Covert Cowboy. Harper Allen

your family for support.”

      She shook her head in sharp negation. “That night in my office never would have happened if you hadn’t been a stranger. Right now wouldn’t be happening—I couldn’t go to anyone in my family about how I provided the opportunity for Tony to get his hands on that virus.”

      She frowned, wondering how she could make him understand. It was important that he understand, she realized in faint surprise. She didn’t know why, but it was.

      “My father divorced my mother and remarried when I was just a little girl,” she said slowly. “He insisted on retaining custody of Josh, and didn’t contest it when Mother decided to move back to Boston with me. I was only five years old and I adored my father, so instead of blaming him I blamed his new wife. I decided she’d been the one who’d persuaded him he didn’t need me anymore.”

      “That’s Celia Langworthy?” Con’s gaze was shadowed. “I remember reading her name in one of the police reports.”

      “Celia Grace Langworthy.” Marilyn tried to keep the censure from her voice. “I don’t think I’ll ever fully forgive her. Who knows, my parents might have gotten back together again if she hadn’t come along.”

      She shrugged. “I’m not a little girl anymore and I’ve even come to see that she makes my father happier than my mother ever did, but I still can’t feel close to the woman. She’s an ex-southern belle type—fussy and fluttery. And I guess I’ve always felt it would be disloyal to Mother to forget that Celia replaced her. So I became an outsider in my own family, never feeling I could be myself with them, always knowing there was a barrier between us. Now I almost prefer it that way.”

      “I’d better stay a stranger, then.” A corner of his mouth lifted in wry appraisal. “If we’re going to be working together and living in the same building for the next little while, I’d like the barriers to stay down.”

      “Living in the same building?”

      “I’ve taken the loft upstairs on a short lease,” Con said offhandedly. “I like what you’ve done with your place better, especially that mobile. Who’s the artist?”

      She was beginning to know the way the man operated, Marilyn thought. He was a master at distraction, not only when he was performing some baffling piece of sleight-of-hand, but in any conversational confrontation, too. Except this time she wasn’t going to allow herself to be distracted.

      “A local. The LoDo area’s an artistic haven,” she said firmly. “Which as a new resident you might find interesting, Ducharme. Why did you sublet the Dickenson’s loft?”

      “I needed a base of operations for while I was in Denver. I wanted that base to be near you.” He fixed her with the same steady gaze as before, but this time she instinctively felt he was telling her the truth. “DeMarco isn’t a cute movie gangster, sugar. He’s the real deal, and as cold-blooded as they come. From the moment you became pregnant with his nephew’s baby you were in danger, because that made you the link between him and the Langworthys—and if he finds out that Corso’s theft from Mills & Grommett’s been discovered, he’ll want to sever that link.”

      His grip on her shoulders tightened. “DeMarco took one person away from me. I won’t give him the chance to do it a second time, cher’.”