of eating anything that looked like a hot dog at what he considered the crack of dawn had his stomach shriveling. Zack settled for a soft drink—the kind loaded with sugar and caffeine—and a cigarette.

Rachel took the first bite, licked mustard off her thumb. Over the scent of onions and relish, Zack caught a trace of her perfume. It was like walking through the jungle, he thought with a frown. All those ripe, sweaty smells, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, you could come across some exotic, seductive vine tangled with vivid flowers.

“He’s charged with burglary,” Rachel said with her mouth full. “Not much chance of shaking it. He was apprehended climbing out of the window with several thousand dollars’ worth of stolen merchandise in his possession.”

“Stupid.” Zack downed half the soft drink in a swallow. “He doesn’t have to steal.”

“That’s neither here nor there. He was caught, he was charged, and he doesn’t deny the act. The DA’s willing to deal, offer probation and community service, if Nick cooperates.”

Zack chuffed out smoke. “Then he’ll cooperate.”

Rachel’s left brow lifted, then settled. She had no doubt Zackary Muldoon thought he could prod, push or punch anybody into anything. “I sincerely doubt it. He’s scared, but he’s stubborn. And he’s loyal to the Cobras.”

Zack said something foul about the Cobras. Rachel was forced to agree. “Well, that may be, but it doesn’t change the bottom line. His record is fairly lengthy, and it won’t be easy to get around it. It’s also mostly hustle and jive. The fact that this is his first step into the big leagues might help reduce his sentence. I think I can get him off with three years. If he behaves, he’ll only serve one.”

Zack’s fingers dug into the aluminum can, crushing it. Fear settled sickly in his stomach. “I don’t want him to go to prison.”

“Muldoon, I’m a lawyer, not a magician.”

“They got back the stuff he took, didn’t they?”

“That doesn’t negate the crime, but yes. Of course, there’s several thousand more outstanding.”

“I’ll make it good.” Somehow. Zack heaved the can toward a waste can. It tipped the edge, joggled, then fell inside. “Listen, I’ll make restitution on what was stolen. Nick’s only nineteen. If you can get the DA to try him as a minor, it would go easier.”

“The state’s tough on gang members, and with his record I don’t think it would happen.”

“If you can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can.” Zack threw up a hand before she could tear into him. “I know I came down on you before. Sorry. I work nights, and I’m not my best in the morning.” Even that much of an apology grated on him, but he needed her. “I get a call an hour ago from one of Nick’s friends telling me he’s been in jail all night. When I get down here and see him, it’s the same old story. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody. I’m handling it.” He tossed down his cigarette, crushed it out, lit another. “And I know he’s scared down to the bone.” With something close to a sigh, he jammed his hands in his pockets. “I’m all he’s got, Ms. Stanislaski. Whatever it takes, I’m not going to see him go to prison.”

It was never easy for her to harden her heart, but she tried. She wiped her hands carefully on a paper napkin. “Have you got enough money to cover the losses? Fifteen thousand?”

He winced, but nodded. “I can get it.”

“It’ll help. How much influence do you have over Nick?”

“Next to none.” He smiled, and Rachel was surprised to note that the smile held considerable charm. “But that can change. I’ve got an established business, and a two-bedroom apartment. I can get you professional and character references, whatever you need. My record’s clean— Well, I did spend thirty days in the brig when I was in the navy. Bar fight.” He shrugged it off. “I don’t guess they’d hold it against me, since it was twelve years ago.”

Rachel turned the possibilities over in her mind. “If I’m reading you right, you want me to try to get the court to turn Nick over to your care.”

“The probation and community service. A responsible adult to look out for him. All the damages paid.”

“You might not be doing him any favor, Muldoon.”

“He’s my brother.”

That she understood perfectly. Rachel cast her eyes skyward as the first drop of rain fell. “I’ve got to get back to the office. If you’ve got the time, you can walk with me. I’ll make some calls, see what I can do.”

A bar, Rachel thought with a sigh as she tried to put together a rational proposition for the hearing that afternoon. Why did the man have to own a bar? She supposed it suited him—the big shoulders, the big hands, the crooked nose that she assumed had been broken. And, of course, the rough, dark Irish looks that matched his temper.

But it would have been so much nicer if she could tell the judge that Zackary Muldoon owned a nice men’s shop in midtown. Instead, she was going to ask a judge to hand over the responsibility and the guardianship of a nineteen-year-old boy—with a record and an attitude—to his thirty-two-year-old stepbrother, who ran an East Side bar called Lower the Boom.

There was a chance, a slim one. The DA was still pushing for names, but the shop owner had been greatly mollified with the promise of settlement. No doubt he’d inflated the price of his merchandise, but that was Muldoon’s problem, not hers.

She didn’t have much time to persuade the DA that he didn’t want to try Nick as an adult. Taking what information she’d managed to pry out of Zack, she snagged opposing counsel and settled into one of the tiny conference rooms in the courthouse.

“Come on, Haridan, let’s clean this mess up and save the court’s time and the taxpayers’ money. Putting this kid in jail isn’t the answer.”

Haridan, balding on top and thick through the middle, eased his bulk into a chair. “It’s my answer, Stanislaski. He’s a punk. A gang member with a history of antisocial behavior.”

“Some tourist scams and some pushy-shovey.”

“Assault.”

“Charges were dropped. Come on, we both know it’s minor-league. He’s minor-league. We’ve got a scared, troubled kid looking for his place with a gang. We want him out of the gang, no question. But jail isn’t the way.” She held up a hand before Haridan could interrupt. “Look, his stepbrother is willing to help—not only by paying for property you have absolutely no proof my client stole, but by taking responsibility. Giving LeBeck a job, a home, supervision. All you have to do is agree to handling LeBeck as a minor.”

“I want names.”

“He won’t give them.” Hadn’t she gone back down and harassed Nick for nearly an hour to try to pry one loose? “You can put him away for ten years, and you still won’t get one. So what’s the point? You haven’t got a hardened criminal here—yet. Let’s not make him one.”

They knocked that back and forth, and Haridan softened. Not out of the goodness of his heart, but because his plate was every bit as full as Rachel’s. He had neither the time nor the energy to pursue one punk kid through the system.

“I’m not dropping it down from burglary to nighttime breaking and entering.” On that he was going to stand firm, but he would throw her a crumb. “Even if we agree to handle him as a juvie, the judge isn’t going to let him walk with probation.”

Rachel gathered up her briefcase. “Just leave the judge to me. Who’d we pull?”

Haridan grinned. “Beckett.”

Marlene C. Beckett was an eccentric. Like a magician, she pulled unusual sentences out of her judge’s robes as if they were little white rabbits. She was in her midforties, dashingly attractive, with a single streak of white hair that swept through a wavy cap of fire-engine red.

Personally, Rachel liked her a great deal. Judge Beckett was a staunch feminist and former flower child who had proven that a woman—an unmarried, career-oriented woman—could be successful and intelligent without being abrasive or whiny. She might have been in a man’s world, but Judge Beckett was all woman. Rachel respected her, admired her, even hoped to follow in her footsteps one day.

She just wished she’d been assigned to another judge.

As Beckett listened to her unusual plea, Rachel felt her stomach sinking down to her knees. Beckett’s lips were pursed. A bad sign. One perfectly manicured nail was tapping beside the gavel. Rachel caught the judge studying the defendant, and Zack, who sat in the front row behind him.

“Counselor, you’re saying the defendant will make restitution for all properties lost, and that though the state is agreeable that he be tried as a minor, you don’t want him bound over for trial.”

“I’m proposing that trial may be waived, Your Honor, given the circumstances. Both the defendant’s mother and stepfather are deceased. His mother died five years ago, when the defendant was fourteen, and his stepfather died last year. Mr. Muldoon is willing and able to take responsibility for his stepbrother. If it please the court, the defense suggests that once restitution is made, and a stable home arranged, a trial would be merely an unproductive way of punishing my client for a mistake he already deeply regrets.”

With what might have been a snort, Beckett cast a look at Nick. “Do you deeply regret bungling your attempt at burglary, young man?”

Nick lifted one shoulder and looked surly. A sharp rap on the back of the head from his stepbrother had him snarling. “Sure, I—” He glanced at Rachel. The warning in her eyes did more to make him subside than the smack. “It was stupid.”

“Undoubtedly,” Judge Beckett agreed. “Mr. Haridan, what is your stand on this?”

“The district attorney’s office is not willing to drop charges, Your Honor, though we will agree to regard the defendant as a juvenile. An offer to lessen or drop charges was made—if the defendant would provide the names of his accomplices.”

“You want him to squeal on those he—mistakenly, I’m sure—considers friends?” Beckett lifted a brow at Nick. “No dice?”

“No, ma’am.”

She made some sound that Rachel couldn’t interpret, then pointed at Zack. “Stand up…Mr. Muldoon, is it?”

Ill at ease, Zack did so. “Ma’am? Your Honor?”

“Where were you when your young brother was getting himself mixed up with the Cobras?”

“At sea. I was in the navy until two years ago, when I came back to take over my father’s business.”

“What rank?”

“Chief petty officer, ma’am.”

“Mm-hmm…” She took his measure, as a judge and as a woman. “I’ve been in your bar—a few years back. You used to serve an excellent manhattan.”

Zack grinned. “We still do.”

“Are you of the opinion, Mr. Muldoon, that you can keep your brother out of trouble and make a responsible citizen of him?”

“I…I don’t know, but I want a chance to try.”

Beckett tapped her fingers and sat back. “Have a seat. Ms. Stanislaski, the court is not of the opinion that a trial would be out of place in this matter—”

“Your Honor—”

Beckett cut Rachel off with a single gesture. “I haven’t finished. I’m going to set bail at five thousand dollars.”

This brought on an objection from the DA that was dealt with in exactly the same manner.

“I’m also going to grant the defendant what we’ll call a provisionary probation. Two months,” Beckett said, folding her hands. “I will set the trial date for two months from today. If during that two-month period the defendant is found to be walking the straight and narrow, is gainfully employed, refrains from associating with known members of the Cobras and has not committed any crime, this court will be amenable to extending that probation, with the likelihood of a suspended sentence.”

“Your Honor,” Haridan puffed out, “how can we be certain the defendant won’t waltz in here in two months and claim to have upheld the provisions?”

“Because he will be supervised by an officer of the court, who will serve as co-guardian with Mr. Muldoon for the two-month period. And I will receive a written report on Mr. LeBeck from that officer.” Beckett’s lips curved. “I think I’m going to enjoy this. Rehabilitation, Mr. Haridan, does not have to be accomplished in prison.”

Rachel restrained herself from giving Haridan a smug grin. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

“You’re quite welcome, Counselor. Have your report to me every Friday afternoon, by three.”

“My…” Rachel blinked, paled, then gaped. “My report? But, Your Honor, you can’t mean for me to supervise Mr. LeBeck.”

“That is precisely what I mean, Ms. Stanislaski. I believe having a male and a female authority figure will do our Mr. LeBeck a world of good.”

“Yes, Your Honor, I agree. But…I’m not a social worker.”

“You’re a public servant, Ms. Stanislaski. So serve.” She rapped her gavel. “Next case.”

Stunned speechless by the judge’s totally unorthodox ruling, Rachel moved to the back of the courtroom. “Good going, champ,” her brother muttered in her ear. “Now you’ve got yourself hooked good.”

“How could she do that? I mean, how could she just do that?”

“Everybody knows she’s a little crazy.” Furious, he swung Rachel out in the hall by an elbow. “There’s no way in holy hell I’m letting you play baby-sitter for that punk. Beckett can’t force you to.”

“No, of course she can’t.” After dragging a hand through her hair, she shook Alex off. “Stop pulling at me and let me think.”

“There’s nothing to think about. You’ve got your own family and your own life. Watching over LeBeck is out of the question. And for all you know, that brother of his is just as dangerous. It’s bad enough I have to watch you defend these creeps. No way I’m having you play big sister to one of them.”

If he’d sympathized with her predicament, she might not have been quite as hasty. If he’d told her she’d gotten a raw deal, she probably would have agreed and set the wheels in motion to negate it. But…

“You don’t have to watch me do anything, Alexi, and I can play big sister to whomever I choose. Now why don’t you take that big bad badge of yours and go arrest some harmless vagrant.”

His blood boiled every bit as quickly as hers. “You’re not doing this.”

“I’ll decide what I’m going to do. Now back off.”

He cupped a hand firmly on her chin just as she poked it out. “I’ve got a good mind to—”

“The lady asked you to back off.” Zack’s voice was quiet, like a snake before it strikes. Alex whipped his head around, eyes hot and ready. It took all of his training to prevent himself from throwing the first punch.

“Keep out of our business.”

Zack planted his feet and prepared. “I don’t think so.”

They looked like two snarling dogs about to go for the throat. Rachel pushed her way between them.

“Stop it right now. This is no way to behave outside a courtroom. Muldoon, is this how you’re going to show Nick responsibility? By picking fights?”

He didn’t even glance at her, but kept his eyes on Alex. “I don’t like to see women pushed around.”

“I can take care of myself.” She rounded on her brother. “You’re supposed to be a cop, for heaven’s sake. And here you are acting like a rowdy schoolboy. You think about this. The court believes this is a viable solution, so I’m obligated to try it.”

“Damn it, Rachel—” Alex’s eyes went flat and cold when Zack stepped forward again. “Pal, you mess with me, or my sister, you’ll be wearing your teeth in a glass by your bedside.”

“Sister?” Thoughtfully Zack examined one face, then the other. Oh, yes, the family resemblance was strong enough when you took a minute to study them. They both had those wild good looks that came through the blood. His anger cooled instantly. That changed things. He gave Rachel another speculative look. It changed a lot of things.

“Sorry. I didn’t realize it was a family argument. You go ahead and yell at her all you want.”

Alex had to fight to keep his lips from twitching. “All right, Rachel, you’re going to listen to me.”

She had to sigh. Then she had to take his face in her hands and kiss him. “Since when have I ever listened to you? Go away, Alexi. Chase some bad guys. And I’ll have to take a rain check on that movie tonight.”

There was no arguing with her. There never was. Changing tactics, Alex stared down Zack. “You watch out for her, Muldoon, and watch good. Because while you’re at it, I’m going to be watching you.”

“Sounds fair. Come by the bar anytime, Officer. First one’s on the house.”

Muttering under his breath, Alex stalked away. He turned once when Rachel called something out to him in Ukrainian. With a reluctant smile, he shook his head and kept walking.

“Translation?” Zack asked.

“Just that I would see him Sunday. Did you pay the bond?”

“Yeah, they’re going to release him in a minute.” Zack took a moment to reevaluate now that he realized she’d been kissing her brother that morning, not a lover. “I take it your brother isn’t too thrilled to see you tangled up with me and Nick.”

She gave Zack a long, bland look. “Who is, Muldoon? But since that’s the court ruling, let’s go get started.”

“Get started?”

“We’re going to pick up our charge, and you’re going to move him into your apartment.”

After spending the better part of a decade sharing close quarters with a couple hundred sailors, Zack gave one last wistful thought to the dissolution of his privacy. “Right.” He took Rachel by the arm—a gesture she tried not to resent. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any rope in that briefcase of yours.”

It wasn’t necessary to tie Nick up to gain his cooperation. But it was close. He sulked. He argued. He swore. By the time they’d walked out of the courthouse to hail a cab, Zack was biting down on fury and Nick had switched his resentment to Rachel.

“If this is the best deal you could cut, you’d better go back to law school. I’ve got rights, and the first one is to fire you.”

“Your privilege, LeBeck,” Rachel said, idly checking her watch. “You’re certainly free to seek other counsel, but you can’t fire me as your court-appointed guardian. We’re stuck with each other for the next two months.”

“That’s bull. If you and that crazy judge think you can cook up—”

Zack made his move first, but Rachel merely elbowed him out of the way and went toe-to-toe with Nick. “You listen to me, you sorry, spoiled, sulky little jerk. You’ve got two choices—pretending to be a human being for the next eight weeks or going to prison for three years. I don’t give a damn which way you go, but I’ll tell you this. You think you’re tough? You think you’ve got all the answers? You go inside for a week, and with that pretty face of yours the cons will be on you like dogs on fresh meat. You’d be willing to deal then, pal. Believe me, you’d be willing to deal.”

That shut him up, and Rachel had the added satisfaction of seeing his angry flush die to a sickly pallor. She gestured when a cab swung to the curb. “Your choice, tough guy,” she said, and turned to Zack. “I’ve got work to do. I should be able to clear things up by around seven, then I’ll be by to see how things are going.”

“I’ll keep dinner warm,” he said with a smirk, then caught her hand before she could walk away. “Thanks. I mean it.” She would have shrugged it off. His hand was hard as rock, calluses over calluses. He grinned. “You’re all right, Counselor. For a broad.” He climbed into the cab behind his brother, sent her a quick salute as they pulled away. “She’s right about you being a jerk, Nick,” Zack said easily. “But you sure as hell picked a lawyer with first-class legs.”

Nick said nothing, but he did sneak a look out the rear window. He’d noticed Rachel’s legs himself.

When they arrived at Nick’s room ten minutes later, Zack had to swallow another bout of temper. It wouldn’t do any good to yell at the kid every five minutes. But why in the hell had he picked such a neighborhood?

Hoods loitering on street corners. Drug deals negotiated out in broad daylight. Hookers already slicked up and stalking their prey. He could smell the stench of overripe garbage and unwashed humanity. His feet crunched on broken glass as they crossed the heaving sidewalk and entered the scarred and graffiti-laden brick building.

The smells were worse here, trapped inside, where even the fitful September breeze couldn’t reach. Zack maintained his silence as they climbed up three floors, ignoring the shouted arguments behind closed doors and the occasional crash and weeping.

Nick unlocked the door and stepped into a single room furnished with a sagging iron bed, a broken dresser and a rickety wooden chair braced with a torn phone book. A few heavy-metal posters had been tacked to the stained walls in a pitiful attempt to give the room some personality. Helpless against the rage that geysered inside him, Zack let loose with a string of curses that turned the stale air blue.

“And what the hell have you been doing with the money I sent home every month when I was at sea? With the salary you were supposed to be earning from the delivery job? You’re living in garbage, Nick. What’s worse, you chose to live in it.”

Not for a second would Nick have admitted that most of his money had gone into the Cobra treasury. Nor would he have admitted the shame he felt at having Zack see how he lived. “It’s none of your damn business,” he shot back. “This is my place, just like it’s my life. You were never around, were you? Just because you got tired of cruising around on some stupid destroyer doesn’t give you the right to come back here and take over.”

“I’ve been back two years,” Zack pointed out wearily. “And I spent a year of that watching the old man die. You didn’t bother to come around much, did you?”

Nick felt a fresh wash of shame, and a deep, desperate sorrow that he was certain Zack could never understand. “He wasn’t my old man.”

Zack’s head jerked up. Nick’s hands fisted. Violent temper snapped and sizzled in the room. The slightest move would have sparked it into flame. Slowly, effortfully, Zack forced his body to relax.

“I’m not going to waste my time telling you he did the best he could.”

“How the hell do you know?” Nick tossed back. “You weren’t here. You got out your way, bro. I got out mine.”

“Which brings us full circle. Pack up what you want, and let’s go.”

“This is my place—” Zack moved so quickly that the snarl caught in Nick’s throat. He was up against the wall, Zack’s big hands holding him in place while his thin body quivered with rage. Zack’s face was so close to his, all Nick could see were those dark, dangerous eyes.

“For the next two months, like it or not, your place is with me. Now cut the crap and get some clothes together. Your free ride’s over.” He released Nick, knowing he had the strength and skill to snap his defiant young brother in half. “You got ten minutes, kid. You’re working tonight.”

By seven, Rachel was indulging a fantasy about a steamy bubble bath, a glass of crisp white wine and an hour with a good book. It helped ease the discomfort of the crowded subway car. She braced her feet against the swaying, kept her gaze focused on the middle distance. There were a few rough-looking characters scattered through the car whom she’d assessed and decided to ignore. A wino was snoring in the seat behind her, his face hidden under a newspaper.

At her stop, she bulled her way out, then started up the steps into the wet, windy evening. Hunched in her jacket, she fought with her umbrella, then slogged the two blocks to Lower the Boom.

The beveled glass door was heavy. She tugged it open and stepped out of the chill into the warmth, sounds and scents of an established neighborhood bar. It wasn’t the dive she’d been expecting, but a wide wood-paneled room with a glossy mahogany bar trimmed in brass. The stools were burgundy leather, and every one was occupied. Neat tables were set around the room to accommodate more customers. There were the scents of whiskey and beer, cigarette smoke and grilled onions. A jukebox played the blues over the hum of conversation.

She spotted two waitresses winding their way through the patrons. No fishnet stockings and cleavage, Rachel mused. Both women were dressed in white slacks with modified sailor tops. There was a great deal of laughter, and she caught snatches of an argument as to whether the Mets still had a chance to make the play-offs.

Zack was in the center of the circular bar, drawing a beer for a customer. He’d exchanged his sweatshirt for a cable-knit turtleneck in navy blue. Oh, yes, she could see him on the deck of a ship, Rachel realized. Braced against the rolling, face to the wind. The bar’s nautical theme, with its ship’s bells and anchors, suited him.

She conjured up an image of him in uniform, found it entirely too attractive, and blinked it away.

She wasn’t the fanciful type, she reminded herself. She was certainly no romantic. Above all, she was not the kind of woman who walked into a bar and found herself attracted to some land-locked sailor with shaggy hair, big shoulders and rough hands.

The only reason she was here was to uphold the court’s ruling. However distasteful it might be to be hooked up with Zackary Muldoon for two months, she would do her duty.

But where was Nick?

“Would you like a table, miss?”

Rachel glanced around at a diminutive blonde hefting a large tray laden with sandwiches and beer. “No, thanks. I’ll just go up to the bar. Is this place always crowded?”

The waitress’s gray eyes brightened as she looked around the room. “Is it crowded? I didn’t notice.” With a laugh, she moved off while Rachel walked to the bar. She eased her way between two occupied stools, rested a foot on the brass rail and waited to catch Zack’s eye.

“Well, darling…” The man on her left had a plump, pleasant face. He shifted on his stool to get a better look. “Don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”

“No.” Since he looked old enough to be her father, Rachel granted him a small smile. “You haven’t.”

“Pretty young girl like you shouldn’t be here all alone.” He leaned back—his stool creaking dangerously—and slapped the man on her other side on the shoulder. “Hey, Harry, we ought to buy this lady a drink.”

Harry, who continued to sip his beer and work a crossword puzzle in the dim light, merely nodded. “Sure thing, Pete. Set it up. I need a five-letter word for the possibility of danger or pain.”

Rachel glanced up. Zack was watching her, his blue eyes dark and steady, his bony face set and unsmiling. She felt something hot streak up her spine. “Peril,” she murmured, and fought off a shudder.

“Yeah! Hey, thanks!” Pleased, Harry pushed up his reading glasses and smiled at her. “First drink’s on me. What’ll you have, honey?”

“Pouilly-Fumé.” Zack set a glass of pale gold wine in front of her. “And the first one’s on the house.” He lifted a brow. “That suit you, Counselor?”

“Yes.” She let out the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “Thank you.”

“Zack always gets the prettiest ones,” Pete said with a sigh. “Tip me another, kid. Least you can do, since you stole my girl.” He shot Rachel a wink that had her relaxing with a smile again.

“And how often does he steal your girls, Pete?”

“Once, twice a week. It’s humiliating.” He grinned at Zack over a fresh beer. “Old Zack did date one of my girls once. Remember that time you were home on leave, Zack, you took my Rosemary to the movies, out to Coney Island? She’s married and working on her second kid now.”

Zack mopped up the bar with a cloth. “She broke my heart.”

“There isn’t a female alive who’s scratched your heart, much less broken it.” This from the blond waitress, who slapped an empty tray on the bar. “Two house wines, white. A Scotch, water back, and a draft. Harry, you ought to buy yourself one of those little clip-on lights before you ruin what’s left of your eyes.”

“You broke my heart, Lola.” Zack put some glasses on the tray. “Why do you think I ran off and joined the navy?”

“Because you knew how good you’d look in dress whites.” She laughed, hefted the tray, then glanced at Rachel. “You watch out for that one, sweetie. He’s dangerous.”

Rachel sipped at her wine and tried to pretend the scents slipping out from the kitchen weren’t making her stomach rumble. “Have you got a minute?” she asked Zack. “I need to see where you’re living.”

Pete let out a hoot and rolled his eyes. “What’s the guy got?” he wanted to know.

“More than you’ll ever have.” Zack grinned at him and signaled to another bartender to cover for him. “I just seem to attract aggressive women. Can’t keep their hands off me.”

Rachel finished off her wine before sliding from the stool. “I can restrain myself if I put my mind to it. Though it pains me to mar his reputation,” she said to Pete, “I’m his brother’s lawyer.”

“No fooling?” Impressed, Pete took a closer look. “You the one who got the kid out of jail?”

“For the time being. Muldoon?”

“Right this way for the tour.” He flipped up a section of the bar and stepped through. Again he took her arm. “Try to keep up.”

“You know, I don’t need you to hold on to me. I’ve been walking on my own for some time.”

He pushed open a heavy swinging door that led to the kitchen. “I like holding on to you.”

Rachel got the impression of gleaming stainless steel and white porcelain, the heavy scent of frying potatoes and grilling meat, before her attention was absorbed by an enormous man. He was dressed all in white, and his full apron was splattered and stained. Because he towered over Zack, Rachel estimated him at halfway to seven feet and a good three-fifty. If he’d played football, he would have been the entire defensive line.

His face was shiny from the kitchen heat, and the color of india ink. There was a scar running from one coal-black eye down to his massive chin. His hamlike hands were delicately building a club sandwich.

“Rio, this is Rachel Stanislaski, Nick’s lawyer.”

“How-de-do.” She caught the musical cadence of the West Indies in his voice. “Got that boy washing dishes like a champ. Only broke him five or six all night.”

Standing at a huge double sink, up to the elbows in soapy water, Nick turned his head and scowled. “If you call cleaning up someone else’s slop a job, you can just—”

“Now don’t you be using that language around this lady here.” Rio picked up a cleaver and brought it down with a thwack to cut the sandwich in two, then four. “My mama always said nothing like washing dishes to give a body plenty of time for searching the soul. You keep washing and searching, boy.”

Nick would have liked to have said more. Oh, he’d have loved to. But it was hard to argue with a seven-foot man holding a meat cleaver. He went back to muttering.

Rio smiled, and noted that Rachel was eyeing the sandwich. “How ’bout I fix you some hot meal? You can eat after you finish your business.”

“Oh, I…” Her mouth was watering. “I really should get home.”

“Zack, he’s going to see you home after you’re done. It’s too late for a woman to go walking the streets by herself.”

“I don’t need—”

“Dish her up some of your chili, Rio,” Zack suggested as he pulled Rachel toward a set of stairs. “This won’t take long.”

Rachel found herself trapped, hip to hip with him in a narrow staircase. He smelled of the sea, she realized, of that salty, slightly electric scent that meant a storm was brewing beyond the horizon. “It’s very kind of you to offer, Muldoon, but I don’t need a meal, or an escort.”

“You’ll get both, need them or not.” He turned, effectively trapping her against the wall. It felt good to have his body brush hers. As good as he’d imagined it would. “I never argue with Rio. I met him in Jamaica about six years ago—in a little bar tussle. I watched him pick up a two-hundred-pound man and toss him through a wall. Now, Rio’s mostly a peaceful sort of man, but if you get him riled, there’s no telling what he might do.” Zack lifted a hand and wound a lock of Rachel’s hair around his finger. “Your hair’s wet.”

She slapped his hand away and tried to pretend her heart wasn’t slamming in her throat. “It’s raining.”

“Yeah. I can smell it on you. You sure are something to look at, Rachel.”

She couldn’t move forward, couldn’t move back, so she did the only thing open to her. She bristled like a cornered cat. “You’re in my way, Muldoon. My advice is to move your butt and save the Irish charm for someone who’ll appreciate it.”

“In a minute. Was that Russian you yelled after your brother today?”

“Ukrainian,” she said between her teeth.

“Ukrainian.” He considered that, and her. “I never made it to the Soviet Union.”

She lifted a brow. “Neither have I. Now can we save this discussion until after I’ve seen the living arrangements?”

“All right.” He started up the steps again, his hand on the small of her back. “It’s not much, but I can guarantee it’s a large step up from the dump Nick was living in. I don’t know why he—” He cut himself off and shrugged. “Well, it’s done.”

Rachel had a feeling it was just beginning.

CHAPTER THREE

Though it brought on all manner of headaches, Rachel took her new charge seriously. She could handle the inconvenience, the extra time sliced out of her personal life, Nick’s surly and continued resentment. What gave her the most trouble was the enforced proximity with Zackary Muldoon.

She couldn’t dismiss him and she couldn’t work around him. Having to deal with him on what was essentially a day-to-day basis was sending her stress level through the roof.

If only she could pigeonhole him, she thought as she walked from the subway to her apartment after a Sunday dinner with her family, it would somehow make things easier. But after nearly a week of trying, she hadn’t even come close.

He was rough, impatient, and, she suspected, potentially violent. Yet he was concerned enough about his stepbrother to shell out money and—much more vital—time and energy to set the boy straight. In his off hours, he dressed in clothes more suited to the rag basket than his tall, muscled frame. Yet when she’d walked through his apartment over the bar, she’d found everything neat as a pin. He was always putting his hands on her—her arm, her hair, her shoulder—but he had yet to make the kind of move she was forever braced to repel.

He flirted with his female customers, but as far as Rachel had been able to glean, it stopped at flirtation. He’d never been married, and though he’d left his family for months, even years, at a time, he’d given up the sea and had landlocked himself when his father became too ill to care for himself.

He irritated her on principle. But on some deeper, darker level, the very things about him that irritated her fanned little flames in her gut that Rachel could only describe as pure lust.

She’d tried to cool them by reminding herself that she wasn’t the lusty type. Passionate, yes. When it came to her work, her family and her ambitions. But men, though she enjoyed their companionship and their basic maleness, had never been at the top of her list of priorities.

Sex was even lower than that. And it was very annoying to find herself itchy.

So who was Zackary Muldoon, and would she be better off not knowing?

When he stepped out of the shadows into the glow of a streetlight, she jolted and choked back a scream.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I— Damn it, you scared me to death.” She brought a trembling hand back out of her purse, where it had shot automatically toward a bottle of Mace. Oh, she hated to be frightened. Detested having to admit she could be vulnerable. “What are you doing lurking out here in front of my building?”

“Looking for you. Don’t you ever stay home?”

“Muldoon, with me it’s party, party, party.” She stalked up the steps and jammed her key in the outer door. “What do you want?”

“Nick took off.”

She stopped halfway through the door, and he bumped solidly into her. “What do you mean, took off?”

“I mean he slipped out of the kitchen sometime this afternoon, when Rio wasn’t looking. I can’t find him.” He was so furious—with Nick, with Rachel, with himself—that it took all of his control not to punch his fist through the wall. “I’ve been at it almost five hours, and I can’t find him.”

“All right, don’t panic.” Her mind was already clicking ahead as she walked through the tiny lobby to the single gate-fronted elevator. “It’s early, just ten o’clock. He knows his way around.”

“That’s the trouble.” Disgusted with himself, Zack stepped in the car with her. “He knows his way around too well. The rule was, he’d tell me when he was going, and where. I’ve got to figure he’s hanging out with the Cobras.”

“Nick’s not going to break that kind of tie overnight.” Rachel continued to think as the elevator creaked its way up to the fourth floor. “We can drive ourselves crazy running around the city trying to hunt him down, or we can call in the cavalry.”

“The cavalry?”

She shoved the gate open and walked into the hallway. “Alex.”

“No cops,” Zack said quickly, grabbing her arms. “I’m not setting the cops on him.”

“Alex isn’t just a cop. He’s my brother.” Struggling to hold on to her own patience, she pried his fingers from her arms. “And I’m an officer of the court, Zack. If Nick’s breaking the provisions, I can’t ignore it.”

“I’m not going to see him tossed back in a cell barely a week after I got him out.”

“We got him out,” she corrected, then unlocked her door. “If you didn’t want my help and advice, you shouldn’t have come.”

Zack shrugged and stepped inside. “I guess I figured we could go out looking together.”

The room was hardly bigger than the one Nick had rented, but it was all female. Not flouncy, Zack thought. Rachel wouldn’t go for flounce. There were vivid colors in the plump pillows tossed over a low-armed sofa. The scented candles were burned down to various lengths, and mums were just starting to fade in a china vase.

There was a huge bronze-framed oval mirror on one wall. Its glass needed resilvering. A three-foot sculpture in cool white marble dominated one corner. It reminded Zack of a mermaid rising up out of the sea. There were smaller sculptures, as well, all of them passionate, some of them bordering on the ferocious. A timber wolf rearing out of a slab of oak, twisted fingers of bronze and copper that looked like a fire just out of control, a smooth and sinuous malachite cobra ready to strike.

There were shelves of books, and dozens of framed photographs—and there was the unmistakable scent of woman.

Zack felt uncharacteristically awkward and clumsy, and completely out of place. He stuck his hands in his pockets, certain he’d knock over one of those slender tapers. His mother had liked candles, he remembered. Candles and flowers and blue china bowls.

“I’ll make coffee.” Rachel tossed her purse aside and walked into the adjoining kitchen.

“Yeah. Good.” Restless, Zack roamed the room, checked out the view through the cheerful striped curtains, frowned over the photographs that were obviously of her family, paced back to the sofa. “I don’t know what I’m doing. What makes me think I can play daddy to a kid Nick’s age? I wasn’t around for half his life. He hates me. He’s got a right.”

“You’ve been doing fine,” Rachel countered, taking out cups and saucers. “You’re not playing daddy, you’re being his brother. If you weren’t around for half his life, it’s because you had a life of your own. And he doesn’t hate you. He’s angry and full of resentment which is a long way from hate—which he wouldn’t have any right to. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, and get out the milk.”

“Is that how you cross-examine?” Not sure whether he was amused or annoyed, Zack opened the refrigerator.

“No, I’m much tougher than that in court.”

“I bet.” He shook his head at the contents of her refrigerator. Yogurt, a package of bologna, another of cheese, several diet soft drinks, a jug of white wine, two eggs, and half a stick of butter. “You’re out of milk.”

She swore, then sighed. “So we drink it black. Did you and Nick have a fight?”

“No— I mean no more than usual. He snarls, I snarl back. He swears, I swear louder. But we actually had what could pass for a conversation last night, then watched an old movie on the tube after the bar closed.”

“Ah, progress…” She handed him his coffee in a dainty cup and saucer that felt like a child’s tea set in his hands.

“We get a lot of families in for lunch on Sundays.” Zack ignored the china handle and wrapped his fingers around the bowl of the cup. “He was down in the kitchen at noon. I figured he might like to knock off early, you know, take some time for himself. I went into the kitchen around four. Rio didn’t want to rat on him, so he’d been covering for him for an hour or so. I hoped he’d just taken a breather, but… Then I went out looking.” Zack finished off the coffee, then helped himself to more. “I’ve been pretty hard on him the last few days. It seemed like the best way. On my first ship, my CO was a regular Captain Bligh. I hated the bastard until I realized he’d turned us into a crew.” Zack grinned a little. “Hell, I still hated him, but I never forgot him.”

“Stop beating yourself up.” She couldn’t prevent herself from reaching out, touching his arm. “It isn’t as if you hanged him from the yardarm or whatever. Now sit down and try to relax. Let me talk to Alex.”

He did sit, though he wasn’t happy about it. Because he felt like an idiot trying to balance the delicate saucer on his knee, he set it down on the table. There wasn’t an ashtray in sight, so he clamped down on the urge for a cigarette.

He paid little attention to Rachel until her voice rose in frustration. Then he smiled a little. She was certainly full of fire, punching out requests and orders with the aplomb of a seasoned seaman. Lord, he’d gotten so he looked forward to hearing that throaty, impatient voice. How many times over the past few days had he made up excuses to call her?

Too many, he admitted. Something about the lady had hooked him, and Zack wasn’t sure whether he wanted to pry himself loose or be reeled in.

And the last thing he should be doing now was thinking of his libido, he reminded himself. He had to think about Nick.

Obviously Rachel’s brother was resisting, but she wasn’t taking no for an answer. When she switched to heated Ukrainian, Zack reached over to toy with the spitting cobra in the center of the coffee table. It drove him crazy when she talked in Ukrainian.

“Tak,” she said, satisfied that she’d worn Alex down. “I owe you one, Alexi.” She laughed, a rich, and full-blooded laugh that sent heat straight to Zack’s midsection. “All right, all right, so I’ll owe you two.” Zack watched her hang up and cross long legs covered in a hunter-green material that was silky enough to whisper seductively when her thighs brushed together. “Alex and his partner are going to cruise around, check out some of the Cobras’ known haunts. They’ll let us know if they see him.”

“So we wait?”

“We wait.” She rose and took a fresh legal pad from a drawer. “To pass the time, you can fill me in a little more on Nick’s background. You said his mother died when he was about fifteen. What about his father?”

“His mother wasn’t married before.” Zack reached automatically for a cigarette, then remembered. Recognizing the gesture, Rachel rose again and found a chipped ashtray. “Thanks.” Relieved, he lit a cigarette, cupping his fingers around the tip out of habit. “Nadine was about eighteen when she got pregnant, and the guy wasn’t interested in family. He took off and left her to fend for herself. So she had Nick and did what she could. One day she came into the bar looking for work. Dad hired her.”

“How old was Nick?”

“Four or five. Nadine was barely making ends meet. Sometimes she couldn’t get a sitter for him, so Dad told her to bring the kid along and I’d watch him. He was okay,” Zack said with a half smile. “I mean, he was real quiet. Most of the time he’d just watch you like he was expecting to get dumped on. But he was smart. He’d just started school, but he could already read, and he could print some, too. Anyway, a couple months later, Nadine and my father got married. Dad was about twenty years older than she was, but I guess they were both lonely. My mother’d been dead for more than ten years. Nadine and the kid moved in.”

“How did you…how did Nick adjust?”

“It seemed okay. Hell, I was a kid myself.” Restless again, he rose to pace. “Nadine bent over backward trying to please everyone. That’s the way she was. My father…he wasn’t always easy, you know, and he put a lot of time into the bar. We weren’t a Norman Rockwell kind of family, but we did okay.” He glanced back at her photographs, surprised at the quick twinge of envy. “I didn’t mind the kid hanging around me. Much. Then I joined the navy, right out of high school. It was kind of a family tradition. When Nadine died, it was hard on Nick. Hard on my father. I guess you could say they took it out on each other.”

“Is that when Nick started to get into trouble?”

“I’d say he got into his share before that, but it got worse. Whenever I’d get back, my father would be full of complaints. The boy wouldn’t do this, he did that. He was hanging around with punks. He was looking for trouble. And Nick would skulk off or slam out. If I said anything, he’d tell me to kiss his—” He shrugged. “You get the picture.”

She thought she did. A young boy unwanted by his father. He begins to admire his new brother, and then feels deserted by him, as well. He loses his mother and finds himself alone with a man old enough to be his grandfather, a man who couldn’t relate to him.

Nothing permanent in his life—except rejection.

“I’m not a psychologist, Zack, but I’d say he needs time to trust that you mean to stay part of his life this time around. And I don’t think taking a firm hand is wrong. In fact, I think that’s just what he’d understand from you, and respect in the long run. Maybe that just needs to be balanced a bit.” She sighed and set her notes aside. “Which is where I come in. So far, I’ve been just as rough on him. Let’s try a little good-cop/bad-cop. I’ll be the sympathetic ear. Believe me, I understand hotheads and bad boys. I grew up with them. We can start by—” The phone rang and she snagged it. “Hello. Uh-huh. Good. That’s good. Thanks, Alex.” She could see the relief in Zack’s eyes before she hung up. “They spotted him on his way back to the bar.”

Relief sparked quickly into anger. “When I get my hands on him—”

“You’ll ask, in a very reasonable fashion, where he was,” Rachel told him. “And to make certain you do, I’m going with you.”

Nick let himself into Zack’s apartment. He figured he’d been pretty clever. He’d managed to slip in and out of the kitchen without setting off Rio’s radar. The way they were watching him around here, he thought, he might as well be doing time.

Everything was going wrong, anyway. He ducked into the kitchen and, since Zack wasn’t around to say any different, opened a beer. He’d just wanted to check in with the guys, see what was happening on the street.

And they’d treated him like an outsider.

They didn’t trust him, Nick thought resentfully as he swigged one long swallow, then two. Reece had decided that since he’d gotten out so quickly, he must have ratted. He thought he’d convinced most of the gang that he was clean, but when he’d spilled the whole story—from how he’d been caught to how he’d ended up washing dishes in Zack’s bar, they’d laughed at him.

It hadn’t been the good, communal laughter he’d shared with the Cobras in the past. It had been snide and nasty, with T.J. giggling like a fool and Reece smirking and playing with his switchblade. Only Cash had been the least bit sympathetic, saying how it was a raw deal.

Not one of them had bothered to explain why they’d left him hanging when the cop showed up.

When he’d left them, he’d gone by Marla’s place. They’d been seeing each other steadily for the past couple of months, and he’d been sure he’d find a sympathetic ear, and a nice warm body. But she’d been out—with somebody else.

Looked as though he’d been dumped again, all around. Nothing new, Nick told himself. But the sting of rejection wasn’t any easier to take this time.

Damn it, they were supposed to be his family. They were supposed to stick up for him, stand by him, not shake him loose at the first hint of trouble. He wouldn’t have done it to them, he told himself, and heaved the empty beer bottle into the trash, where it smashed satisfactorily. No, by God, he wouldn’t have done it to them.

When he heard the door open, he set his face into bored lines and sauntered out of the kitchen. He’d expected Zack, but he hadn’t expected Rachel. Nick felt a heat that was embarrassment and something more try to creep up into his cheeks.

Zack peeled off his jacket, hoping he had a firm grip on his temper. “I guess you’ve got a good reason why you skipped out this afternoon.”

“I wanted some air.” Nick pulled out a cigarette, struck a match. “There a law against it?”

“We had an agreement,” Zack said evenly. “You were supposed to check with me before you went out, and tell me your plans.”

“No, man. You had an agreement. Last I looked it was a free country and people could go for a walk when they felt like it.” He gestured toward Rachel. “You bring the lawyer to sue me, or what?”

“Listen, kid—”

“I’m not a kid,” Nick shot back. “You came and went as you damn well pleased when you were my age.”

“I wasn’t a thief at your age.” Incensed, Zack took two steps forward. Rachel snagged his arm.

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