“Figlio di puttana!” Johnny cursed, grabbing the paper from Dale. He tore through it, reading the letter before I could make out more than the Carelli letterhead on the top of the page. “You have some brass fucking balls,” he told Dale, standing inches from him. Angelo held Johnny back.
I grabbed Dale’s arm, though it wasn’t necessary. The SEAL didn’t move, did little more than watch Johnny, his expression unimpressed, a little bored as my boss glared at him.
To the director, David, Johnny snapped, “Take an hour, get the crew sorted. I’m going to have a conversation with my father,” before he and Angelo left.
Dale watched them leave, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“He’s not happy.”
“He’s not the only dang one.” I pulled Dale’s attention away from Johnny and down at me. The half smile fell from his face.
“Listen…Gin…” He at least had sense enough to look ashamed.
“You can save it.” I waved off any explanation he might have had. I headed back into the apartment and away from my former best friend. The skeleton crew focused on the work outside since there would be no rain today and the temperatures would be mild. I’d set up a small design studio in what would be the dining room while Jess, the designer I’d hired to help focus my ideas, came up with sketches, finalized the plans for the next few weeks’ shoots. That was where I intended to hide from Dale, hoping he’d get the hint and leave me alone.
He knew my temper.
He knew when I needed my space, but it seemed a year apart had done something to Dale and his memory of what I needed and when I needed those things.
The bastard followed right behind me. “I didn’t traipse halfway across the damn country to see you just so you could tell me to fuck off and hide out in…”
“Fuck off.” I threw a middle finger over my shoulder as I bypassed one of the producers in the living room.
“That any way to talk to one of your crew?” He sounded like an asshole with that small, teasing laugh in his tone.
I stopped near the kitchen to turn and glare at him. “You are not, not, not a member of this crew.”
“Carelli’s daddy seems to think I am.”
“What did you do?” I watched him.
Dale wasn’t friendly. He didn’t get along with other people. He wasn’t all that charming.
So how the hell did he manage to slink his way on to Johnny’s pet project without anyone knowing?
I hated how handsome he was. Hated more that he likely knew just how damn handsome he was. He was likely betting that I was still attracted to him to get on my good side. But I didn’t think I had a good side anymore.
My good side probably died a good year ago.
“What?” He moved close, stretching a hand to brush back the bangs from my eyes.
“Oh my God,” I said, the realization coming to me suddenly. I swatted at his touch. “You got Kiel to talk to his father-in-law.”
The asshole shrugged with a cocky grin. “I took a bullet for him.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“In fact, Gingerbread…”
“Do not call me that.”
He didn’t pause but twisted his mouth to press his lips together before he spoke. “Took a bullet for you, too.”
“That’s not saying much. You’d take a bullet for anyone,” I told him, ignoring the small grunt in his voice I knew was forced.
Dale didn’t beg. He didn’t do sympathy, but if he wanted to get his way, he wasn’t past reminding you of favors he’d done for you. Leave it to that asshole to remind me of the night I’d spent a year trying to forget. Still, him taking a bullet didn’t carry much weight, and we both knew it. I turned toward him when I reached the dining room table.
His shades were hanging from the collar of his Navy tee as Dale’s eyes narrowed for a second like he needed a small pause to squint at me. He gave me a once-over to see if I was messing with him before he shook his head. “Well, that fucking stings.”
“Please. It’s written into your DNA.” I suppressed the small twinge of guilt I felt at insulting him. “It’s in the training.”
“Three-hour surgery.” He looked down for a second before he stared at me again, not the least bit contrary or ashamed that he seemed to be milking the I’ve-been-shot sob story a full year after it happened.
I matched his pathetic attempt with one of my own. “Two-night bender on my sofa.”
Dale went quiet then. He seemed surprised by my dig over the weekend he’d been kicked out of every dive bar in Seattle because Trudy had left him for some asshole. Dale wanted to drink away reality, and I let him finish the job on my sofa.
“Fair enough.” His tone held less bite, but I knew he wasn’t finished comparing wounds that had been inflicted on him. “But you did leave without saying goodbye.” He flattened his mouth into a line, like just the memory of my exit from Seattle was a personal insult despite the fact that we weren’t speaking at the time.
When I cocked my eyebrow at him, thinking of the last time I left, after the wedding, Dale’s jaw clenched, and the muscles in his neck flexed.
“Twice,” he muttered.
I couldn’t deny that, much as I wanted to.
“And all I want is a chance to say I’m sorry. I just want a chance to make amends.” He didn’t ease the tension in his face. He didn’t relax at all, so that rugged swagger that always had him looking scary and fierce intensified. It was hard for him to beg. He never did that. “If I’m desperate enough to crawl into bed with a criminal and ask his daddy for a job, don’t you think that means I’m desperate to get my best friend to talk to me again?”
He was. Very desperate.
I only wanted one explanation from him.
Just one.
After all this time, the fact that he’d gone all stupid and sweet over his ex-wife didn’t bother me so much anymore. I just wanted him to acknowledge what he said to me before he got shot.
I needed to hear the words.
But Dale was a stubborn man.
When he didn’t want to do something, he didn’t. It seemed to me, for whatever his reasons, things needed to be slow. He couldn’t jump in with explanations and promises he might not be ready to make.
I could wait. But I wouldn’t wait for long.
“Fine, but not here.”
He nodded but didn’t smile.
“There’s a diner around the corner from my hotel called Dakota’s. On West 57th.”
He nodded again, and the tightness in his face relaxed, though he didn’t smile. Dale never smiled outright.
“And don’t think just because I’m agreeing that I’m not pissed you’re here or that I won’t make you work for a living.”
“You ever see me not work hard?”
“Never.”
“Then give me a job.”
“Joe Gates is up on the roof, laying tar.” I smiled, not meaning it in the least when Dale flared his nostrils.
He hated tar work. That much I knew from all the times he’d set Asher on the job when we’d come across a building or two in need of it back in Seattle. Seems things hadn’t changed, but Dale didn’t seem inclined to complain.
I moved several manila folders around, not looking at Dale when I spoke. “It’s dirty, filthy work, but you can do it. I know you can.”
“I’ll get up there.”
He walked away, and I couldn’t help but watch him. He had swagger. No doubt about that. And an ass that filled out those Levi’s perfectly, but my view got interrupted. I tried to pretend like I hadn’t been caught staring when Dale abruptly stopped, glancing over his shoulder at me and called my name just a few feet from the door.
“Hey, Gingerbread? This suits you.”
“What does?” I pretended again to be interested in the folder in my hands.
Dale nodded to the apartment, moving his head to the materials and fabric lining the window seat. “All this…you…being the center of attention.” He sm
iled, shooting a wink my way I couldn’t pretend not to feel in the pit of my stomach. “It suits you.”
9
Dale
Johnny Carelli liked to pretend he ran things.
Maybe he did.
But from the meeting I’d had with his father, I understood a little better who was in charge.
The old man was just that, damn old. But when I sat down in front of him, I felt stupid and awkward, explaining that I wanted on Johnny’s new crew to get back into Gin’s good graces. The old man simply watched me.
No noise. No expression. No emotion.
Just cold, calculating eyes looking right through me as he watched me, getting the measure of me as he thought of things he didn’t seem inclined to share.
That shit suited me fine. But it took all my reserves of willpower not to tell the old bastard to speak up or cut me loose.
Until, finally, he did.
“My son-in-law says you were in the Navy.”
“Yes, sir.” The “sir” felt like dirt on my tongue. I knew the measure of this old man. I knew who and what he was. I knew the business he was in. Didn’t much care to be asking someone like him for favors, but for Gin, I’d do just about anything. “SEALs. Twelve years.”
His eyebrows went up then, and that confession got his attention. Turned out Old Man Carelli had been stationed in Vietnam back in ’72. He’d seen real action. He’d been on the ground, in foxholes and blazing temperatures, shoulder to shoulder with his brothers, bleeding and half dying alongside them.
Gotta respect that level of service.
He seemed to respect my honesty.
“My son fancies himself a businessman,” he’d said, picking a grape from a bowl on the cart next to his chair. “He forgets the business our family has always been in. He forgets it’s not for the faint of heart.” Carelli leaned forward, his expression serious, cold. “He forgets we cannot bring the innocent into this world, and you, my friend, and your woman are innocent.”
That had landed me the gig. I guessed Old Man Carelli didn’t buy his son’s belief that the show would take off. He didn’t believe him when the asshole thought he could take Gin wherever she wanted to go, even if that meant his bed.
Next to me, Joe Gates slopped a last section of the roof with tar, and I finished the front. It was stinky, grimy work, nothing worse than I’d done before. Grunt work, to be sure, but Gin seemed to need her distance.
I spotted her as she moved below us. She pointed to a line of raised vegetable beds on the patio. Carelli stood next to her, hands deep in his pockets as the director, David, I think I heard Joe call him, motioned to the beds.
“What do you make of them?” I asked Joe.
The guy stood next to me, stopping to stretch his back and drop the mop next to the tar bucket. “Who?”
“Carelli and the woman.”
“The redhead?”
I nodded.
Joe shrugged, moving his head over the roof ledge to get a better look. “They’re not fucking. If they were, that guy would be touching her, stroking her back, or holding on to her waist, doing something to let every other asshole on the crew know she’s taken.”
My gut turned at just the mention of Gin and Carelli together. At just the idea that Gates had probably put thoughts of Gin naked into his head at all, but I shook off the whip of anger I felt. Wouldn’t do me any good to piss anyone off first day on the job. That shit would get me nowhere closer to earning her forgiveness.
The day had been a good five degrees hotter than it should have been, and the black tar reflecting the sun made it a hundred times worse. Joe had four empty bottles of water lying next to him. He was tall and had a good fifteen years on me, with brown skin and thin hair. He sat on the roof edge, wiping his face with a damp red bandana, pulling on a half-empty bottle of water as I offered him what I had left in my thermos. Least I could do was share what I had. My thermos was cold, still sweating. I’d bet it was more satisfying than what he’d been sipping on for the past half hour.
“You been on the crew this whole time?”
“Why you asking?” He eyed me like he wanted to know my angle before he answered me or took the water I offered.
“I got my reasons.” I grabbed his empty bottle when he dropped it. He watched me closely as I filled it from my thermos, like he wasn’t sure what I was playing at, giving him most of my cold water.
Down below, Gin turned away from David, looking up at Carelli as he spoke to her. I caught her profile—still fucking beautiful. Perfect. Out of reach.
I blinked, the vibration of my cell pulling my attention away from Gin as I dug in my pocket to silence the call.
“All I know is Carelli is the money guy and spares no expense.” Joe finally took the water I offered him. “Whatever she wants, we get. That was the rule from jump. She wants marble, we get marble. She wants cedar for the raised beds, we get cedar and not treated pine. She wants organic plants, we get organic. Either that asshole wants to impress some studio with high-dollar shit, or he wants to fuck her.” He stood, and I rubbed my eyes to distract myself from the truth Joe spoke and I already knew. He stood next to me stretching again as he looked down at the crew below. “I ain’t never seen no man spend this much cash on pussy he ain’t had.” When I jerked my gaze to him, Joe lifted his hand, his gapped-tooth grin white and wide like he’d guessed why I’d asked about Gin and Carelli and my reaction had confirmed it. I’d been caught and didn’t bother making an excuse. “Hell, man, it’s clear enough. The way you act around her, the way you look at her, the way she looks back at you, I’d swear you’d had her before.”
“Get the fuck out of here.” I knocked off the man’s hand when he slapped my shoulder, ignoring how loud he laughed at me when I shot him the bird.
“I just call ’em like I see ’em.”
Joe’s laugh carried behind him as he walked toward the exit. I went on ignoring him. He didn’t know what he was talking about. I wouldn’t be likely to forget ever being with Gin. That was just not something that slipped a man’s memory. Not with a woman like Gin.
She was remarkable. I’d always known that. Everyone had. There were things about her I’d noticed even when I shouldn’t have. Even when I’d belonged to someone else.
Like that night back in Tacoma, just a few weeks before Trudy left me. Gin had her accusations. Truth was, I had my own suspicions, but I wouldn’t let my mind go that way.
It had been our first real fight.
Two weeks later, I’d crawled back to her. I’d begged her to forgive me because she was my only real friend in the world, but the bullshit had started at Lucky’s with her warning me of things she’d seen.
Gin had motioned the bartender for another shot of Jack. When the man finished pouring our glasses, she grabbed the neck of the bottle, throwing her Visa on the bar. “Leave it.”
“Hell,” I’d whispered, tugging off my jacket to lean against the bar.
She’d asked to meet me as we’d left the set, something Gin never did. She had a routine, and Tuesday nights and Lucky’s weren’t part of it. Tuesday nights usually meant she’d be with her neighbor Madison at some kickboxing class downtown.
Not here on this side of the city.
Not drinking Jack straight from the bottle.
We downed two shots between us before she seemed ready to speak. By the time that happened, her face had gone pink in the cheeks, and her wide eyes glistened like wet glass. She wasn’t drunk. I’d seen how much Jack it took to get this woman sauced, and two shots wouldn’t come close to it. But Gin seemed determined and, yeah, maybe a little anxious.
“Thing is,” she finally said, rolling the empty shot glass between her fingers, attention on the bar as she spoke. Then the redhead inhaled, blowing out a breath as she looked over at me. “You and me, we’re good. Friendly. I like that. I can say stuff to you, and I know you won’t laugh at me.”
“’Course not.” It was true, but she didn’t need me trying to convinc
e her of that fact.
“You don’t bullshit with me and, again, I like that. I like people who are honest.” She sat up, abandoning the glass to swing her legs around, resting on her elbow. “I don’t think it would be a stretch to say we’re friends. Maybe even good friends.”
“I don’t disagree with that, Gingerbread.”
Her mouth lifted up at the corner, and her body relaxed. “Good…that’s… I’m glad you think that way.”
When she directed her gaze back down to the bottle on the bar and reached for it, I caught the shake in her fingers. How that tremble made her grip on the Jack unsteady, and I took it from her. “Why don’t you relax and tell me what’s got you fussed?”
She watched the whiskey as I filled each of our glasses, and then her eyes were on me.
I felt the shift of tension, how she looked over my profile. Hard to miss when a woman like Gin looked at you that way. Hard to miss it, no matter who you are. She knew I was married. She knew I didn’t run around on my woman. Ever.
And she wasn’t the sort to try to tempt a man from what he had. She never flirted. She never looked long at me with any real intention. If she did, those looks got lost behind blinks or jokes or things she’d never take further.
But there was something in the way she said my name. In the things she did for me. How she listened, really listened, something I’d never felt with any of my friends, not even with Trudy, that had me thinking Gin was in a box with no label. I didn’t have one for her, and sometimes that mixed me up. Sometimes, for no reason at all, that made me feel guilty.
Right then, Gin was looking me over like there was something she wanted from me that she’d damn sure never ask for. For the first time since I’d met her, for the smallest second, I wondered what it would be like to push off this stool, take hold of my good friend Gin’s face and kiss her like a man kisses a woman who is above labels.
Christ, I bet it’d be sweeter than honey and burn better than the first shot of Jack all the way down.
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