Everywhere you looked, equipment was stacked elephant-high and trucks were bringing in even more. Five stages were already under construction. Workers in hard hats crawled over and around them, while dueling boom boxes belted out each team’s musical preference. A far section of the parking lot was cordoned off for the trailers that were now providing temporary headquarters for the concert promoter and Carlo’s security people, and for others that would be used as lounge areas for the performers. The big names would have their own trailers towed in, and they’d left room for them in the area along with open spots nearby for the bands’ tour buses.
One of his employees strode toward him, wearing a polo shirt with McMillan & Milano embroidered on the pocket and a harried expression. Others on his staff were at the venue, as well. “You’re here!” Hank said. “Linda was looking for you earlier.”
Carlo’s eyebrows rose and he peered about, scanning the area for trouble. “Is there a problem?”
Hank shook his head. “No more than to be expected. But the fire marshal is on site and Logistics Linda thought you might want to speak with him.”
All thoughts of Linda faded away as Carlo’s attention caught on a small, slim figure in a pair of painted-on jeans, tennis shoes and another of the company’s shirts, knotted at her waist. Lucy. He could see a slice of the small of her back between the end of the cotton and the beginning of midrise denim. Last night, he’d placed a hot, open-mouthed kiss right in that little dip. If he got close enough, would he see proof of his mark on her?
“Carlo?”
He yanked his attention back to Hank. “What?”
The other man sent an odd glance over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
There once was a woman by my fire….
He cleared his throat. Forget the limerick. Forget the “mark.” He hadn’t marked Lucy. That sounded way too possessive for a man who kept his distance from other people. “Nothing’s wrong. You came to me, remember?”
“Yeah. Linda. Fire marshal. Do you want to meet with him?”
Carlo shook his head. “That’s on Linda. She’s our go-to public services person. Or does she need me to address something we haven’t foreseen?”
Hank’s expression was puzzled. “No, as per usual, you’ve foreseen everything. It’s just that…well, you generally want to, uh, have your hands on, uh, everything.”
Carlo would not look Lucy’s way again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I delegate.”
“Recently, yes,” Hank said. He backed up as if afraid he’d offended the boss. “And I only mean that in a positive way.”
Carlo rolled his eyes and waved the other man off. “You’d think I was an ogre,” he murmured to Germaine.
“Just a bit controlling,” she said sweetly. “But it looks like I’m right. Even your employees have noticed the change.”
Carlo didn’t want to think about it. He put on his most charming smile. “Maybe I didn’t want to interrupt this opportunity to spend time with the most enchanting woman in San Diego.”
Germaine’s laugh was good to hear. “I haven’t seen that magnetic grin of yours in years. I am now curious as can be to know where you found it after all this time.”
In Lucy’s eyes. On a roller coaster. In front of a crackling fire. As I slid into Lucy’s sweet body and felt her welcome all the way to my soul.
Without thinking, his gaze traveled to where he’d last seen her. There she was, chatting like a magpie, her hands moving with the same energy and grace she brought to everything. Her job. Lovemaking.
“I like that smile even better.”
Carlo started. He’d forgotten all about Germaine until she’d spoken, but she was right, he could feel the smile curving his mouth.
Germaine touched his arm again. “She sent me a get-well present, you know. Lucy, I mean.”
It didn’t surprise him. “Chocolate? Flowers?”
“A kitten.”
“What?” Germaine had been waiting on her porch when he’d picked her up so he hadn’t spotted any new resident at 247 Cavendish Drive. “That’s kind of…”
“Exactly what I needed,” she finished for him. “And she said that if it didn’t appeal she had another good home for the dear thing. But the idea did appeal. You see, the night you two dropped by she noticed this framed photo I have of the cat Pat and I had when we were first married. I’d happened to mention how Serpico kept me company at home on the long night shifts, and I suppose…”
“She remembered.” Carlo rubbed his palm over his breastbone.
“I think she saw that I need company now, too.”
Lucy would see that. Lucy saw so much. Her instincts about people were well honed and as far as he was concerned, wasted on ledgers and spreadsheets. Sure, she was good with details, but that didn’t mean she had to lock all her light away in shadowy cubicles for the rest of her life, crunching numbers.
That kind of thing suited him far better than it did Lucy.
He preferred being locked away in the shadows.
“I’d like to tell her how the newest member of my family, Kojak, is getting on,” Germaine said, starting across the blacktop.
“No,” Carlo instantly responded.
Germaine blinked. “No?”
“I mean, she’s probably busy.” Suddenly he didn’t want to get too close to Lucy. The lovemaking had been brain-blowing and he’d been glad when Lucy had dragged her sister away this morning. He’d yet to get his mind around what was happening between them—not to mention how he was going to explain all this to Lucy’s sister, and probably, at some point, her brothers, too. He couldn’t explain it to himself! He couldn’t explain why each time they were together, each time she tried to pass it off as “fun,” he was left unsatisfied at some level, even though his body was humming with satisfaction.
A thread of panic iced his blood. What was happening to him? “I’ll give you Lucy’s cell phone number, Germaine. You can call her later.”
“Oh, you’re probably right,” Germaine replied. “It looks to me as if she’s very busy with that young man with the long hair and tattoos.”
Carlo’s blood ran colder. He swung around, squinting to get a sharper view. Oh, yeah. There was Lucy, animated, smiling, her small hand on the arm of that…that…tool.
“Wrench,” he spit out.
Germaine slanted him an inquiring glance.
“Have you ever heard of Silver Bucket?”
“Nooo.”
“Me, neither.” It was gratifying not to be the only nonfan, though he supposed that did put him squarely in the fuddy-duddy category. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
He was already heading across the blacktop. “I thought you wanted to talk to Luce.”
Okay, it looked as if Germaine was swallowing her smile. Damn. “Didn’t you?” he pressed.
“Right.” Germaine lengthened her stride to keep up with him. “This is all my idea.”
Carlo slowed. “Sorry, I walk fast.”
“I don’t mind. Pat did, too.”
Pat. At the mention of the man’s name, Carlo’s step hitched. What would his old partner think about the company they’d envisioned together? The one that Carlo used to fill his days and nights?
Gotta find some balance, boy. It was as if his mentor was speaking directly into his ear. All work and no play…
And he’d been playing with Lucy, hadn’t he? Having his fun? But again, that term just didn’t sit well with him. Nor did the way that Wrench was slinging his skinny, tattooed arm around Lucy to drag her nearer his concave chest.
It reminded him of what he’d learned at that Street Beat party weeks ago. The band was famous for its pyrotechnics show. Since that had been forbidden during the San Diego festival, perhaps Wrench was looking for a substitute with some fireworks with Lucy. The thought made him want to break something.
Wrench’s drumstick-thin forearms would work.
He halted in front of the two, but they were so absor
bed in each other it didn’t appear they realized he and Germaine had arrived.
It pissed him off. “I’m not paying you to make out with the talent.”
She froze, and Wrench’s scrawny arm slid away. With a frown between her brows, she turned to him.
A delighted smile broke over her face as her attention shifted to his left. “Germaine! How’s Kojak?”
“Wonderful. Thank you so much again.”
Lucy leaned in for a quick hug, then introduced the older woman to the lead singer. Next, she gestured toward Carlo with a careless hand. “I don’t believe you’ve met this charmer. My boss, Carlo Milano.”
He was forced to shake hands. “Wrench,” the man said.
No last name. Figured.
“You should probably let Lucy get back to her work,” Carlo said, trying to sound pleasant.
Apparently he didn’t pull it off too well because Lucy glared at him. “What? Now you don’t trust me to do my job?”
He wanted to groan. Damn it, what was wrong with him? He was different. The old Carlo, while not particularly friendly, wasn’t bad tempered. The old Carlo could be perfectly civil, even to a rock star named Wrench, no matter what woman he was touching—even his own.
No! Lucy was not his woman.
He tried to make amends. “Sorry, sorry,” he said to them both. “This close to the big festival, I get a little edgy.”
Wrench nodded. “Lucy, too. I was just persuading her that tonight, after we wrap up the first evening, that she needs to relax. I’m having a big party at my hotel suite. There’s a private whirlpool tub and we’ll have music, eats, the whole works. You two are welcome to come.”
His gaze included Germaine, which meant that he assumed Lucy was already on board with the plan.
Oh, yeah, Carlo thought. He was different now. Really, really different. Because the idea of Lucy in a private whirlpool tub with the tool-of-the-moment was not something he could accept, even if it meant he was leaving his safe, comfortably dark corner.
“Sorry,” he told the singer, grinding his back teeth through a fake smile. “But Lucy and I already have plans for after the festival tonight.”
* * *
At 2:00 a.m., Lucy was still moving around the spacious McMillan & Milano security trailer, afraid that if she stopped, her legs would freeze up altogether. Gathering half-empty water bottles and disposing of stale baskets of pretzels and crackers gave her mental processes time to unwind after the hours of intense focus.
One night at the Street Beat festival required more of her brain than a week in an accountant’s office at tax season. But her mind was downshifting now that the night was concluded, leaving her in a pleasant, zoned-out state of tired satisfaction.
She heard the trailer’s door open and close but didn’t look up, hoping whoever it was wasn’t looking for any intelligible conversation from her. After the last few hours, she couldn’t give one more opinion or make one more decision. Unless the new person in the trailer wanted to silently gnaw on some leftover crackers, they were out of luck.
Better yet, maybe they’d be content with taking a dented half-full bottle of water and going away.
“Lucy.”
At the sound of that voice, her hand tightened, crackling the plastic in her hand. Carlo. Oh, she was much too tired to figure out how to play him tonight.
Did he want the sympathetic friend? The lighthearted lover? The easy-to-please employee who wouldn’t ask for any more than he was willing to give from the distance of his dark corner?
“You don’t have to do that cleanup. Let it wait until tomorrow.”
Without looking at him, she continued her tidying. “My volunteers are responsible for at least some of this mess.”
“Your volunteers did a great job tonight.”
Her head lifted and she found the energy to smile. “They did, didn’t they?”
He nodded. Though he’d spent more time on the site than she had, the only signs of his long hours were the evidence of dark whiskers on his face and his loosened tie. But his shirt was still a pristine white, and his navy blazer looked as if it had just emerged from a dry cleaner’s plastic.
Lucy, on the other hand, felt as wilted as the daisies someone had placed in a glass bowl on the trailer’s kitchenette counter. She tossed the bottle in her hand into the trash bag at her feet and then ran her hands along her jeans, as if she could give them a little starch with the touch of her palms.
“You know, you’ve caused me a big problem,” he went on. His expression was serious. Too serious.
Lucy’s heart bobbed up and down like a yo-yo. No. She was too tired for this. Their relationship, or nonrelationship, or whatever it was or wasn’t, couldn’t be a topic of conversation tonight. That little fog of fatigue wasn’t lifting in her brain, not at all, and she’d need each one of her faculties to find the right role to act for him.
She licked her lips, wondering how she could put him off. “Carlo…”
“I’m going to have to redo the financials on the Street Beat festival to account for the gigantic bonus check I’m going to write you tomorrow night.”
She stared at him.
He smiled, and if she didn’t know he didn’t have any soft spots inside of him, she’d say the smile looked tender. “Luce, you’ve got to realize that your volunteers did a bang-up job because you did a bang-up job.”
Her throat felt tight. “You think so? You really think so?”
“Yeah. I really think so. As do Hank, and Linda, and Fernando and all the other McMillan & Milano staff who worked here tonight. Not to mention Claudia. Apparently a contingent of the parents corralled her and thanked her for your professionalism and dedication.”
Lucy’s tired legs finally gave up the ghost and she found herself dropping to the trailer’s couch. “Well, that was nice of them.”
Carlo shook his head. “People don’t go out of their way just to be nice. They go out of their way when their experience exceeds their expectations.” He paused, then strode over to sit on the coffee table facing her. Their knees nearly touched. “You sure as hell exceeded mine.”
Lucy backed farther into the corner of the couch. Oh, what did that mean? That wasn’t a segue to a place she didn’t want to go, was it? “Um, uh…”
“I didn’t think the volunteers would do anything more than get in the way, at best. Instead, you assessed, organized and charmed that clutch of adults and teens into a working crew that made a difference tonight—both for McMillan & Milano and for the concert-goers.”
It was maybe the second-longest speech Lucy had heard Carlo make in the past weeks and it was about her job performance. Her excellent job performance.
Lucy sat a little straighter, letting his evaluation join with her own sense of a job well done. Satisfaction heightened into bliss. “I appreciate the compliment. And the confidence you had in me in the first place when you assigned me the project. That meant a lot.”
“You can do anything you put your mind to, Luce. You can have anything you really want. I know that. I hope tonight’s shown you that.”
“Yes.” Lucy found herself nodding. Lucy Goosey had finally, for once and for all, flown the coop and left Lucy the capable in her place. “Thanks again for the opportunity to learn that.” Her head dropped back to the cushion and she closed her eyes. “But there’s still another day of the festival to go.”
“Our last day to work together.”
That’s right, Lucy thought, drifting on the waves of fatigue rolling through her head. Come Monday, Carlo’s secretary would be back on the job and Lucy would be back sifting through the want ads. She’d appeased her guilt in the past week by telling herself she was too busy with Street Beat to seek out another position, though on Monday she’d have to start seriously looking.
But I’m not limiting myself to accounting positions, she thought, suddenly certain. I’m good with details, but I’m good with people, too, and maybe I can find a way to use both those talents.
“So I told Wrench we had plans tonight,” Carlo said, interrupting her reverie. “What would you like to do?”
She cracked one eye open. “Do I look like a woman ready to do anything? I know why you said that to Wrench. Don’t worry about actually following through with it.”
He frowned. “What do you mean? Why do you think I told Wrench we were doing something?”
She had to open both eyes to roll them, and she managed, despite the fatigue weighing down her lids. “I grew up with Jason and Sam, two of the most over-protective males on the planet. They would have heard the words party and whirlpool tub, and considering the rock singer source, gone on to tell him anything, up to and including an audience with the president of the United States, to prevent me from hanging out in Wrench’s hotel suite. Though for the record, I can handle Wrench just fine. And by the way, he invited my volunteers on stage for his last set tomorrow night. That’s pretty great of him, don’t you think?”
Carlo’s expression blanked. “You…” He took a breath and started again. “You…”
“First things first,” she heard him mutter. “Are you saying you think of me like your brothers?”
The tired fog in Lucy’s head was making it hard to interpret his tone. “Um, close enough.”
He muttered something else. Something possibly obscene. “Hell, Lucy.” He rose to his feet, forking a hand through his short hair. His gaze sharpened on her face. “I’m not one of your damn brothers.”
“O-kay.”
Apparently that wasn’t the response he was hoping for because he turned to pace around the room. “I don’t feel the least bit brotherly toward you.”
“O-kay.”
He took another turn around the small space. “Fine. Whatever.” It sounded as if he was having an argument with himself. He lifted a hand, let it drop to his side, then he halted in the middle of the room and trained his gaze on her again. “You handling Wrench is not something I find myself keen to think about. At all.”
“O-kay.” Again.
“As a matter of fact, we’re going to have to come to an understanding here, Lucy. About us.”
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