2

Mickey Ross was not a happy man.

He’d just come off a two-day stakeout and had the rumpled suit and unshaven chin to prove it. He was tired. He was cranky. And he wasn’t home in bed having that dream where the cover girl for Sports Illustrated was rubbing sun tan lotion onto his back.

He looked at where he didn’t want to be, but the waiting area of the New Orleans International Airport didn’t fade to something more pleasing. Nor did the stuffed pig dangling at the end of his arm vanish into the nightmare realm where it belonged.

Mickey glared down at it. Bad enough for a cop to be keeping company with any pig, but this pig, well, if it’s lurid pink and purple surface was any indication, it had never been a beauty. Time had rubbed away the fluff from its surface and left one sorry black eye hanging by a single thread over the patchy remains of a black grin on its square snout. Its tattered ensemble began and ended with a limp ribbon knotted around a fat neck.

In an effort to distance himself from his ratty companion, Mickey held it by the tatty end of the ribbon and twirled it with more than a hint of vindictiveness.

In between twirls, he pondered the unkind fate that had landed him in this fix. If Eddie hadn’t decided to end sixty years of bachelorhood, he wouldn’t be waiting for a damn flower girl for the damn wedding, with only a stuffed pig for an introduction. Who flew in a little girl for a geriatric wedding anyway? New Orleans was full of little girls who’d probably love tossing petals. But no, they had to import one, then pick a total stranger to collect her—with an obnoxious pig as the icebreaker. Convenient that Eddie had discovered pressing business in Mandeville tonight.

The least he could have done was warn him about the old ladies. How could his own uncle send him into battle, into that minefield of weirdness, without even a warning? A minefield that had kept going off in his face no matter what he did, a horror—except for the one small oasis of sanity known as Miss Gracie, who had saved him from the stuffed dragon, but not the pig.

He just wished he knew where Eddie’s Unabelle—was that a name to make a guy flinch—fit in with the Seymours. She didn’t seem to be a relative. She was just...there, like a black hole. He sure hoped the lights were on in her upper story for Eddie or he’d learn there were worse things than a lonely retirement.

A stir at the gate quickly became arrival as passengers filtered off the plane. With the end in sight, Mickey straightened in hope.

That’s when it occurred to his weary brain that a stuffed pig might be a less than adequate introduction to the kid. What had possessed the parents to entrust their kid to the uncertain care of three batty old ladies? He studied each small, whining arrival, wondering which one was his. A security guard loomed up on one side and he had to produce his badge.

The case against Eddie just kept building.

A woman emerged from the breezeway and paused to get her bearings. Mickey straightened in an utter and complete moment-of-silence respect for the best legs he’d ever been privileged to lay eyes upon. The cop part of him was vaguely aware she was in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, almost of a height with him and the possessor of a slender build. Her hair was dark and cut short around a face made interesting by its square jaw and straight dark brows. Mouth was nice, too. Full and lush and lined in red.

He left off admiring her legs to contemplate her mouth, but his attention was drawn lower again when the legs went into motion. Brief appearances by her thighs, between the slash of her dark skirt, had him tugging at a too-tight tie. It took him a few seconds to realize that she’d stopped right in front of him.

With extreme reluctance, he dragged his gaze back to eye level. Her head was angled, her gaze directed toward the pig with a seriousness it didn’t deserve. Just for a moment, something in the angle of her jaw had him wondering if he’d met her, but he dismissed the notion. A guy couldn’t forget those legs.

His gaze drifted down again, but he flashed back to attention when she stepped closer, her nose bare inches from his, her lashes lifting with lust-building slowness to reveal emerald green depths.

His tie tightened to near strangulation level, but he couldn’t move, let alone do something about it. Green eyes were always trouble for him. Too bad proximity and hormones took the edge off caution. If his partner, Delaney, were here, he’d recognize the signs of Mickey on the verge of falling in lust again. But Delaney wasn’t here. The lucky bastard was in bed.

Carpe diem. Mickey knew his smile was his best opening gambit and produced it with practiced ease. “Hello.”

Luci studied the smile, recognized the confidence and the intent behind it. She’d met smiles like this one. Smiles that were confident of their charm. Smiles that expected weak knees and a cessation of rational thought. It was fortunate she had a built-in immune system to charming smiles and didn’t ever do rational thought. It went with being a Seymour, though her knees, just for a moment, signaled a willingness to depart from the norm. She reminded herself she was the result of a departure from the norm and said, “That’s my pig.”

This deviation from the opening pass widened his admittedly wonderful blue eyes and erased the smile. Luci took a moment to admire those eyes while the struggle to understand played in them.

“Your—pig?” he managed.

His voice was also wonderful, despite a certain strangled quality. Husky, it had a nice mix of bass and baritone. Confusion gave him a little boy aura to which even a Seymour couldn’t be immune. Perhaps it was a side effect of her non-Seymour parentage. According to her mother—when her mother could be persuaded to talk about Luci’s paternity—there were several annoying things she’d picked up from her father. It was, in fact, a moment of rare, though limited, openness about that paternity that had prompted her visit to New Orleans. The wedding was the perfect excuse, since she wasn’t ready to admit to her family that she was father hunting.

The telegram from Boudreaux, her aunts’ handyman, had provided assurance that they did understand she was coming, but no surprise it had been sparse on details, which explained the pig. Only her aunts would have kept it, remembered it and produced it in lieu of identification. She studied it with remembered fondness, noted the tightening ribbon, and looked up to tell him, “You’re choking it.”

Mickey gave this comment the lack of attention it deserved. “I don’t think—”

Her straight brows rose in surprise. “Then it’s time you started.”

“But—” He shook his head, trying to punch through tired to comprehension. “This can’t be your pig. You’re not a little girl!”

“I used to be. But I grew up.”

Her punctuating smile invited him to move on. The slow widening of her straight red mouth launched a feeling not unlike the plunge of a roller coaster. He wanted to move on. He did, but—

“Your aunts—” Mickey tried again, faint but pursuing.

“—probably liked the way the pig looked with your gun.”

He clapped his hand over his weapon. “I’m a cop.”

Luci had already figured that out, but she attempted to look enlightened. It wouldn’t do to drive him to violence when he had the hardware to do something about it. She smiled. “A cop. Who’s not afraid to pack a pig. I like that.” She held out her hand. “I promise I am Luci Seymour.”

Mickey took her hand. He didn’t shake it. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare into her green gaze as want did a quick crawl up his midsection. “Ross. Mickey Ross.”

“Ross. That would put you on the bridegroom’s side of the church.” Her smile was pleased-to-meet-him, but the fluorescent lighting and her drooping lids turned her eyes bedroom soft.

“Eddie’s my uncle,” Mickey admitted through a dry throat.

Assessment entered her gaze, which then did an unnerving up and down.

“What?” he asked, trying not to sound as defensive as he felt, since it wasn’t exactly PC to object to something he routinely did.

“Ever since I got the invitation, I’ve been wondering what kind of man would marry Unabelle. Are you and Eddie—”

“No! We’re not at all alike. In any way. Except we’re both cops. But that’s it.” Unbidden, the image of his uncle’s fiancée rose in his mind. Faint. Indistinct, but somehow there.

“I guess that answers my next question.”

“What?”

“Has Unabelle changed?” Her eyes sparked with amusement. “I can’t wait to see her again.”

Mickey shuddered. “Yes,” he said positively, “you can.”

Her smile was insistent. Mickey had to smile back. It was almost a moral imperative.

A PA announcement crackled. She stepped back at the same time he did. Mickey gestured down the terminal. “Uh, we need to go this way.”

“Sure.” With an agreeable air, she turned. As she passed, men turned to stare. Some ran into pillars.

Mickey loosened his tie, gave a silent whistle of appreciation, then started after her, the pig bouncing unnoticed against his leg.

Fern was tense as the Yugo they’d lifted passed at the legal speed limit through the arrival underpass of the airport. It was a grim place. Way too many cops around, and the thick humid air stank of gasoline fumes and something Fern couldn’t identify but made her think of lingering death. She just wished it didn’t make her think of her own.

“Pull in there,” Donald directed.

He pointed to an empty space against the curb. She did as he asked with a sigh of relief at the respite from driving the unfamiliar car. It might have been a mistake to steal foreign, she admitted to herself, though she wasn’t ready to admit it to Donald. Not only was the interior of the Yugo cramped, but the pedals were so small she was having trouble hitting them with her orthopedic shoes. The controls were opposite what she was used to and labeled with tiny, blurred symbols.

She reviewed her gear shift changes, in between keeping an uneasy eye on the two police officers aiding an attractive blonde who had locked her keys in her car. Only a shuttle bus and a couple of cabs loitered in the area. They were exposed, she noted, but Donald was too busy getting his rocks off on his new toy to notice.

She had a bad feeling about this.

“So, how are you related to Unabelle?” Mickey asked, breaking a silence that had ruled for most of the length of the terminal.

Luci looked at him, brows lifting in surprise. “I’m not. She’s one of the aunts’ debs.”

“Debs?” Mickey looked, a puzzled frown putting tiny lines between his well-defined brows.

“Debutantes.” She waited a moment, but understanding still didn’t make an appearance. “Didn’t you know they’re matchmakers?”

“Matchmakers?” He stopped. “For real?”

“For real. For years.” Luci grinned. “They specialize in the...hard-to-launch young ladies. And back it up with a guarantee.”

“Guarantee?” Comprehension was beginning to break in his eyes, like little blue sparks. Very attractive blue sparks.

“They don’t quit until the deb is walking down the aisle. No matter how long it takes.” She hesitated, to smooth the giggles out of her voice. “Unabelle’s been...a challenge. That’s why she’s the last debutante.”

Mickey didn’t try to hold back his chuckle. “How long—”

“Long as I can remember. That’s one reason I had to come and see who—” Her laughter-rich voice made his pulse thunder and the quick flash of her mischievous gaze was a minor lightning strike to his already eager libido.

Mickey tugged at his tie again, this time undoing the knot and the top button of his white shirt. It didn’t help. He lengthened his stride, forcing Luci to recalibrate hers to keep up. That didn’t help either. What he needed was a cold shower. A long cold shower—which just plain wasn’t possible in the doggiest of the dog days of August.

“And,” he said as he swallowed dryly. “Your other reason?”

“Reason?”

Luci’s eyes widened in surprise and a hint of alarm, activating Mickey’s cop instincts. It was almost as good as a cold shower. If gasoline could almost put out a fire.

“You came to the wedding?” he prompted.

Luci’s lashes swept down like a lady’s fan. “It’s been a long time and I was feeling nostalgic.”

He wasn’t buying but was too polite to do more than look skeptical as he turned her toward the baggage claim sign.

As they descended via escalator, Luci studied Mickey. Pretty enough to be a calendar pin-up, he was lean, with shoulders just the right amount of broad, and a body just the right height to create symmetry. His cleanly-honed face was both reassuring and dangerous. The shadow of beard was sexy on his obviously stubborn chin, though she suspected the growth wasn’t a calculated effect but a temporary setback. The crisp cut of his light brown hair hinted at a clean-cut personality, and his tired blue eyes suggested he’d just come off a long stint of something—which probably explained the touch of irritability. Though even the strong and the well rested had tough going in the Seymour zone.

She stole another peek and got caught. He tugged at his now wildly askew tie.

“What?” Another flare of irritation erased the weary in his eyes.

“Excuse me?” She arched one brow, punctuating the question with another admiring perusal of his assets. Red crept out from under his chin and up his face. Dang, the boy was cute.

“Nothing.” He stopped by the luggage carousel and looked at the jumble of people and bags. He was too tired to do the bellboy thing if she had more than one bag. “Here comes the bags. Should I get a cart-”

“Why don’t we wait until we see if my stuff made it. My luggage likes to take side trips to Raratonga or Katmandu.”

“Okay.” He watched a bag circle, then said, “If it does come—”

“Well, will you look at that. There they are!”

Mickey was starting to suspect that she didn’t react to things the way normal people did. Her sincere delight at the sight of her luggage attracted almost as much attention as the pig and her legs. And did she have to bend over the luggage like it was lost children just found?

An unease filtered through tired and lust with distant words of caution. Green eyes, great legs and, a very nice ass—she was presenting it, so he took a good look before going to get a cart—were a temptation with a capital “T.” But trouble started with a “T,” too. If he had any doubts about the wisdom of steering clear, he had only to think of her aunts.

Insanity did run in families. No question it was running amok in hers.

“Donald.” Fern grabbed Donald’s arm and pointed as Luci Seymour came out the doors, walking next to a luggage cart. Perched on the two suitcases was a large pig, made lurid by the artificial light. She shuddered. “Someone should put that thing out of its misery.”

Donald compared reality to the photo Artie gave them. “Someone is going to.”