Fearless Love

by Meg Benjamin

  MG didn’t know where to begin in responding to that particular statement. Should she go after Aunt Nedda for calling her grandfather a fool or for thinking her grandmother’s life wasn’t worth the cost of trying to save it. She folded her arms across her chest and worked on saying nothing at all.

  “’Course he came to me when he decided to mortgage what was left,” Nedda continued, turning her laser gaze back to MG. “I gave him a good deal. Better than one of those downtown banks would’ve done.”

  MG nodded. “I know what the terms are. I’m paying you every month.”

  “Never could pay it off though.” Aunt Nedda’s lips turned up slightly in another mocking smile. “Don’t even think he paid off the interest. And then he missed that payment when he was in the hospital. Farm doesn’t produce enough to make a dent. Sooner or later, the place will come to me anyway. You sell now, you could save yourself some cash.”

  “Is there anything else you wanted, Aunt Nedda?” MG said between her teeth.

  “Just came by to see if you were ready to sell out. I guess you’re not. Yet.”

  MG shook her head. “Nope.”

  “You call me when you are. Don’t wait too long, though. I might not be interested a couple months from now. By then you may have defaulted on the loan and I’ll have it anyway.” She nodded brusquely. “Be seeing you.”

  Not if I have anything to do with it. MG watched her great-aunt stride back toward her Lincoln, remembering her grandfather’s assessment. Still got the first dime she ever made. And she don’t know anymore what to do with it now than she did fifty years ago. What she did with it, apparently, was hold on until the dime shrieked for mercy. Just like everybody else within fifty feet of Nedda Carmody.

  Which didn’t really make the whole thing feel any better. She sighed. She really hoped Joe was planning on dropping by. Otherwise, she’d probably end up going to the Rose and snarling at Darcy or going into Konigsburg for a beer. Trust Nedda Carmody to take what had been a really great day and turn it right around.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Fortunately for MG’s sanity, Joe came by shortly after her great-aunt left. They spent the rest of the day wrangling chickens, eating some really great food he’d lifted from the brunch and making love. A lot of making love, as it turned out.

  After a while, she even felt comfortable enough to break out the Martin. She sat cross-legged on the back porch, strumming chords and feeling suddenly shy about doing anything else.

  “Sing for me,” Joe said, running a finger down the side of her throat.

  “What do you want to hear?”

  He shrugged. “You’re a songwriter. Play me something of yours.”

  She smiled, unreasonably pleased that he’d asked, then blew out a breath, thinking. “Travelin’ On” was one of her best songs, but it didn’t feel right for a lazy Sunday afternoon. After a moment, she segued into “The Right Guy.” It was still rough—she hadn’t gone back to clean up the lyrics yet. But the music was solid. And, of course, it had a certain amount of personal significance.

  When she’d finished, he smiled again. “Thank you,” he said. “I liked that.”

  She felt self-conscious all of a sudden. “Wonder if the chickens ate the vegetable peels?”

  Joe’s grin turned dry. “You want to go see?”

  “Not particularly.” She leaned back in her seat. “I think I want to make the chicken yard bigger, maybe give them some grass to scratch.”

  “Just means adding more fence. No big deal. Buy some wire and I can help you do it next weekend.”

  Next weekend. She blinked, realizing suddenly that she hadn’t been thinking further than today. They were going to have a next weekend. Somehow she managed not to lapse into an idiot grin, but it was close. “Okay, thanks.”

  “No problem.” He gave her one of those slow grins, and she slid the Martin back in its case.

  “What do you say we put the chickens back in the yard and then go back inside?”

  He looked up at her through those ridiculously long eyelashes. “Does that involve fooling around?”

  “What do you think?”

  He pushed himself to his feet. “I think those chickens are going back inside the yard in record time.”

  Monday was errands—laundry, groceries, gas. She priced wire and fence posts at the hardware store, feeling another little jolt of delight at the thought that Joe was going to help her fix her chicken yard.

  On Tuesday morning she showed up in the kitchen at her usual six o’clock, carrying an extra large basket of eggs since it included Sunday’s and Monday’s production, along with whatever the hens had already done for Tuesday. Joe gave her a slightly absent smile and disappeared, eggs in hand. Darcy tossed her a bag of onions and some fresh chilies for chopping.

  MG sighed. So much for Cinderella at the ball. Back to the cinders again.

  It was a normal day. That much she was sure of when she went over it later. Nothing was out of the ordinary. She chopped, she diced, she put away supplies, she fetched and carried ingredients for Leo and Jorge and Darcy. She dodged Fishhead and stayed out of Fairley’s way. Nothing she hadn’t already done a hundred times by then.

  Which is why she was taken completely by surprise when Fairley appeared in front of the counter where she was chopping celery for dinner. She glanced up at him and stopped—she’d never seen him looking so grim before.

  “Put the knife down,” he snapped. “Come with me.”

  She stepped around the counter, frowning as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Come with you where?”

  He took hold of her upper arm, jerking her along beside him as he stalked toward the hall.

  She heard footsteps on the concrete floor. “What the hell are you doing, Fairley? MG’s got stuff to do. And she’s my assistant, not yours.” Darcy’s voice came from behind them.

  Fairley didn’t even glance back, which struck MG as particularly ominous. “This has nothing to do with you,” he snarled, “stay out of it.”

  Darcy’s footsteps faded as he towed MG down the hall. He knocked twice on Joe’s office door, then opened it.

  Joe glanced up, annoyed. “What?” When he saw her, his eyes widened. “What’s going on, Fairley?”

  Fairley pushed her forward, then dropped a tote bag on Joe’s desk. Her tote bag, MG suddenly realized. The one she’d put in the staff room this morning when she’d picked up her apron. She hadn’t noticed he was carrying it until now.

  Fairley turned toward her. “Is that yours?” he said abruptly.

  MG nodded. “Yeah. I left it in the staff room. Why?”

  Fairley reached inside the bag and lifted out two bottles of wine, placing them upright on Joe’s desk. “What were you going to do with these? Drink them? Or maybe sell them? That would be the smart choice.”

  She stared at the bottles, shaking her head. “I didn’t…I’ve never seen those before. I don’t even like wine.”

  He turned to Joe. “That’s a Ca’rome, barolo 2007, three hundred on the wine list. The other one’s a Silver Oak, Cabernet 2004, three hundred fifty.” He turned back to MG. “You’ve got good taste, I’ll say that for you. Of course, you’re also a thief.”

  It occurred to MG that it really was possible for your blood to freeze. She’d never felt so cold at the same time her cheeks were on fire. She also didn’t seem to be able to get any coherent words out of her mouth. “I…I…”

  Joe held up his hand, glancing at her briefly, then looked back at Fairley. “How did you happen to find these?”

  “I’ve been monitoring the staff room ever since the incident with the balsamic vinegar.” He gave MG another withering look. “Particularly her stuff. I found this bag hidden behind some boxes of detergent in the closet. I assume she was going to pick it up and smuggle it out when she got off work today.”

  MG finally found her voice. “That tote bag was with my egg basket when I left it in the staff room this morning. It’s what I carry my shoes in so
that I can change when I get here.” She glanced down at her running shoes, which she only wore to run around the kitchen these days. “I left it folded in the basket, and I sure as hell didn’t put any wine bottles in it.”

  Fairley gave her a contemptuous smile. “Right. So the wine just jumped into the bag of its own accord.”

  “You son of a bitch…” MG began, but Joe raised his hand again.

  He turned to look at her for the first time. “Go home, MG,” he said quietly. “Just get out of here and go home.”

  She stared at him, trying to see what was happening, but his expression was blank. “Go on,” he repeated. “Get out of here.”

  A pain started somewhere in her chest, and she realized suddenly she hadn’t taken a breath for several seconds. “But…” she whispered.

  Joe stared back at her, implacable.

  For a moment, she considered running out of the room, but only for a moment. Then she raised her head, never dropping her gaze. “You owe me for a half day,” she said flatly. “And the eggs.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked out, pausing only long enough to grab her basket and her shoes from the staff room before she marched down the hall toward the exit. Darcy was standing beside the kitchen door. “What happened?”

  MG shook her head, and ducked out the exit toward her car, still managing not to run somehow. Bastard, bastard, bastard. The words rang in her head, but she wasn’t sure who exactly she was thinking about—Todd Fairley or Joe LeBlanc. Probably both.

  At least she managed not to cry until she was in the driver’s seat, and then she took the drive home at a snail’s pace, trying to watch the road through her tears.

  Joe sat staring at the Silver Oak label. He figured if he kept his attention there, his burning desire to grab Fairley by the throat would pass. The man was still standing opposite him, apparently oblivious to how dangerously close he was to being throttled.

  “I know what you’re going to say—she couldn’t have known which of the bottles was expensive because she doesn’t know wine. But all she’d have to do would be to look at the wine list and check the prices—the wine’s easy to find if you’ve seen the list, the bins are numbered.” Fairley gave him a faintly supercilious smile. “And she could sell it any number of places. Hell, she could even sell it online. Wine’s easy to move.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve been watching her for a while now.”

  So have I, you son of a bitch. Joe managed a shrug. “I’ll take care of it. Go back to the kitchen. You need to make sure they’re handling the last of the lunch crowd.”

  Fairley looked slightly insulted. Joe wasn’t sure what he expected—maybe a medal. “I know you hired her. But we can do better. I can find us an extern who’ll do what she was doing and do it faster and more effectively.”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” Joe narrowed his eyes. “Go on. Now.”

  Fairley turned on his heel and walked out of the office. Joe ran his hands over his face, taking another in a series of deep breaths. He should go to MG’s now. No, he should wait until she’d had a while to cool off and until Fairley wasn’t keeping track of him.

  He should call her. He found her number on the personnel form, then picked up his cell. But when he punched in the number, he got a message about the number not being in service. He tried again and got the same message. “Shit,” he muttered. “Goddamn shit.”

  His office door banged open and for a hopeful moment he thought it might be MG come back to yell at him. But when he looked up, Darcy stood in the doorway, glaring.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she snapped. “Did you fire MG?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “Close the door.”

  “Answer me, goddamn it!” Darcy looked like steam might come out of her ears at any moment.

  “Close the fucking door, Darcy. And then I’ll answer you.” He kept his voice down with considerable effort.

  She half turned and slammed the door shut. “Well? Did you fire MG?”

  “No. I did not fire MG.” He massaged his forehead again.

  “Then why did she go home?”

  “I sent her home. Fairley accused her of stealing some wine.” He sighed, feeling very tired all of a sudden. “I wanted her out of the kitchen for a while until I could take care of some shit.”

  “You wanted…” Darcy leaned forward, resting her hands on the desk. “You goddamned idiot. You fucking know MG’s no thief.”

  Joe gritted his teeth to keep from yelling at her. “Of course I do. That’s why I sent her home. Now would you get the hell out of my office so I can think?” The burning in his gut was rapidly being joined by a pounding headache.

  Darcy straightened, her forehead furrowing. “But…if you know she’s not a thief, then why the hell don’t you just tell Fairley to stuff it? He came back to the kitchen looking like he’d just gotten laid. Or knowing Fairley, like he’d just gotten a bigger toque.”

  “Think about it,” Joe grated. “It’ll come to you.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, frowning. “Fairley’s a thief,” she said finally. “He was trying to throw suspicion on her to divert it from him.”

  “It’s possible. It’s also possible somebody else in the kitchen is stealing. In fact, it’s pretty much certain they are.” He blew out a breath, flexing his fingers out of the fist he’d formed trying not to punch out Fairley. “Fairley may well have tripped over MG by accident, but I don’t think so. I think the real thief set her up. I’ve known somebody was stealing for a couple of weeks now. Kit said the balance sheet was off.”

  “Who is it?”

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know for sure yet. I’m not even sure what they’re stealing. Any ideas?”

  She rubbed a hand across her chin. “Wine? It’s portable and easy to sell.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Only that’s what MG was supposed to be stealing. I don’t think the thief would call attention to it if that’s what he was doing himself. We’re going to have to check security on the wine bins as it is.”

  “Could somebody be running a scam with the customers? Shorting the receipts and then taking the money? I knew a guy who did that when I was externing.”

  Joe shook his head. “The losses aren’t coming from the front of the house—that’s all Kit and the waiters, and she runs a very tight shop.”

  “If the thief wanted MG out of the way, it’s probably something in the kitchen,” Darcy said slowly. “Something she might notice.”

  “Meaning it’s somebody who works around her.”

  She blew out a long breath. “Okay, my money’s on Fishhead. The guy’s a first-class sleaze. But the Beav might be in on it—he hired him in the first place.”

  Joe rubbed his eyes again. He was way ahead of her. On the other hand, he also thought Fishhead was a dick, which might possibly color his judgment. “Have you seen Dietz doing anything suspicious?”

  She shrugged. “Hell, Joe, you know what the kitchen’s like. The only time I watch the guy is when he’s doing something for me, which isn’t often. He’s Fairley’s slave, not mine.”

  “Right.” Which made it that much harder to nail him down. “Do you have MG’s number? I’ve been trying to call her, but I keep getting a disconnected message.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I ever got it. You should go over there.”

  “Yeah.” Except, of course, that he couldn’t. Not as long as anybody in the kitchen might be watching. If he wanted to catch the asshole, the thief had to think he’d gotten away with it, that MG’s guilt was accepted. And he didn’t want to drop her back in the middle of what was looking like an ugly situation. “Look, are you going to be able to go out there and pretend you don’t know about what’s going on? I don’t want the thief to catch on before I can nail him.”

  Darcy’s jaw firmed. “I can be mad as hell because of what Fairley did to MG. That’s realistic. Dietz already knows I think he’s an asshole, so he’s not going to expect us to be best
buds.”

  “Okay.” Joe nodded curtly. “Don’t tell anybody else about this. Once it’s over you can fill them in, but not yet.”

  “Right.” She blew out a breath. “Go talk to MG. Trust me.”

  “I will.” Just not yet.

  MG sat in her living room, trying to breathe normally. She’d already gone through a list of things she could do to take her mind off her troubles—clean the chicken house, practice her numbers for the gig at Oltdorf tomorrow, maybe try to write some songs. Except she was too furious to do any of it. She didn’t trust herself not to smash up the chicken house, and she’d never lay a hand on the Martin when she was feeling this pissed. Which left her sitting in her living room, steaming.

  Get out of here. He hadn’t wanted to listen to what she had to say. Hell, he hadn’t even asked her to explain. Not that she could have explained. She had no idea how those two bottles of wine had appeared in her tote bag. She didn’t even know which bottles of wine were worth good money. Wine didn’t mean anything to her—she was a beer kind of girl.

  She took a deep breath, trying to get her shoulders to unclench. Damn the Beav. Damn the Rose. Damn Joe LeBlanc. And damn herself for getting involved with all of them. She was a big girl now. She should know better than to depend on anybody except herself. They’re all a bunch of assholes. All of them. Screw them all.

  Gee, maybe she was closer to her Great-Aunt Nedda than she thought.

  Someone banged on her front door, and for a wild moment, pulse-pounding moment she thought it might be Joe. So much for Screw them all.

  “MG?” Darcy’s voice echoed down the front hall. “Open this screen door, goddamn it, I don’t have a lot of time.”

  MG pushed herself off the couch, heading for the front door. At least she’d have somebody to bitch to, even if it wasn’t somebody she really wanted to talk to right then.