Speak Easy Speak Danger Read online

  Also by Sharon Clark:

  Tears Don’t Become Me

  Into the Mist

  A Majestic Affair

  THE CHAOS SERIES

  Chaos Beneath the Moonbeams

  The Magic Found In Chaos

  THE SPEAKEASY SERIES

  Speak Easy, Speak Love

  Speak Easy, Speak Danger

  Sharon G. Clark

  Yellow Rose Books

  by Regal Crest

  Copyright © 2020 by Sharon G. Clark

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The characters, incidents and dialogue herein are fictional and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-61929-434-9

  eISBN 978-1-61929-435-6

  First Printing 2020

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Original cover design by AcornGraphics

  Published by:

  Regal Crest Enterprises

  Find us on the World Wide Web at

  http://www.regalcrest.biz

  Published in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, my fabulous editors, Patty Schramm and Mary Hettel; and, thank you Regal Crest for allowing the opportunities provided to me and my imagination, which can’t stick to a single genre. And, thank you, to Ann McMan for always providing wonderful covers for my books.

  Dedication

  To my amazing son, Jeremy, and wife Cassy for giving me two

  beautiful granddaughters,

  Keira Nicole and Alexia Haylee-Jean.

  Prologue

  October 1922

  “That’s enough. You may desist.”

  One overenthusiastic fellow managed a last booted kick to Nicholas’s lower back. A good thing he already lay on the floor or Nicholas would surely have fallen when the two men abruptly released him and stepped back. Their brutal assault was thorough. Nicholas doubted any spot on his body had escaped the pounding, but he’d reached the point where pain throbbed in piercing steadiness that made isolating the worst of the aches impossible. Nicholas felt rather than saw Blanche’s approach and heard the rustle of paper. He forced an eye to open by a bare slit, focused on the daintily clad, too large, foot of his former lover Blanche Bowman. At least he assumed the beating marked their breakup.

  “This should cover it.” Her voice sounded coolly detached as if they hadn’t shared an intimate relationship. “Remember, no one is to hear of this because it didn’t happen.”

  “What about him, miss?” asked a deep voice. “Want us to chuck him somewhere?”

  “Thank you for your concern, but Nicholas and I have a few more things to discuss before he leaves.” The overloud slam of the door marked the zealous departure of the hired thugs. Nicholas tried to focus on the slippered foot, which hadn’t moved away. Blanche had yet to utter a word.

  Well, if they were to have a chat before he left tonight, Nicholas refused to do so curled up and laying in his blood on the floor. The slow movement to obtain a seated position brought stabs of pain, some sharp, some dull. Silent but for the wheeze of his breathing, Nicholas finally regained his feet, focused with the only eye not completely swollen shut, on the blonde woman before him. Nicholas resorted to the defensive mechanism that stayed him through many rough or uncomfortable times. “So, I guess our courtship is over?”

  An expression of rage and disgust flushed her face before Blanche said, “It should never have been. If I hadn’t wanted this matter to remain private, I’d have told those goons the truth. I can’t believe I let you—” She stopped with the grinding clamp of her teeth.

  Nicholas winced as he pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and carefully wiped the blood that dripped from his mangled face. It would be days before he’d be able to see and breathe properly. “Let me what, Blanche? Never let me provide orgasms leaving you crying out my name in pleasure. Make you whimper and moan when I caressed you?” Her horrified expression told Nicholas she remembered how she’d reacted during their lovemaking. He took an unsteady step forward. “I love you, Blanche. Please, don’t let this little matter erase the fact.”

  “Little matter?” she said. Her mouth moved in the silent imitation of a beached fish gasping for air.

  “We love each other, which is why I told you the truth. No secrets between us, as relationships should be conducted.” Nicholas took a hesitant step toward her. “Did you not profess your love for me? I would do anything to make you happy, to prove I am worthy of your returned love.”

  Blanche burst into hysterical laughter. “You think I meant it?” She snickered. “You were merely a means to piss off Daddy.”

  “But—” Nicholas’s heart broke, the pain more excruciating than the beating.

  Blanche continued her tirade. “I settled on you because you’re easy to look at and chivalrous to a fault. Unlike other available suitors, you didn’t paw at me with awkward, rough hands.”

  Nicholas stared at her in confusion. Had there been signs he’d missed, signs she hadn’t returned his affection? Blanche’s responses toward him had always felt genuine. “Then why let me bed you?”

  The question seemed to sober Blanche. She stepped away to the sideboard, which held numerous crystal decanters of various colored liquids. Blanche selected the brandy, splashed a generous amount in a glass intended for liquor that required ice or soda water. She downed the entire contents before she turned around to glare at him. Her once beautiful blue eyes cold, calculated, and resembled shards of ice. “I was curious.”

  “Curious?”

  “Yes. I wondered if your overly polite manners followed into the bedroom. Which is why I only did it in the dark.”

  Nicholas’s emotional pain built into a rage that effectively overshadowed the physical pain. He hadn’t realized Blanche was a slow learner as it took more than once for satisfying curiosity. “And what did you learn?” he asked.

  Unaware of the shift in Nicholas’s emotions, Blanche rolled her eyes, her tone laced with boredom. “You were tolerable and easy enough to manipulate with a few sappy words of praise.”

  Nicholas stopped mere inches from Blanche, smiled as best he could through swollen, split, and bloody lips. He stared into her eyes, close enough to note when Blanche realized she lost control of the situation, the fear replaced sarcasm. “You used me as a game piece to piss off your father.” He took a barely discernible step forward. “You professed to have feelings for me, which you never meant.” Closer. “You knew I loved you, would do anything for you. Hell, honey, I can even forgive and forget this beating. Just tell me you love me. Tell me all that’s come before is due to your shock from hearing my confession of the truth. Tell me—”

  “That you disgust me, and I can never live with your secret?” She snickered again. “That your touch didn’t inspire a pity fucking? I should get those men back here to teach you a proper lesson.”

  Nicholas’s rage, like a fire, hit the level where heat burned cold. Before consciously aware of doing so, Nicholas had a hand around Blanche’s throat, his grip tightened, tightened more. “Trust me on this, Blanche. Your thugs can’t teach me anything new. There’s nothing their Neanderthal minds can come up with that hasn’t already been done to me, physically or emotionally, by my own father.” He squeezed. “You had my heart and my soul. I would have moved heaven and earth to please you.” His grip continued to tighten as he brought his face so close to hers that he could see her panic reflected in the ice-blue depths.


  Face flushed, nails clawing at the already damaged flesh of his hand, she gasped, “I…can’t…breathe.”

  “Why should you be allowed to?” Nicholas barely registered when her body slackened, wedged between him and the sideboard, the only thing holding her up. He placed gentle kisses on her face. Tears burned the torn flesh of his face before Nicholas realized they were his own. “Why, Blanche? Why did you have to be like everyone else who professed, or supposed to by blood, love me? Why did you crush the love I presented you beneath your beautiful heeled foot?” Blanche didn’t respond.

  A moment ticked by before Nicholas realized she had yet to respond. Nicholas guided her unconscious form to the floor and slowly released her. He took a step back. Pain and panic consumed him, worried Blanche might never respond again—to anyone. Without another glance, Nicholas used every ounce of stealth his tortured body could expend and snuck out through the back of the house.

  Chapter One

  Pueblo, Colorado, April 1924

  Fiona Cavanaugh bolted upright with a cry lodged in her throat, her nightclothes plastered to her skin from the sweat drenching her. With trembling hands Fiona swiped damp locks from her forehead and gently shifted the covers off to the side, careful not to disturb Margaret, soundly sleeping beside her.

  She dressed quietly, then made her way downstairs. In the kitchen, she put the percolator on the stove and sat at the kitchen table. Her body felt the exhaustion from the nightmare—memories—returned to haunt her sleep the last couple of months, usually accompanied by pounding headaches. She wouldn’t be able to keep the ailments from Margaret for much longer. What Fiona couldn’t let her wife know was the new and frightening addition to the headaches.

  Fiona was going blind. The first time it happened, Fiona brushed it off as a fluke occurrence due to working too hard in the workshop. Serious harm could have come to her if Jo hadn’t worked alongside her, she knew. Her greatest fear, though, was how she could protect and support her family if she couldn’t run her business. Someone was breaking into homes in the city, the female owners killed if at home, presumably so the thief could maintain anonymity.

  When the percolator finished its job, Fiona retrieved a china cup from the cupboard and poured herself a cup of coffee. She walked to the sink, gazed out the window at the first hints of dawn, and took a couple of restorative sips.

  She’d fought so hard to leave Boston and its gangsters and those wanting to be gangsters. She’d uprooted Margaret, Brigid, and Sunny and kept them all in one piece. Now they safely lived a new life in Pueblo, Colorado.

  She smiled at the old name, Sunny, given to her by Fiona when she tried to earn the young girl’s trust. Sunny had grown into a beautiful woman and now went by her middle name, Josephine—shortened to Jo.

  Fiona knew she couldn’t lose her livelihood. These women were her family through the bond of shared support and love. So much love. Her duty was to protect and provide for them. To give back all the strength their love gave Fiona, which buoyed her above her self-doubts. She feared, as had happened with Jimmy Bennett, she’d fail to stop danger from harming them.

  She shivered at the memory. Fiona filled the sink with hot water and soap flakes, prepared to wash up the dessert dishes from last night. It had been Friday night, the night all four provided updates from the week and made plans for the next. It was a habit formed when they first moved from Boston to assure each had what they needed, shared the positives and the negatives for the emotional support to move forward or find closure, and their version of girl time.

  Fiona ignored the pounding ache in her head as it increased, as she shoved her hands into the soapy water. She knew what was coming. She washed her cup, placed it on the drying board, and returned her hands into the water for the next dish. Then, eyes fully opened, darkness descended.

  Josephine Cavanaugh WAS excited about the day’s activities to come. She would introduce Tessa Langford, the town’s new seamstress—a woman who resided in Jo’s heart from the first moment they met—to her family. Her feelings for Tessa proved love at first sight could truly exist. A simple thought of Tessa invoked an uncontrolled smile to Jo’s mouth. The euphoria she rode quickly dashed when she stepped into the kitchen and saw her sister, Fiona, bent over the sink.

  “What’s wrong?” Jo asked as she rushed to Fiona’s side. Fiona wasn’t her sister by blood, the dark brown hair, caramel-colored eyes, and skin tanned from hours in the sun differed from her own curly-blonde hair and light-blue eyes. Fiona’s wife, Margaret, had the appropriate papers prepared for Jo when they lived in Boston. Fiona saved Jo, born Thelma Josephine Winton, from a fate worse than death, at least to Jo. Her parents sold her for drug money to an aspiring gangster, Margaret’s brother, for his whorehouse. That was a little over four years ago, at the age of fourteen.

  A single tear trailed down Fiona’s cheek. “It’s happening again.” The words so soft, Jo barely heard them.

  “You’re eyesight?” She placed a hand on Fiona’s back. “How long has it been?”

  Fiona gave a shaky sigh. “I don’t know exactly, but long enough for the dishwater to grow cold.”

  Jo looked down, saw Fiona’s hands submerged in the water, and pulled them into her own. She released one hand long enough to grab the dishtowel from the counter and gently dry Fiona’s water-wrinkled hands. “Guess it’s been a while. I should have been in here to help sooner. I’m sorry, Fiona.”

  “Hey, stop it.” Her voice still soft, but the tone reflected Fiona’s sternness. She raised a hand and awkwardly fumbled toward Jo’s cheek. The chilled, pruned skin of Fiona’s fingers also lessened the severity of the demand.

  “Your fingers feel weird.”

  “Guess I could have pulled them from the water sooner.”

  “Well, you didn’t pull them out at all,” Jo said. She smiled broadly so Fiona would feel the expression on her face. Fiona looked so weary. This strange illness took a toll physically, emotionally, and wearing her to a frazzle. “You realize this could be marking the time where I start the journey of saving you after all the care you’ve given me.”

  Fiona gave a derisive sniff. “You make it sound like you’ve been a burden, and I’ve done so much for you. Not close. You’ve had your normal teenage angst, but I wouldn’t have missed a moment of having you in my life. You know that, right?”

  Jo pulled her into a hug. “The feeling is entirely mutual.” She leaned back, tucked a lock of Fiona’s dark brown hair behind an ear, and asked, “Are the headaches getting worse, too?”

  With a nod, then wince, Fiona said, “Yes.”

  “Fiona.”

  “Yeah, I know. I can’t keep this from Margaret much longer. It’s just—”

  Movement and the sound of heeled steps from the doorway stopped Fiona as Margaret entered the kitchen. “Can’t keep what from me much longer?” Margaret gave Fiona a quick kiss on her lips, “Morning, honey.” She turned to grab a coffee cup from the drying board and went to the stove where the percolator sat.

  Jo steered Fiona toward the table, guided her into a chair, and placed a hand on Fiona’s shoulder. The partial truth would keep the wrath of Margaret at bay—for now. “Fiona’s worried about ruining the outing with her migraine.”

  Margaret sat at the table beside Fiona, placed a hand on her thigh. “Fiona, this can’t be good, having them as frequently as they’ve been.” Margaret looked away from Fiona and focused on her cup. “Your nightmares have returned and become worse recently, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fiona said. Then her face paled. “Have I hurt you?”

  “Oh, honey, no. Even if you had, I know it’s not intentional.”

  Fiona bit her bottom lip, and Jo could tell she was upset with the thought of harming Margaret in any way, no matter how minor or unintended. “That means I have or come close already.”

  “What it means is we need to consider doing something about getting you better. Maybe Jo can rearrange her pla
ns, ask Tessa to come here.” Much as Jo wanted them to meet the new seamstress, Jo wanted Fiona’s ideas and help with some work Tessa had hired Jo to complete for her shop. The job would be the first carpentry project Jo would take, which didn’t specifically come through the Cavanaugh Sister’s Crafts business. No matter the significance, Jo knew Fiona shouldn’t push herself, so she tended to agree with Margaret.

  “It can’t be healthy for you to have so many headaches,” Margaret said.

  If Margaret only knew, Jo thought. Fiona reached up and squeezed the hand Jo rested on her shoulder, silent indication her sight returned to her. “Quit worrying. I just needed a minute to get myself collected. I’ll get breakfast going, and then we can get ourselves to town.”

  Fiona started to rise, but Jo increased the pressure on her shoulder. “I’ll do breakfast,” she said.

  “Oh, no, you will not, brat,” Brigid said as she entered the kitchen. “I’d like to be well and calm when Nicholas and the Walters’ come by to pick me up.”

  With feigned indignation, Jo asked, “What are you implying, Cousin?”

  Brigid was twelve years older than Jo, which didn’t stop them from acting like siblings closer in age. She was also four years older than Fiona and Margaret. Age wasn’t an important factor when deferring to Fiona, even for the Friday family meetings.

  “I’m not implying anything, squirt, but stating a known fact. Besides, when you get done the cooking—” Brigid raised a hand to forestall Jo’s intended objection, “I know, it’s not intentional, but the food is nearly unrecognizable. Cooking is not a task for everyone.” Brigid smiled and tapped a hand on Jo’s cheek. “You handle the building tools, and I’ll handle the kitchen tools.”