as a sign of any dangerous emotion. But, just as a precaution, he rewound it and laid it aside.
Of course, she had no intention of working with him. None whatever. But Dallas had the solution to that. Not that it was something he wanted to do. She’d call him conniving, blow that baseball cap right off the top of her head. No choice about it.
Swinging around in his chair, he reached for the telephone on his desk.
CHRISTY WAS grabbing a quick breakfast in her apartment the next morning when Denise hollered to her from the office below.
“Girlfriend, you up there?”
Bowl of corn flakes in hand, she went to the top of the stairs. “I’m here. What is it?”
Denise stood at the bottom of the flight, hands planted on her ample hips. “You got you a surprise waiting down here. Want me to send it on up, or are you comin’ down?”
“A delivery?”
“Uh, sorta.”
“I’ll be right down.”
What now? she wondered, not certain that she cared for the ambiguous tone in Denise’s voice. Spooning up the last mouthful of corn flakes, she dumped the bowl in the sink, snatched up her bag and flew down the stairs. As it turned out, straight into the outstretched arms of Denise’s surprise.
“Pop!”
Christy was the only member of her family who shared her father’s diminutive height. But what Casey Hawke lacked in size, he made up for in strength. She was reminded of that when he folded her in a hug that crushed her shoulder bag into her ribs.
When she was finally released, he demanded, “How are you, baby?” And before she could answer him, he turned to Denise. “How is she, Denise?”
“Got herself a case.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
How had he heard? What was he doing here? “Pop, what are you doing here?”
“On my way to help Roark with a client,” he said, referring to one of Christy’s brothers. “Didn’t your mother mention that when you called?”
Had she? Christy didn’t think so, but she kind of remembered Moura starting to tell her something about her father when she had to hang up on her. “Pop, this isn’t San Antonio.”
“Right, but I couldn’t get a direct flight.”
#8220;So you’re just here between planes?”
“That’s all.”
“Uh-oh,” Denise mumbled ominously.
Christy didn’t think she trusted her father’s explanation either. “Have you had breakfast?”
“On the flight down. I could stand to stretch my legs though, before I grab a cab back to the airport.”
He wanted to talk. He could have done that over the phone. This was beginning to sound more serious by the moment. “Let’s go, Pop.”
They left the office and crossed the courtyard, passing in the carriageway the side window of St. Leger’s Antiques. Her friend, Alistair St. Leger, was arranging a display of snuff boxes and waved to her. Out on the street, carriages conducted tourists through the Quarter, and around Jackson Square, where Christy and her father ended up strolling, street artists set up their wares for the day. It was Christy’s adopted city and she loved it all, even its seedier aspects, but her father’s presence had her fearing she might be forced to say goodbye to it.
“All right, Pop, let’s have it.”
He wasn’t gentle with her about it. Where business was concerned, he never was. “Your lease on the office comes up for renewal in ten days. We’re not going to pick it up, Christy. The agency can’t afford to carry you anymore.”
She stopped and turned her head to look at him. He had dark hair, liberally streaked with gray and a pair of blue eyes that at the moment were uncompromising. Beloved daughter or not, he was shutting her down. He was the senior member of the Hawke Detective Agency, who got tough whenever it was necessary. It was how Hawke’s had been able to survive and prosper all these years.
Christy understood that even while she hated it.
“I’m sorry, baby. Maybe you just weren’t meant to be a P.I. Anyway, it isn’t as though you don’t have a career waiting for you.”
Teaching. He meant she could come back home and go into the classroom. Never. Not without a fight. “Pop, I have a case. Let me solve it. Let me prove to you that I am a good P.I.”
She started to tell him about it, but he held up his hand. “I know all about Glenn Hollister and what you’re trying to do for him. I heard it last night.”
Christy had another bad feeling. Very bad. “How? Who?”
“Our competitor, Dallas McFarland, phoned me.”
“Why, that sneaky, low-down excuse for a—”
“Calm down, baby, and hear me out. McFarland had a proposition. Yes, I know. He already offered it to you and you turned it down. Well, I don’t share your biases about the man. I listened to it and in the end, your mother and I decided it made good sense. McFarland is a seasoned investigator and it’s going to take that kind of successful track record to save Glenn Hollister.”
“Oh, Pop,” she pleaded, “don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
But he did. “Look, your mother and I agree that you have the kind of talent necessary to be a P.I. What you don’t have is the know-how that comes either from experience or learning, and since you weren’t willing to leave New Orleans to come home to us for that training—Anyway, here’s the deal. You join forces with McFarland, who’ll be kind of a mentor to you on this case and if before the ten days are up, the two of you, working together, have cracked the thing…well, then maybe Hawke’s will be interested, after all, in picking up that lease for you.”
“But that’s blackmail!” Dallas McFarland’s rotten blackmail. And why, why was he going to these extreme lengths to get her?
“Yes, baby, it kind of is. But you need a success and McFarland has what it takes to help you get it. Besides…”
A sly smile had appeared at the corners of her father’s mouth. “What?” she demanded.
“You might get close enough to learn just how he’s managed to steal all those clients from us.”
Yes, she thought, there was that.
“What do you say, baby?”
Christy drew a slow, deep breath meant to steady herself. But with that breath came all the tantalizing aromas of New Orleans—the tang of the nearby river, the perfume of its flowers, the old, mossy smells of its damp earth, the odors of its famous cooking. They were all blended together on the warm, lazy air, and they made her ache inside, as did the sight of St. Louis Cathedral rising so majestically from the edge of the square
