Detective Defender

“Someone knows, Martine. And they’re coming after us.”

Martine Broussard has never forgotten the terrible night years ago that drove her and her best friends apart. Now a vengeful someone is brutally killing each woman involved. Martine has one chance at survival—and that’s the one person she distrusts most! And the passion flaring between them is anything but safe...

Rule-breaking New Orleans detective Jimmy DiBiase wastes no time putting Martine under his 24/7 personal protection. His bad-boy ways caused them to fall out years ago; now all he wants is to guard her and end this nightmare. With every lead they follow, every secret they can’t hide sparks a hunger neither can resist—even as a killer’s vicious end game turns desire into a devastating trap.

“You’re always welcome in my bed, Martine. I made that clear a long time ago.”

“What are you committed to, Jimmy?” Martine’s voice was barely a whisper, and the sound was shaky, like her legs that didn’t want to support her, like her fingers that trembled when they cupped his hand where it rested on her cheek.

Jimmy moved closer, kissed a trail to her ear, then glided down to the corner of her lips. He toyed with her, teasing her lips apart, briefly tasting her, giving her a taste of him, before he lifted his head and met her gaze. His was fiercely protective and possessive and hot.

“You, Tine,” he answered gruffly. “I’m committed to you...”

Dear Reader,

The heroine in this book, Martine Broussard, first appeared in my 1999 release, Murphy’s Law. Best friend of that book’s heroine and owner of a voodoo shop that catered to both tourists and serious practitioners, Martine captured a few hearts besides my own. Dedicated readers periodically asked for her story over the years, and I wanted to give it to them. I just didn’t have a hero for her.

Then, after more than fifteen years of waiting, in walked Jimmy DiBiase. Martine knew Jimmy from a very short-lived and unhappily ended relationship years ago, and she didn’t remember him the least bit fondly. But underneath all that hostility—okay, yes, there was more hostility, along with aggravation and annoyance and irritation. But underneath that, Martine’s little heart squeed just about every time Jimmy came around.

That was when I knew Martine and I both had our guy. Add a few murders, a little voodoo, secrets and threats from the past—and, of course, some of New Orleans’s incredible food—and, as they say down there, Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the good times roll.

Marilyn

Detective Defender

Marilyn Pappano

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Oklahoma, dogs, beaches, books, family and friends: these are a few of MARILYN PAPPANO’s favorite things. She lives in imaginary worlds where she reigns supreme (at least, she does when the characters cooperate) and no matter how wrong things go, she can always set them right. It’s her husband’s job to keep her grounded in the real world, which makes him her very favorite thing.

For the people who have loved New Orleans with me:

Dale Meg Susan

And for the special cops in my life:

Brandon and Robert

I love you all!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

It was a strange winter. The sky hung heavy and gray, the clouds so dense that the sun hadn’t managed to break through in days. Damp cold drifted through the French Quarter streets, spreading its chill with each bit of ground it covered. Martine Broussard had lived her entire life in southern Louisiana, and she couldn’t recall any winter that been so relentlessly bleak for so shamelessly long.

Tugging her jacket tighter, she regretted not taking a few moments to run up the stairs from her shop to get a heavier coat before striking out for the river, but Paulina had been so insistent on the phone. You have to come now. I really have to talk to you, Tine.

When a ghost from your past broke twenty-four years of silence with both fear and anger in her voice, what could you do besides go now?

No one sat on the benches in Jackson Square or lounged on the grass, a rare emptiness that was as strange as the chill. The walkways along the four sides saw a bit more traffic, but people seemed eager to go from one place to another. Like them, Martine didn’t linger but lengthened her stride instead. It was only a handful of blocks from her shop on Royal Street, and the walk to the river normally took ten minutes or so as she strolled and dawdled and exchanged hellos with fellow Quarter residents. This afternoon she cut the travel time in half, jogging across Decatur, crossing the trolley tracks, reaching the Moonwalk in record time. It was even colder here by the river, but that wasn’t what caused the prickling of her nerves.

It was the sudden absolute sense of...wrong. This weather was wrong. The phone call from Paulina was wrong. The panic in her voice was wrong. The queasiness in Martine’s gut was wrong. It was a normal Tuesday in a normal week in a normal January in a normal French Quarter, and the uneasiness, the nervousness, the weirdness, were all wrong.