by S. Ann Cole
“Because fighting for your country doesn’t mean your country’ll fight for you in return.”
How sad. Another neglected, homeless veteran. “That’s nice of you,” I say. “Giving her a place to live.”
“In exchange for yard maintenance.”
I drag my finger along the glass of the door. “Why don’t you have a pool in your backyard?”
A pause, then something clatters. “Let’s go.”
I turn from the doors. He’s dusting his hands on his jeans. “Go where?”
“Gonna drop you off at Barefoot Runaway.”
I lean back against the door and pop another tomato in my mouth. “No, thanks.”
“You—”
“Yeah, I know, I know. I ‘agreed to the terms.’ But, well...” I shrug. “I don’t feel like it right now.”
One eyebrow kicks up. “You don’t feel like it?”
“No, I don’t feel like it,” I repeat, holding his gaze.
“But you do feel like annoying the shit out of me down here?”
I smile widely. “Yes.”
He plants one hand to the table in an intimidating stance, prepared to take me on. “Well, I don’t like that.”
“What would you like then, Sir Miserable?”
“To continue what I’m doing in peace and quiet.”
“Do you have kids?” I ask around another tomato.
He watches me like he doesn’t know what to do with me. Good. “Pretty sure you’ve already snooped around my house,” he says. “You seen anything that indicates that I do?”
“No. Just wondering,” I reply. “I don’t recommend you have any, though. You’d make a terrible father.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he mutters as he resumes his task.
I turn to the door again, sliding it open a little more so I can step out. “I’m gonna say hi to Jo.”
He grumbles inaudibly, and I smile to myself. If he insists on being a grumpy jerk, then I’m going to have fun being a pain in his ass. Because, well, I’ve got nothing better to do with my time these days.
I trek across the green yard toward the log-house, the sun warm against my skin, the blue and white sky above me like a lid keeping me trapped inside this globe. Too bad I no longer know how to appreciate great weather. Rain, sun, snow… makes no difference anymore.
Jo watches me with thick, furrowed brows as I climb the steps to her porch, invading her quiet time. Now that I’m up close...uh, yeah, even with boobs, she still looks like a man. A handsome, robust, middle-aged man.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Lyra.”
She rests her book face-down on her lap. “Jo.”
Beautiful feminine voice.
I plop down in the Adirondack chair next to hers. “I’m gonna be staying with you for a couple of weeks.”
“With me?”
I grin around a tomato. “Torin said you wouldn’t mind.”
She chuffs. “Did he now.”
I hold the bowl out to her. “Cherry tomato?”
Her gaze dips to the bowl, then up to me again. “You’re just eating a bowl of tomatoes? Just like that?”
“Yeah. You want some?”
One corner of her mouth tips up, and she plucks one from the bowl, examines it, then pops it into her mouth.
I smile at her. “You’re alright, Jo. Can’t say the same for Mr. Irritable over there.”
“You must be special,” Jo says. “Ain’t ever seen him bring a woman here before.”
“I am special,” I agree. “He just doesn’t seem to realize it yet.”
She examines me for a beat. “Ah, I see. You’re a job.”
I nod. “Yeah, Madame Universe has decided she doesn’t like me anymore and has been trying to eject me from her womb.”
Jo grunts. “That cut under your chin a byproduct of Madame Universe tryin’ to eject you?”
“Yup.” I stuff another tomato in my mouth. “Someone tried to run me over.”
“What did you do?”
“Exist.”
Another grunt. “Well, as long as you’re here, and in this lil’ nook of the neighborhood, you’re safe.”
“So I’m told.” I hold the bowl out to her again and she takes another tomato. “Do you have children, Jo?”
“No.”
“Ever been married?”
“No.” A pregnant pause. “Joined the army at nineteen. Served for as long as they allowed me to. Never built a life. Gave it all to ma’ country.”
“Well, Jo, thank you for your service.”
Only then do I get a lopsided smile. “Was an honor to serve.”
“Do you have any more books inside?” I ask her.
“Depends. What do you read?”
“Thrillers.”
“I’d have pegged you for a romance reader,” Jo says, pushing to her feet, and holy moly she’s huge. Legs like tree trunks. And so, so tall. How is this small log-house enough for her?
“I was,” I admit. “Until real life happened.”
“A thriller happened?”
I bite my lip and nod. “Yeah. A thriller happened.”
She disappears inside, then returns a few minutes later with a stack of books and sets them down on the wooden table between us. “Some of my favorites.”
I set my bowl down and pluck up the first book from the stack. The Girl Before by JP Delaney. There’s always a girl before, isn’t there? I don’t bother to read the synopsis, I just flip it open and start to read.
“I have a five-page rule,” I tell Jo. “Five pages to win me over, or I’m out.”
She snorts. “In that case, get comfortable with that one.”
I lean back in the chair and do just that. And together, in silence, we read.
~
BY THE TIME I manage to slam the book shut, it’s sundown. The story had hooked me and refused to let go.
Jo shares some pickled mangoes with me, and we exchange thoughts about the plot.
The sky is darkening when I finally bid her a good evening and trek back to the house. Torin isn’t in his “workshop” anymore, so I slide the door closed and head upstairs.
I find him in the kitchen cooking. He looks freshly showered; barefoot, in faded jeans and a wife-beater. I hate the things that happen in my body just from looking at him. Gah! He’s just...one really hot bastard. And it makes me so damn mad. I’m supposed to be in anti-men zone right now. So why aren’t my ovaries getting the memo?
“Back so soon?” he asks without even bothering to look up from where he’s chopping parsley.
Soon? I was gone for hours! Choosing to ignore his assholery, I put the empty bowl in the sink and start out of the kitchen.
“Are you all healed?” he asks, stopping me. “From the accident.”
With a gasp of shock, I turn slowly to face him. “Was that an actual solicitous inquiry?”
He glowers at me under his brows.
“Don’t tell me you have a heart, after all,” I say. “I couldn’t bear it.”
A noise reverberates in his throat. “Sorry I asked.”
Too late. I pad back to the kitchen and take up residence on one of the stools at the island. “My ribs took several weeks to heal. So did my fractured arm and broken toe. But...” I rub two fingers under my chin, along the tender raised flesh. “I think this scar is going to be permanent. I guess I should be thankful it’s under my chin and not somewhere more prominent.”
“Good,” is all he says, taking a red sweet pepper to the cutting board.
I prop my elbows on the counter and rest my chin in my hands. “Why don’t you pity me?”
His gaze flicks up to meet mine, brief and blank. “Do you want my pity?”
“Well, no. But a little compassion at least.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Well, yes. But...”
Again, his gaze flicks up to mine. “But?”
I’ve got nothing. Do I want his pity? No. But he could be a little less r
ude.
Though, now that I think about it, I’m starting to wonder if I even have a problem with that. His callousness does make me forget that I’m a victim. He talks to me, handles me, looks at me in the same way I believe he does with everyone. Like I’m normal and nothing traumatic happened to me. No walking on eggshells. No constant solicitousness. No pitiful glances.
Do I want him to start treating me any differently? I don’t know. I think I like that he doesn’t see me as broken, weak, or hapless. His rough, tactless handling of me actually gives me confidence around him, to rise and challenge him. If he’d been all tender-voiced and tiptoeing on eggshells, I’d have let him take me to the B&B to get away from him.
With a dawning sigh, I drop my hands and mumble, “Nothing.”
A thin whisper of something resembling a smile flits across his lips. Jerk.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
He raises a brow at me. “What makes you think I don’t?”
“Jo said you’ve never brought any women here before.”
“Who said I don’t have a bachelor pad somewhere?”
I cross my arms. “Well, why isn’t she vacationing with you?”
“Maybe because she’s not on vacation?”
Twisting my lips to the side, I shake my head. “Nah. I don’t think you have one.”
He shrugs as if to say it doesn’t matter what I think.
“A girlfriend would’ve loosened you up by now. Smoothed out your edges,” I say. “You’re too uptight. Too coarse and surly. A curmudgeon and a borderline misanthrope.”
A grunt leaves him as he turns to transfer the dirty utensils to the sink. “And you think a girlfriend would change all that, huh?”
“The right one, yes.” I pause in thought. “Well, at least that’s what usually happened in the romance novels I used to read.”
“Good thing you stopped reading them, then.”
“But I’m right, though,” I state. “There’s no potential ‘Mrs. Garza’.”
As he gets out a head of romaine lettuce and some spinach from the fridge, he asks, “Why’s that information so important to you?”
“It isn’t,” I say quickly, defensively, feeling my neck heat. I’m fishing and I don’t know why. What do I care if he’s single or not? “I just feel sorry for you is all.”
This time he chuckles, and warmth blooms in my chest because it feels like I’ve just accomplished something huge. I get the feeling this man doesn’t laugh very often.
I slide off the barstool and stretch my arms over my head. “Can you make me a garden salad, please? I like it with—”
“Remember when I asked you if you were fully healed?”
I pause. “Yeah?”
He grabs the cutting board and knife, slaps the romaine lettuce on top of it, then slides them across the island to me.
Son of a bitch.
He’s giving me no breaks. Zero. Zilch.
And you know what? I think I like it.
So, I pick up the knife, and get to work.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Looks pretty damn wholesome to me.”
Torin
I’M ON MY SECOND ROUND OF pull-ups in my home office/gym when my brothers drop in.
“Mornin’,” Trent grunts out.
His twin, True, saunters in behind him with a coffee. “Yo yo yo!”
I jerk my chin up over the pull-up bar and push myself to get in two more reps, then drop back down to the ground. “Why you always gotta be so goddamn loud in the mornings, True?”
True throws out his free hand. “‘Cause it’s a beautiful day to be alive, brother.”
Catching my breath, I grab my towel and dab away the sweat. “Updates?”
Trent leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. “Yeah. Guy was able to pull some street surveillance. Found the car. Ran the plates. They’re fake, of course. Shots we got of the driver just weren’t enough to ID him. But, there’s a neck tattoo of a certain gang in Vegas.”
“Skullaz?” I ask.
“Yup.”
True’s loud slurp of coffee draws our attention to him.
He pauses and glances between the both of us. “What? It’s hot.”
This one is something else, I swear. Complete opposite of his twin.
“Anyway,” Trent continues, “per our deal with the Castellos, we can’t just head up there and do whatever we like without hitting them up first.”
“So call Stefano,” I tell him. “Let them find the fucker and bring him to us.”
“Yeah...” Trent rubs the back of his neck. “I’d rather not. After all that happened with Lexi, I’d sooner have my asshole waxed than go to Stefano for another favor. Would probably end up lodging a bullet in his brain.”
Understandable. I look over at True.
“Nuh-uh,” he says with a vehement shake of his head. “My poor heart is still traumatized from when he blew that chick’s brains out in front of me. He’s a trigger for me right now, and my therapist thinks I should avoid taking on anymore trauma tasks for a while.”
“Therapist? You mean the one you’re seeing only because Tripp bet you that you couldn’t get her to fuck you ‘cause she’s out of your league?”
True grins smugly. “Yeah, I’m still counting my winnings on that one.”
“And at what point did she decide you’re traumatized, before or after she broke the code of ethics?”
“Hey, don’t judge her methods. She’s very professional.” He winks and makes the perfect sign with his fingers. “Five stars. Definitely recommend.”
Full of shit. If this fucker’s “traumatized,” then I’m a pig’s aunt. “So, basically, you came here to get me to hit up Stefano.”
“Yup,” the twins reply in unison.
“Fine.” I throw the towel over my shoulder. “Not like I’m on vacation or anything.”
“Well,” Trent says, “at least we know one thing for sure now.”
I nod. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Skullaz is a motorcycle club in Vegas. Used to be a decent enough biker club, but somewhere along the line it became a front for a kill-for-hire operation. If a member from Skullaz is behind this hit and run, then someone hired him to do it.
Not that I’d doubted Lyra to begin with. That woman is nowhere near paranoid. I don’t even think she fears the danger she’s in. Seems like she’s just going along with everything to appease the people in her life.
I’ve been where she’s at right now. That point where you don’t care if you live or die anymore. And it’s a dangerous place to be.
“How is she?” Trent asks.
“Annoying.” Under my skin. In my head. “Either of you wanna take her off my hands?”
“Lexi and I have a thing,” Trent replies at the same time True says, “I have a therapy session.”
I glare at them both as I grab my water bottle from the treadmill cup-holder. “I’ve made all you motherfuckers rich. The least you could do is show some gratitude and let me have my goddamn vacation in goddamn peace.”
“No offense,” True starts, “but sawing and sanding wood in your basement is kind of pathetic for a vacation. Damn man, after the last couple of jobs you’ve had, you should be in the Caribbean somewhere relaxing with a sweet island honey.”
“Yeah? And how’d you be able to drop in and do shit like this?” I say dryly. “Beg me to do your jobs for you ‘cause you don’t wanna ‘deal’ with your own cousin?”
Wandering around the room, like the restless, ADHD man-child that he is, he cocks his head and thinks about it. “Well, yeah. You’re right. We definitely need you close. Gotta suck to be you, man.”
I glance at Trent and he shakes his head and sighs “Why do I always get ‘the look’ when he’s an ass? He’s your brother too, you know.”
“You’re at least getting laid, right?” True asks, peering out the window.
For fuck’s sake. “True—”
“Whoa. Who’s that?”<
br />
“What?”
“That gorgeous, peach-butt babe doing stretches in your yard.”
Ah. Lyra.
For the week and a half that she’s been here so far, she’s developed somewhat of a routine. Yoga in the side-yard garden in the mornings—which I may or may not watch her do from the perfect view of this office. Afterward, she feeds herself a large smoothie on top of my kitchen island. Then she finds me wherever I am and annoys the ever-loving shit out of me until I threaten to take her to the B&B, which is usually when she leaves me alone and goes to spend the rest of the day with Jo. Then she ends the evening with more yoga in the living room, while I watch from the kitchen, fantasizing, depraved, devious things I shouldn’t. But, I mean, if she’s going to bend and twist like that in front of me…
A curious Trent walks over to the window and looks out with his twin.
He whistles.
“I’m telling Lexi,” I say, feeling inexplicably chafed by them ogling her.
A light chuckle. “Shows how little you know my fiancée. If she was here, she’d be right here whistling along with me. She knows she owns me.”
Neither of them have ever really seen Lyra in person, only videos and profile photos, and none of them have ever been assigned to work with her or Mitch Henderson directly, so I can’t fault their reactions. Plus she looks drastically different now from those videos and photos. A complete knockout. Worst part is, she’s got no fucking clue.
“Yo, Tor, is that offer to babysit her for you still on the table?” True asks.
Trent smacks him on the back of the head.
“Ow!”
Trent reprimands, “You are aware of everything that poor girl’s been through, right?”
Rubbing the back of his head, True lifts a finger. “‘Been through’ being the operative words. AKA survived.” A grin. “I don’t mind nursing her back to happiness and confidence. And...”—he darts another glance out the window—“maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see nothing ‘poor’ about that woman out there. Looks pretty damn wholesome to me. I mean...hot damn.”
With an aggravated sigh, I sit back on the edge of my desk and cross my arms. “If you two are about done, care to fill me in on the Philly job?”
“I thought you didn’t want to be bothered with—”