Trouble on Tap

by Avery Flynn

  "Close to it." His large hand rubbed behind the dog's floppy ear. "That your Fiat at the bottom of the drive?"

  "I got stuck." Nodding, she looked past him into the darkness beyond, but her gaze returned to his tall outline and the dripping dog in his strong arms. “Do you want to come in and dry off for a bit?”

  His only acknowledgement of her invitation was to take a half step farther outside of the porch light’s reach. “You gotta move the car. Another driver could get hurt."

  Annoyance flicked her skin. After years as a model, she should be used to people assuming her head held nothing but fluff, but it still rubbed her nerves raw—especially coming from someone who knew better. “You don't think I tried?"

  "That would explain why the tires are half-buried." He sighed. “Do I have your permission to tow it out of the mud and onto the shoulder?"

  "My permission?"

  He stepped forward enough that the light touched his broad chest, and then pulled his jacket open to reveal the Salvation Police Department logo imprinted on the T-shirt. "Yes or no?"

  A meow sounded as Handsome wound his way through her legs in figure-eight fashion.

  The fat feline temptation proved too much for Mateo's dog. The little guy sprung forward, landing with a wet thump at Olivia's feet.

  Handsome hissed and smacked her front paw against the dog's nose before sprinting out into the night.

  She grabbed the dog's collar before he could take off after the mean kitty. Handsome might only have three legs, but she still had serious cat ninja skills. The dog’s collar abraded her fingers as it twisted in attempt to break her grasp and give chase.

  “Here, let me.” Mateo stepped forward and scooped up the dog. The movement brought all six-foot, four-inches of him fully into the light.

  Her focus followed the dog’s course as Mateo lifted it. Past muscular thighs developed on the football field back in the day and honed to perfection in the Marine Corps, over the form-fitting jeans that hugged his narrow hips and perfect ass, and up the T-shirt covered abs that surely were just as delicious as her memory recalled. She closed her eyes, and in that heartbeat, his face flashed in her mind, the square chin, dimple dipping into his left cheek, the hazel eyes that went from hazy green to warm amber depending on his mood.

  She’d spent most of the past few years surrounded by gorgeous men in the world, but none had met the Mateo ideal. Really, could anyone compare to a girl’s first love?

  No.

  The certainty of it whooshed through her and she opened her eyes, her gaze firmly on Mateo’s face. But it wasn’t his face anymore. At least not the one she remembered. Luciana hadn’t told her about the extent of his injuries and she hadn’t pushed for details—knowing he was alive and doing well was all her heart could take after his no-bullshit brush-off.

  But now, she couldn’t look away. An angry two-inch-wide scar wound its way across the left side of his face, from his temple to his square jaw, like a crooked river of agony. Most of his left ear was gone and what remained looked as if it had been formed in clay by an angry toddler.

  Olivia couldn’t stop the surprised gasp that escaped.

  Mateo went perfectly still.

  Shame set her face on fire. Of all the idiotic responses, she’d had to have the worst. If anyone knew what it was like to have people overreact to how someone looked, it was her. “I’m sorry…I…” She reached out for his hand, but he evaded her touch with the ease of a man always aware of his body in relation to others.

  His hazel eyes turned the color of murky river water on a cold morning and a bitter smile twisted his lips.

  “Not exactly what you remember, huh?” He turned to fully display the scarred left side of his face to her. “Look your fill. I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

  She jerked her chin down so she couldn’t see his shredded face. An invisible fist squeezed the air from her lungs and twisted them into knots. The urge to turn and bolt rose up like an undeniable tidal wave pushing at her to just move already. The need to escape the gut-wrenching reality of his pain made her pulse frantic and kept her gaze locked on the porch’s floorboards. She’d spent most of her life as the object of rude stares and abject curiosity. How could she subject him to that cruel scrutiny?

  She didn’t want to look. She wasn’t sure she could.

  But this was Mateo, and he’d demanded it of her. She had to look, to bear witness. And she would.

  Pushing past the whirlwind of emotion, she clamped her jaw tight and lifted her face to give him her full attention.

  The right side of his face remained the same as it had been in high school, when she’d sighed after him while Luciana rolled her eyes. High cheekbones, sinfully long eyelashes, a strong jaw and hazel eyes. The Casanova of Salvation, they’d called him back then, and he’d more than earned the moniker.

  Taking a deep breath, Olivia moved her gaze to the other half of his face. The left side was a map of devastation with his malformed ear, the tight skin of healed burn scars and the slight droop to his eye.

  Seeing the scars, the thick red lines that marred his brown skin, hurt. Not because of the visual he presented, but because she hated that he’d had to go through whatever had done that to him.

  Olivia fisted her hands, angered by her inability to offer anything but words to make it better, and took a step closer and reached out again. “Mateo, I—”

  He shot her proffered hand a scathing look and edged back. “I don’t need your words or your fake pity. I need your damn car out of the road before someone ends up hurt or worse.” Contempt lay thick in his tone. “There are things more important in this world than how people look.”

  She deserved that after her earlier reaction, but it didn’t mean she was giving up.

  She swiped her keys off the entryway table. “Let me put on my boots and coat.”

  In a heartbeat, his face transformed into one of patronizing concern. “There’s no need to worry your pretty little head about such mundane things as the lives of anyone who may be driving down that road in a rainstorm.” He snatched the keys from her grip, his warm fingers setting off an unsettling swirling sensation in her stomach. “I’ll leave the keys in your glove box; you can get them in the morning.”

  With that, he pivoted and stormed off the porch. The squirming dog in his arms howled in protest as Mateo marched down the hill, surefooted and impervious to the pitch dark, the slippery mud, the punishing rain or the wounded woman left in his wake.

  Chapter Three

  Olivia closed the thick oak front door and knocked her forehead against it three times, hoping to pound the last few minutes from her memory. Like just about everything else in her life right now, it didn’t work. She couldn’t stop seeing the millisecond of hurt that flashed in Mateo’s hazel eyes before the emotion drained out, replaced with a hard-edged bravado. Regret and shame burned through her like battery acid.

  “You are a total ass.” Miranda echoed the words ringing in Olivia’s ears.

  Olivia spun on her heel to face her older sister. “Thanks, oh wise one, I hadn’t figured that out yet.”

  They may be only minutes apart in birth order, but Miranda had always been the Type A leader, insisting her way was the only way to get something done. Without meaning to, Olivia slipped back into the role she’d always played when they were growing up: rebellious smartass.

  Logan and Sean, obviously sensing a Sweet triplets brouhaha on tap, smartly hung back in the living room, seemingly engrossed in Uncle Julian’s erotic sci-fi book collection.

  Natalie, ever the middle-child peacemaker, stepped forward to join the fray. “She was just shocked. It wasn’t like she meant to hurt Mateo’s feelings.”

  She hadn’t, but the end result was that Olivia had made him feel like shit, even if he wouldn’t show that to the world. She couldn’t let that stand. Even after he’d squashed her heart under his steel-toed boot, he deserved better than her moronic, unfiltered reaction.

  “I’m sure the fa
ct that I didn’t mean to be a total bitch really makes a difference to him.” Olivia grabbed a pair of rubber boots and shoved her bare feet inside the fake-fur-lined interior. “I need to go help move the car. It’s the least I can do.”

  Natalie scrunched her nose, dislodging her glasses and forcing her to push them back up. “I don’t think he really wants you around right now.”

  Wasn’t that the story of her life? The town of Salvation didn’t want the crazy Sweet family, but she’d grown up here anyway and spit in the eye of anyone who gave her a cross look. The modeling world didn’t want her in the beginning because her voluptuous curves didn’t fit with the stick-thin catwalk models in New York. One magazine editor had even gone so far as to call a picture of her standing in a bikini “vulgar” because she had big boobs. Internet commentators had called her fat and there were entire thinspiration boards devoted to detailing her supposed faults. She’d refused to back down and had become one of the top-paid models in the industry before the newness wore off and the pendulum swung back to long, lanky, thin models. Then she’d decided to explore the corporate world. She’d retired from modeling, taken a job as a public relations and marketing specialist, found a non-industry boyfriend and rescued the world’s meanest cat from a kill shelter.

  Okay, that last one hadn’t turned out so well since she was now broke, homeless, jobless and her shithead of an ex was posting naked photos of her to revenge-porn websites.

  There wasn’t fuck all she could do about any of that at this moment, but she could fix things with Mateo. And she would.

  She turned, facing both sisters head on. “I made a mistake. I need to make it right. Anyway,” she shrugged. “When have I ever done what was expected of me?”

  Her sisters stared at her, Natalie pensive and Miranda all judgey. But then, Miranda shook her head and laughed. Tension seeped out of Olivia’s shoulders.

  “There was that time…no wait, that was Natalie.” Miranda reached in the hall closet and retrieved a pair of men’s shoes. She tossed them to Logan before sinking her feet into her own. “We’ll go with you.”

  Backup would be awesome, the three musketeers—sort of. Instead of the Sweet triplets it would be Olivia, Miranda and Logan. Not quite the same. She sighed.

  God, she should have thought her trip out more before coming home the second the idea hit her. The impulsive, balls-to-the-wall, all-in Sweet DNA ran strong through her veins, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sour her reality every once in a while.

  Time to suck it up and take her medicine by herself. “I appreciate it, but I’m good.”

  Miranda paused in the middle of yanking up a boot, cocking her head to one side. “Are you sure?”

  Surprisingly, she was. “Yeah, I’m a big girl. I can take whatever he’s pissed off enough to dish out.”

  Slip-sliding her way down the steep, muddy driveway, Olivia tried to come up with something to say that would fix what her impulsive first reaction had fucked up. Halfway down the hill, she spotted the glow of headlights in the distance but still had jack shit. Three-fourths of the way down, the light grew to create a warm orange-yellow beacon in the drippy night, but she still had nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

  She skittered to a stop a few feet up from the highway and her breath caught.

  Mateo stood outlined by his portable floodlight as he bent to hook the towline to the back of her Fiat. Broad shoulders, narrow waist and a butt that was as close to perfect as possible. He’d ditched his jacket and his wet T-shirt clung to him, showing off his back muscles almost as well as if he’d been naked. He straightened and rubbed the back of his neck, the floodlight’s beams spotlighting the corded muscles on his forearm, before reaching down for the towline and tugging it to make sure it was secure. The mutt trotted over to Mateo’s side and nuzzled his leg.

  He looked down and chuckled, the move exposing the scarred left side of his face to the light. “I saw less mud during two government-paid vacations in Kandahar than on you right now.” He ruffled the dog’s fur.

  That self-effacing humor sent her right back to high school. It was one of the first things that had drawn her to him. While the other boys bragged or teased or tried to out-gross each other, Mateo had been cool, confident and at ease with the world. He’d been so focused on accomplishing his mission of joining the Marines and become a recon Marine, the baddest of the bad, that the rest of that cocky-teenage-boy bullshit hadn’t seemed to register with him.

  What mattered to him now? She wished like hell she knew.

  Mateo gave one last tug to the towline, triple checking its security. Old habits, unlike favorite T-shirts, didn’t wear out with time.

  The line didn’t give. Not that he expected it to, but a man like him didn’t leave things to chance or things went FUBAR oil-slick fast. A well-timed phantom twinge from his mangled ear reminded him of just how bad the clusterfuck could get. And he was one of the lucky ones.

  The dog whined, high-pitched and hopeful, pulling Mateo’s focus away from the past and back into the rainy, muddy present. Excited energy had the dog quivering, but the mutt didn’t even so much as move a single paw forward.

  “What’s got you so worked up?” He patted the dog on the head and glanced up the hill, scanning for what captured the dog’s attention. That’s when he saw her.

  Olivia stood just inside the headlight’s reach. Tall even in rain boots, she had Jessica Rabbit’s curves and full lips that made him wish he was a tube of ChapStick. Fuck, the number of times he’d been tormented by memories of her that had followed him across the globe with every Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and Victoria’s Secret catalog that managed to find its way to whatever hellhole he was in… Getting hot and bothered over her was the last thing he needed. He’d had his chance and he’d run hell-bent for leather in the opposite direction. There was no going back, especially now, when he looked and felt like a dented can of refried beans months past the expiration date

  The dog whined, his tail thunking against Mateo’s calf. No surprise. Man or animal, everyone seemed to want Olivia Sweet.

  Lucky him, he wasn’t just another sad sap looking to get in a model’s pants. “I told you not to come down here.”

  She smirked as she pigeon-stepped down the last few yards to his side. “People tell me a lot of things.”

  “And you never listen.” The explosion had fucked with his vision temporarily and his hearing permanently, but not his sense of smell. Right about now, when her flowery scent mixed with the spring rain and warm earth, he wished like hell it had.

  “Look, Mateo.” She shoved her hands deep into her purple rain jacket’s pockets and raised her chin, as if her posturing could cancel out the slight tremor in her husky voice. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” His scar throbbed. He could take the way people’s eyes slid away, the nervous chatter and the avoidance. But the pity he saw in her blue eyes? It fucking unmanned him.

  “My reaction.” Her gaze dropped for a second before returning to lock with his. “I was an asshole.”

  No excuses. No denial. He shifted his stance, annoyed with the twinge of his conscience.

  “Forget it.” He shrugged. “Do you really think I give a fuck what people think?”

  Her long fingers grazed his soaked T-shirt over his biceps. A bolt of lightning could have struck the tip of his steel-toe boots and it wouldn’t have jolted him any more than that single touch. How long had it been since a woman had done that? Used to be he couldn’t grab a beer without a long-legged beauty saddling up to him at the bar. Now? Everything was different.

  Bitterness ate away at the back of his throat and his pulse jacked up. The last time he went to a bar, he hadn’t even gotten a second glance after the wide-eyed shock of the first one.

  Olivia squeezed his arm, softly. “I know what it’s like—”

  “To have half your face blown off and everyone else in your team blown to bits because you failed to follow standard operating procedure? Because you just
couldn’t believe that the enemy would use a four-year-old child as a trigger to set off a roadside bomb?” Cold and deadly, the words spilled out and he shook off her hand. “You, Miss Prance-Around-In-A-Bikini-For-A-Living, know what that’s like?”

  He expected her to turn tail and run. That’s what a normal person would have done. But she didn’t. She didn’t even flinch. Figured. She was a Sweet, after all.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then don’t bother with the touchy-feely shit. Go back inside.” And away from him before he said anything else he shouldn’t.

  She locked her jaw and crossed her arms. “I’m staying.”

  Did the woman want to make what was left of his head pop off? “Why?”

  “Because I have to.” Her gaze dropped to the dog, who promptly starting wagging his tail so hard his whole butt swayed.

  Between the dog’s insistence on being underfoot and Olivia’s stubborn refusal to stop acting like a crazy Sweet, Mateo wondered if he was going to have to stop by the hospital on the way home to make sure he wasn’t having a heart attack.

  Sometimes even a Marine had to concede the battle to win the war. He rubbed the back of his neck, easing the tension stiffening the IED blast’s lingering phantom effects. “Then at least make yourself useful and keep the dog out of the way.”

  She grinned, the action transforming her pretty face into one that stopped people cold in their tracks. Sinking to her haunches, she made a kissing sound and the mutt, obviously unable to resist any longer, wiggled over with his ears tucked in ecstasy. “What’s his name?”

  “Doesn’t have one.”

  “You didn’t name your dog?”

  “He’s not mine,” he snapped.

  With a final sloppy kiss to her hand, the dog scurried back over and sat down on Mateo’s right boot.