Luke: A West Bend Saints Romance

by Paige, Sabrina

  Inoffensive, I thought, recalling how she'd destroyed the letter from Tempest, taken the money I'd saved to be with her. She'd ruined things between us. She was far from inoffensive in my books.

  "The financial motivation might be there," Luke said. "If the company wanted her off of the property."

  "So, what," Elias said. "Some mining company is just offing town residents that don't sell their land? It's a completely ridiculous idea."

  "Well, what if that wasn't it?" I said. "Maybe the asshole found something in the mining area back by the mountain. Or maybe he was looking for something. It would explain why he was back there, when that mine had been abandoned for years."

  Luke guffawed, the sound echoing through the kitchen. "Yeah," he said. "Abandoned because of you, Silas."

  Elias laughed. "It's funny now," he said. "It wasn't funny at the time."

  "No, it wasn't fucking funny," I said. Our father had kicked the shit out of me for what had happened, the way I'd lost him the mining permit that allowed him to sell coal to people in town when we were kids. It was the whole reason he'd wound up being the janitor at the high school, which was punishment enough for me all by itself. But before that, my punishment involved his giving me two broken ribs.

  "Well, the explosion was pretty legendary," Elias said.

  "Hell yeah, it was," Luke said. "Anyway, I came over here and told the same thing to Elias. But I went and poked around the property and didn't see anything, so I don't know what to think. I couldn't find that offer mom got from the company, either."

  "I've gone back and forth on it in my mind," Elias said. "I just think it's a far more likely explanation that the asshole was drunk as a skunk and messing around in the mine and something fell on his fucking head. Blunt force trauma. The coroner's office said it was probably a rock. There were landslides back there."

  I grunted a response. I wasn't sure what I thought. Hell, I didn't even know if I cared - it's not like I was that close to either of them. Besides, finding out that my mother had betrayed me the way she had when it came to Tempest had soured me on the whole thing. Maybe it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.

  Still, it wouldn't hurt to just run over to the property and take a look myself. "Maybe I'll just head over there and poke around," I said. "See what I can see."

  Elias shook his head. "Don't expect me to join you," he said. "We're still doing stuff around the house."

  I laughed. "Roger that," I said. "I have a pretty good idea of the stuff you're doing."

  "Damn straight," Elias said, grinning broadly.

  "Luke?" I asked. "Do you want to go with me?"

  "When?"

  I shrugged. "Tomorrow, I guess. It's getting late today; it'll be getting dark soon and I don't want to be looking around back there by the mountain in the dark."

  Luke looked down at the table. "Oh," he said. "Yeah. No, I mean. I can't. Not tomorrow."

  Elias raised one eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "Do you have big plans?"

  "Shut up," Luke said. "I have plans. Plans I don't need to include you two shitheads in."

  Elias hooted before turning toward me. "Luke's social calendar is booked. Sorry, dude, you're going to have to do it yourself."

  ***

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TEMPEST

  "So, what did you need to talk to me about, Nana?" I asked. "Please tell me you didn't just want to gossip about your sex life."

  "I won't regale you with tales of my social life," she said. "Right now, anyway. I wanted to talk to you about the house."

  "What about it?" I asked. "I think we should hang on to it, Nana." I wasn't ready for her to sell her house, even if she wanted to get rid of it. In my twenty-three years, it was the only place I'd ever felt at home. That stretch of time in West Bend was the longest period of time I'd spent with her - hell, it was one of the longer periods of time I'd spent anywhere - and I had fond memories of it.

  I didn't want to let those memories go.

  Kind of like the ones I had of Elias.

  "I want you to look at the paperwork, dear," she said. "You have an eye for detail, and you understand a grift. I want to make sure I'm not getting conned."

  "What did you do, Nana?" I asked, my voice high. "Did you put it on the market? Did someone make you an offer?"

  She waved her hand. "No, no, nothing like that," she said. "But this company did, this mining company that might be moving in to West Bend. They've been making offers here and there to people - most of them have property in West Bend."

  "What's the offer?" I asked. "Is it fair?"

  "Well, now, I don't know," she said. "That's why I want you to look at it."

  "I don't think you should sell it, Nana," I said. "Unless you need the money, in which case I'll make sure you have it."

  "Honey, I'm not saying I want to sell it," she said. "I just think there's something hinky about this company."

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "Did they do something?"

  "That's what I'm wondering," she said. "I was going to do some research on the internet, try to find out about the company, but you know me and computers."

  I laughed. Describing my grandmother as technology-averse would be putting it mildly. "Yes, Nana, I know."

  "So I thought you could do some research on the internet, find out some more about them, figure out what they're up to."

  "You understand that I'm a con artist and not a private detective, right?" I asked.

  "Hush," she said. "Of course I do. But you need to have research skills to be a con artist. I know you do, and don't try to convince me otherwise. How else would you find out about companies you're going to grift?"

  I smiled. "You got me, Nana."

  She wagged her finger at me. "Don't try to pull one over on me. I want you to look into it. I have a weird feeling."

  I groaned. "Nana, you and your feelings."

  "I have reason to be suspicious," she said.

  "Okay," I said, sinking back into the chair and preparing myself for a long story. "I'm all ears."

  "You remember Esther Saint - Mrs. Saint?" she asked.

  My chest felt tight at the mention of her name. "Yes," I said slowly. "I know who she is."

  She nodded, her gaze penetrating. "I thought you might remember her," she said. "You and the Saint boy - Silas, was his name? - you got on well, as I recall."

  Got on well.

  That was an understatement.

  Don't think about Silas, I told myself.

  I cleared my throat. "What happened?"

  "He grew up to be a gorgeous young man, that Silas did," she said. "Those blue eyes of his...oh, he looks like a young Paul Newman. Do you know who Paul Newman was?"

  "Of course I know who Paul Newman is, Nana. He was in The Sting - it's practically required viewing for a grifter," I said absently, my mind racing. She was talking about Silas in the present. The image of Silas climbing out of the tub, water running down his muscled back and over his perfect ass, flashed in my mind.

  "Well, that Silas is Paul Newman good-looking," Letty said.

  "I'd heard he moved away from here," I said, my voice trembling.

  "Oh, he did for a while," she said. "He went to college for a year or two, I think, then dropped out and did some fighting. But he came back here a few months ago. Why? Are you interested?"

  I sighed. "I'm just curious, Nana, that's all." But my heart was racing. How the hell was Silas back in West Bend?

  "Uh-huh," she said. "Well, if your curiosity gets the best of you, he's staying out at Coach Westmoreland's place, has the apartment over the garage out there. Not that you're anything but curious."

  I ignored her. "Nana, what does any of this have to do with the property - or the mining company?"

  "I'm getting to that," she said. "Don't rush me. Esther Saint committed suicide not too long ago now."

  "Oh," I said. "That's terrible." Silas hadn't said anything, and I wondered why.

  "Well, I knew her," she said. "She wa
s depressed years ago, miserable unhappy with that husband of hers. He was a real piece of work. No good, evil drunk if there ever was one. But I don't think she would have killed herself. They say she overdosed with pills and alcohol- but I know for a fact she didn't drink, on account of the husband being a drunk."

  I didn't know how much I believed what Letty was telling me. The only time I'd met Silas' mother, she'd seemed pretty out of it. Of course, she'd also taken a beating pretty soon before I met her, too. "I'm not getting what any of this has to do with the house, Nana."

  "The father had an accident, too," she said. "Some months back. It was out behind their place, near the mine."

  "The mine?" I asked. "They had a mine?" I racked my brain, trying to recall whether I'd seen a mine when I was at Silas' house that time. Who has a fucking mine in their backyard? I thought.

  "Oh, it's not the way you're thinking, honey," she said. "People around these parts did their own mining all the time, blasted into the sides of mountains. That stuff was regulated a lot less than it is now. You didn't have to have a whole company; you just needed a permit to blast away. The father used to sell coal in town to make ends meet- of course, he spent most of it down at the bar."

  "So there was a mining accident..." I prompted. I wanted to know what the hell had happened with Silas' family.

  He hadn't said a word about it.

  Of course, he wouldn't, would he?

  "Well, that's what they said it was. They called it an accident, said he was blasting in his backyard," she said. "Of course, I doubt anyone looked much into it. That man wasn't exactly beloved here."

  "No..." I said, less of a question than a statement. He was definitely not beloved by Silas. Silas hated his father. He wanted to get the hell out of West Bend as quickly as possible. I somehow doubted that he was heartbroken over his father's death. And from what Silas had told me about him, I suspected the town felt the same way. "But you don't think it happened that way?"

  "Well, I thought it did," Letty said. "And then Esther Saint killed herself. And that got me wondering. It didn't make sense to me that she would off herself after that dirt bag husband of hers was finally out of the picture. Besides that, there was the alcohol- she just wasn't a drinker. And she was seeing the Mayor."

  "What do you mean, seeing the Mayor?" I asked.

  "I mean, seeing him," she said. "Boning, I believe you youngsters call it."

  I laughed. "Yes, Nana," I said. "Boning. Is this something you know to be fact?"

  She shrugged. "I have my sources," she said.

  "Okay," I said. "What would any of this have to do with the property?"

  "Don't give me that look," she said.

  "What look?"

  "The one that says you think I'm a senile old woman."

  "I definitely don't think you're senile, Nana," I said. "You're the one sleeping with half the men in this place."

  "Hush your mouth," she said, looking toward the door. "One of them thinks we're exclusive. I don't want him overhearing."

  "Nana!" I admonished.

  "Don't lecture me," she said. "I'm old."

  "You can't use that as an excuse for everything."

  "Most of the time it works," she said. "Anyway, like I was saying before, I think there's something hinky about this mining company. I don't know about all of that stuff. It's over my head. But I think the deaths might be related."

  I sighed. "All right, Nana," I said. "Do you have any factual evidence?"

  "Well, I know what I heard from Esther herself," she said.

  "Okay."

  "She said her husband knew something that was going to make them rich." Letty made her declaration, then sat back in the chair with her arms crossed, visibly pleased with herself.

  "That's it?" I asked.

  "That's it?" she asked. "That's everything. Clearly, the father found out something - or knew about what the company's interested in - maybe something on his property, maybe something on the other property here, I don't know. But he told his wife, and his wife said something to the mayor or someone else. And that got her killed."

  "You're a regular Agatha Christie," I said.

  "Don't sass me," she said. "What do you think?"

  "I think..." My voice trailed off, and I chose my words carefully. "I think it's certainly within the realm of possibilities."

  "You don't believe me."

  "I think it's less likely than the fact that the father was a crazy drunk who was full of shit," I said. "And that Esther Saint killed herself because downing a bunch of pills with alcohol is more convenient and easier than doing it some other way."

  "I'll give you the paperwork from the company," she said. "You promise me you're going to look into it."

  I sighed. "If it were anyone else, Nana..."

  "I know." She smiled. "You'll make a dying old woman happy."

  "Nana!" I said.

  "What?" she put her hands up. "We're all going to die eventually, Tempest. I didn't say I was dying right now."

  Sometimes, I wasn't sure whether the grifter part of me really came from my parents. Or from her.

  ***

  I rode through town, thinking about the possibility of being recognized, even though my head and face were obscured by the bike helmet. I knew it was an irrational thought. Even if I hadn't been wearing the helmet, it had been years since I'd been here and I was an adult now, not a teenager. It was hardly plausible that someone would recognize me.

  At least my parents had been smart about who they'd grifted here, taking advantage of the mayor at the time and some of the businessmen, none of whom had even filed a report. All of them had something to lose if they pursued anything against my parents. That was another grifter rule I learned - always find a mark who would lose everything if he were to reveal he'd been conned. Most of the time, businessmen who were grifted couldn't afford to divulge that information - it would make investors lose faith and they'd lose face, or worse, be implicated in possible corruption.

  Of course, that didn't mean one of those kinds of businessmen wouldn't just take care of you another way - outside of legal channels. That's where grifters had to watch their backs.

  I could just head out of town right now, I thought. I could a flight, lie on the beach, and drink margaritas.

  And forget about Silas.

  That would be the smart thing to do.

  But, instead, I found myself heading toward the bed and breakfast I'd found on my GPS. West Bend didn't exactly offer much in the way of lodging, even after all these years.

  This place was cute enough, though, I thought as I pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. It was like something out of a movie: a little white farmhouse, complete with a big wrap-around porch and rocking chairs in the front.

  Hell, a border collie even came running up to greet me as I dismounted the bike.

  All in all, this was exactly the opposite of the kind of place where a tattooed chick riding a Harley Road King should be staying.

  Especially if I were trying to lay low here in town.

  But I told myself I was just passing through. This was only for one night, and then I'd be out of here. I was just visiting my grandmother.

  That's it.

  I was sure as hell not coming back here to revisit my past, out of some sense of nostalgia for my relationship with Silas.

  And I was certainly not interested in staying in West Bend after being told that Silas might be here, and not living in Vegas, the way I had assumed.

  Certainly not.

  "Hey there." I squatted down to pet the shaggy dog, and turned the name tag over in my hand. "Hi, Bailey. Well, you're just a gorgeous girl, aren't you?"

  A woman appeared on the porch, and a toddler ran out onto the porch.

  "Daddy!" the toddler cried.

  "No, no, sweetie," she said, as I came up the steps. "That's not daddy. Are you Molly?"

  I nodded. "I called and made a reservation earlier."

  She held out her hand
. "I'm June," she said. "It's nice to meet you. Little Stan heard the bike and thought you were his daddy. So did I, for a minute there. My husband Cade rides a bike, owns a shop in town. He does custom paint jobs."

  "Oh, yeah?" I said. I hadn't pegged this sweet-looking and heavily pregnant woman as the wife of a biker. "I'll have to swing by the shop, take a look."

  "Come on in," June said. "How long will you be staying?"

  "Only for a few days, I think."

  June chattered away as she took my credit card, one of the many fakes I owned, recommending some of the tourist attractions outside of town. She offered to give me a tour to the house, but I declined. "You know," I said. "I'm pretty tired and I have some work to do, so I'll be just fine hanging out in the room."

  "Oh, what kind of work?" June pushed open the door to one of the bedrooms. "The bathroom is just inside there."

  "I'm an attorney," I said. Or rather, Molly was an attorney. Molly McAdams was a motorcycle-riding entertainment lawyer from Los Angeles with a live-in boyfriend named Tyler and a cat named Alice. Molly was one of ten core identities I kept on rotation, whose details I knew like they were part of my own history, and who served me well.

  "What kind of law do you practice?" June asked.

  "Entertainment law," I said.

  "Oh, that's interesting," she said. "I'm sure you've heard that West Bend has our very own movie star."

  "I hadn't heard," I said absently. All I could think about was the fact that I wanted to get inside the room and rinse the dust from the road off me. The hotel I'd stayed in the night before, on the road from Vegas, hadn't exactly been the best and I felt grimy.

  "We do," she said. "River Andrews. She does romantic comedies. She took up with Elias Saint, moved here to West Bend."

  My heart raced at the name. Damn it, I thought. What the hell was with the Saint brothers being brought up at every turn? It was like fate was throwing my fling with Silas right in my face.

  "Well," June said, leaning down to scoop up her toddler. "There are coffee and tea in the kitchen - one of those brewers with the individual cups, so you can just help yourself. And there are some baked goods and fruit on the counter. If you haven't eaten dinner yet, I can recommend a few restaurants. And I usually put up a breakfast around nine in the dining room."