Her grandmother hadn’t been heartless or indifferent. She’d loved him very much, based on just the first page or two alone. So what had happened? Why the rift?

Belle was willing to bet the answers lay in this book. She slid the one filled with gibberish back in its hiding place and jimmied with the molding until she felt a little groove slide back into a seemingly corresponding tongue. It locked in place easily, as if made for just that purpose.

As she stood to head to the bedroom, she wondered how the strip of decorative wood had come loose like that. It seemed so secure now. And where had the loud bang come from? When she really thought about it, the noise had seemed too close to be the furnace. She’d have to solve that mystery when she wasn’t utterly exhausted.

Sir followed her from the room with a sleepy yawn, and she shrugged away her questions. Since nothing terrible or tragic had happened, did it matter now? She had some reading to do. But not until she washed the sheets on the bed and made sure the house’s many doors and windows were all locked.

As she looked around once more, Belle shook her head. An inch-thick layer of dust, the ancient hot water heater, the peeling wallpaper. Being the owner of a home with so much history and recent neglect was hard work…but at least it might keep her mind off her broken heart.


* * * *


Eric finally managed to get that fucking intern Belle had hired to pick up his phone just as they turned down the narrow, busy street that should lead them to her new home.

Her temporary home.

“Yeah?” Warrington Dash III had an upper-crust name and three judges in his family, which was good for him because Eric was pretty sure the kid had a lot of pot in his system. Without such familial influence, he’d probably be behind bars.

“Sequoia, we’ve been calling you for hours. Why haven’t you been answering the damn phone?”

The kid was all of twenty but had already decided not to go by Warrington, the family name he’d been given. Instead, he’d chosen the name Sequoia in honor of trees or some shit. He was studying to become an environmental lawyer, and that made Eric weep for the planet.

“Dude, I was doing yoga. No phones. It blocks the process. Hey, I could get you in sometime. You three could use some serious introspection.”

They’d have better “process” with another intern. “I need you to handle the calls at the office for a bit. Something’s come up on this trip, and we’re going to be away a few more days.”

Kellan pulled into a parking space and gestured up the street, letting him know they weren’t far from her address. Tate bounded out of the car in an instant.

Eric put a hand over the phone. “Catch him. He’ll run down the street, screaming her name like some Streetcar Named Desire impersonation.” Eric turned his attention back to his call the minute Kell closed the car door. “So I need you to go back to the office and grab the calendar on Belle’s desk.”

“Dude, Belle and I already had this conversation. I’ve already done all of the stuff she told me to do. It’s a total bummer she quit.”

“She did what?”

“Yeah, she called a couple of hours ago and said she wasn’t coming back. Oh, and she faxed her resignation, too. I’m supposed to tell you guys that she found a new home and stuff. Do you think she’s going to want the yogurt in the fridge? I could use that tomorrow because work makes me hungry and it’s the only vegan thing in the office. You guys eat a lot of animal flesh. Do you really think that’s good for you?”

She’d quit—and she’d done it by telling the goddamn intern. She hadn’t even had the courtesy to call them and tender her resignation. “Don’t touch her yogurt. No matter what she told you, she’s coming back.”

He stabbed at his phone to end the call, then hopped out of the car, his heart pounding in his chest. Anger simmered in his veins, mixing with cold panic and encroaching dread.

He jogged up the street, his dress shoes slapping against the concrete, heading for the other two. Kellan had managed to contain Tate, and the two of them stood in front of a three-story house set right against the street with a blue door. In the dark, he thought it might be connected to the little house around the corner, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Belle quit. She called Sequoia and told that pot-smoking fucker she wasn’t coming back,” Eric grated out.

Kellan cursed. “That’s not a good sign. I really expected her to tell me off, then give me the cold shoulder until I groveled.”

And just like this “move,” the fact that she hadn’t more than suggested she really didn’t intend to come back. This wasn’t just a snit. They were about to launch a battle to bring her back…but for the first time, Eric wondered if the war was unwinnable.

Eric stared at the pale stucco house with its bent screen door. It might look a little rundown, but once it had a coat of paint and a few repairs, the place would shine and look like the mansion Belle’s paperwork suggested she’d inherited. In fact, in both location and historical significance, he was looking at pure New Orleans splendor.

Restoring the house would be Belle’s dream project.

“Shit.” Tate stood beside him, shaking his head as he studied the place in the streetlamp lit evening. “She’s never going to want to leave here. We have three bedrooms that she says need paint with ‘personality,’ whatever that means, and a game room she refers to as the man cave. She holds her nose when she walks in there. Do you think that means something?”

“It means you should pick up your damn socks,” Eric groused.

“I’d even be grateful for that,” Kell put in. “But you’ve heard her diatribe about your kitchen. Even if this house needs a lot of work, she’s going to be far more interested in redoing a historic charmer in New Orleans than some suburban abode in Chicago.”

“We’re fucked. Our only saving grace might be that she can’t live here forever. This place is way too big for one person. I looked around for the front door. That guest house behind it is attached, but I didn’t find the main entrance. This isn’t it.” Tate pointed at the little blue door.

Usually, Eric liked to be aware of the problems he faced. This time, the entire conversation just unnerved him.

Kellan studied what they could see of the place. “The taxes will be a killer. I don’t think Belle has a ton of cash, unless that was part of her inheritance.”

“Her grandmother left her some money,” Tate said. “But the amount wasn’t specified in the documents I saw. Those were about the house, but if her grandmother had a lot of money, would the place be in disrepair? Even if Belle sinks her whole bank account into the house, I doubt it will be enough.”

“Before we can worry about the house or her intentions, we need to remember that she ran. Will she even let us in the door, presuming this is it?” Eric hoped there was a hotel nearby with rooms available. Even this late at night, tourists walked up and down the street. They all had to sleep somewhere. He and the guys did too, though he sincerely hoped it would be with Belle.

He scanned the exterior of Belle’s new house, assessing the modest but colorful door flanked by shutters. The rusted screen door flapped a bit in the breeze. He didn’t see any light from the inside coming through the windows. Was she still awake or had she gone to sleep, blissful that she hadn’t had to talk to them all day?

He’d played through about a hundred scenarios in his head, ranging from Belle running into his arms to the one where she found her inner warrior princess and went medieval on their asses.

Now that he was standing outside her darkened house, he really worried. He wasn’t sure how the hell he would handle it if she told them to go to hell.

“Why are the lights out?” Kellan stepped up to a little carriage-style fixture affixed to the exterior that should have illuminated the area.

“The house hasn’t been lived in for months,” Tate explained. “She’ll be lucky if the power is still on.”

Standing here in front of the place, a chill swept through him, much colder than anything the fall breeze had swept in. Just a couple of yards away, the street was lit, looking bright and elegant, but here, a deep gloom clung.

He glanced around the back of the house, looking for any sign of life. Total darkness. There was a thin alley between Belle’s house on one side and a neighbor’s fence on the other. Just enough for a man to lay in wait. Belle wouldn’t see anyone creeping through her yard. No one from the street would see a thing either.

If they couldn’t persuade her to come back to Chicago with them in the morning, they would so be getting some lights to brighten up the alley and exterior tomorrow. And whether it lacked charm or not, he’d make sure the perimeter had a sturdy fence.

“I don’t like it,” Tate said. “It’s too dangerous. This is just two blocks from that woman’s murder yesterday, the one we heard about on the radio.”

The death of Karen Ehlers had made a huge news splash across New Orleans. It had been all over the radio as they’d driven into town. The fifty-nine-year-old socialite had been discovered in her New Orleans mansion, strangled by unknown intruders.

She’d been one of the toasts of the city, known for her philanthropy and love of her home town. Turned out that she’d also been known for something else.

“Belle’s not a hooker,” Eric reminded him.

“She won’t be turning tricks for strange men so that will reduce her odds of being strangled significantly,” Tate added. “That’s true.”

The big guy hadn’t factored him in. Eric was still really mad. And yeah, he hadn’t done the best job of letting Belle know that he would treasure her virginity. Not as bad as Kell, but even so…she shouldn’t have run off.