“Right.” Her heart thudded at being caught out—again!—and Cath pushed her hands into her pockets in an effort to look casual. She doubted anything could redeem the mess she’d made of this tour, but she would go down fighting. “Jean Lafitte. He was the privateer who helped Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. You know who Andrew Jackson was?”
The child nodded. Beside the boy, Mitch put his hand back on his sleeve, and her stomach pitched with a sudden realization. No question now why he’d joined her tour. He wanted revenge. She gripped the four-leaf clover at her throat. “There’s another f-famous h-haunted house this way.”
She strode ahead, intent on ignoring him, but Mitch caught up and leaned close. “Don’t be nervous, Cath.”
He knew her name! She pressed fingers to her mouth.
That pseudo-smile returned, lifting one corner of his to-die-for mouth. “I looked up your website.”
And wanted to flatter her. She stiffened and kept walking. “I know what you’re trying to do, Mitch Guidry. Let me save you some trouble. I don’t have a good side, so you can stop looking for one.”
“Never.” He leaned closer, his warm breath caressing her neck.
She shivered. “You think stubbornness is a virtue?”
“Winston Churchill did.”
“Here’s the scoop. We are not fighting World War II.” She checked to be sure her group still straggled far enough back before facing Mitch, chiseled features, broad shoulders and all. She needed to know the worst. “I guess you took Les to jail then?”
Give me more than a one-word answer.
“Not yet.” His jaw could have been carved in marble.
Wow, two words. Not yet, she repeated to herself. Not yet. Her heart leaped. Les had escaped and he was pretty good at surviving, even with his severe hearing loss.
The blue-and-white letter tiles in the sidewalk at her feet spelled “Bourbon Street,” the symbol of New Orleans. The city sprawled in all directions, even crossing the river. Her brother could be anywhere. She had to find him. Help him. She’d promised her mother she’d always look after him.
First, she had to give her customers their money’s worth. Next, she’d get rid of this blasted bounty hunter. She couldn’t let Mitch get even an inkling of her plans, the specifics of which remained a mystery.
She didn’t have a clue where to start.
Yet.
Chapter 3
Mitch leaned a hand against one of the old-fashioned lampposts scattered across the French Quarter, drumming the fingers of the other against his hip. Was it his imagination or did the ghost-tour guide intentionally linger with her customers as long as possible? In the hope he would get bored and leave?
That was so not going to happen.
His mission was to produce one fricking fugitive.
Within seven days. Even less time if his brothers deemed him incompetent and took over.
At the hospital, Hal had urged him to make friends with this woman and gain her trust. Then she’d spill what she knew. How was that going to work, anyway?
She’d thought he’d hurt her brother. Worse than that, the kid had a hearing loss, like his oldest brother, Kurt. Mitch rubbed the twinge in his chest, wishing he’d known this ahead of time. Not that he could have handled Hurley differently.
Mitch hadn’t known about his own brother’s hearing loss in time to make a difference. Hurley had likely adjusted to his disability the same as Kurt now, but Mitch wanted to be the one to find this woman’s brother. Before the police. Before anyone who didn’t understand.
In some way, that might make up for his not being around for Kurt.
If Cath really was his fugitive’s sister, she would protect him to her dying breath. She could still unsuspectingly reveal the guy’s habits and usual haunts. Mitch just had to stick to her like the straps on his cargo pants.
Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink from the cold. Fog beading in her hair turned the strands a darker bay color, and he itched to smooth back those plastered to her face. The pixies decorating the pages of the storybook his mom used to read him could have been modeled on Cath. She had the requisite slim ankles and slender legs, legs he easily imagined wrapping around his hips.
She laughed at something a customer said, the throaty sound skating over his raw nerves. Mitch exposed the face of his watch. Her chat session had been going on sixteen minutes now. Added onto the length of the tour, he’d already wasted two hours and forty-nine minutes.
The last of her tourists finally left in the direction of the French Market coffee and doughnuts stand. Mitch straightened, but the woman in white walked away without a backward glance. No wave. No “good night.” No nothing.
“Wait.” His voice carried loud enough for her to hear, but she only sped up. In another second, she’d disappear into the fog like one of the ghosts she channeled. “Hey, wait a minute.”
He jogged past her and spun around, watching for a feint to right or left. Instead, she slammed into his chest. His protective vest cushioned the impact, but she hit hard enough for everything inside him to jostle to a halt. He caught her arms, and the softness of her skin caused his heart to hiccup.
“You okay?” Touching her only made his mission harder. Stop then.
Mitch dropped his hands but remained close in case she stumbled. Who did he think he was fooling? He simply wanted to stand close.
Her cheeks darkened. Why was Cath Hurley blushing? “That’s the end of this tour, Mr. Guidry.”
“I gathered as much. Cath.” He couldn’t let her file him in the Forget folder. Not after all the attention she’d been giving him during her tour. If nothing else, the incident with their brothers bound them together.
“If you’d like to book another tour, Crescent City Haunts has a cemetery visit tomorrow.” She gestured for him to move aside.
“I can call your office again if I want a recording.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh, not budging.
“I’m merely stating a fact.” She stepped off the curb to go around him. “We do have a cemetery tour tomorrow as well as a repeat of tonight’s.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” He needed to stay cool. Not pick a fight.
She halted to stare at him. “Well.” She gulped and sidled two steps. “In that case, I don’t know how I can help you.”
Mitch eased the same distance, hooking his thumbs in his belt in the most nonthreatening gesture he could think of. On Ranger missions, he always let teammates interrogate an enemy for intel. If anyone fell under the hostile label, this slender nymph of a woman did.