“Great, the clothes fit! You look amazing, way better than I would after getting hauled all over the countryside in the middle of the night – and it’s so great to meet you, finally!”
Dave’s breakfast companion dove off her stool and hurried to my side, wrapping me up in a bear hug before I had a chance to resist.
I got a brief and blurry impression of a towering blonde runway model in a severe grey business suit and then she disentangled herself, pulled back, and held me at arm’s length.
“You look way too good to be slumming with the likes of Dave – and the clothes are okay? I had to guess on the sizes and he didn’t give me much idea of what you’d need, so I got a little of everything for now. We can have more sent over later, once we …”
Her voice trailed off as she spotted the confusion and sort-of hostility that must have been plastered all over my face. Still holding me by the shoulders, she turned to glare at her pancake-eating accomplice.
“You moron, you let this poor girl walk in here and think she was catching her guy with The Other Woman? Honestly, you are such an asshole – and do you think you might bring yourself to introduce us before she claws my eyes out, and then yours?”
She turned back to give me a rueful smile, while Dave helpfully pointed to her with a forkful of syrup-drenched pancake. “Cassie, this is my big sister Kristen, and I swear on a stack of Kama Sutras that I am not getting freaky with my own sister – unless you like that sort of thing?”
He gave us that wicked grin and added a wink. “In fact, I’m sensing the potential for an epic threesome here …”
Kristen opened her mouth, pointed a finger at it, and made an exaggerated gagging noise. “Davey, you are so disgusting.”
She gave him an epic eye roll and then turned to me. “Have you noticed he’s disgusting?”
I decided on the spot that I liked this too-tall, too-thin, too-drop-dead-beautiful woman. “Yeah, I’d say it’s one of his special gifts, along with mopping out bathrooms and making poisonous nachos.”
“And I have to hear more about that.” She steered me over to the counter, made me up a plate brimming with calories while I clambered atop a stool, and then rested her chin on both hands while she gave me a bad-girl smile.
“Go ahead, spill it – I want all the gory details about my baby brother’s brief and disastrous career as a short-order cook. Are the Kansas public health authorities after him?”
Dave groaned. “Please, I think I did a pretty decent job, considering I had no idea what I was doing at first – and I fixed the wiring, didn’t I? And kept the jukebox working most days, and swept up the place, and listened to everybody’s stories? Don’t I get any credit for all that?”
I obeyed my rumbling stomach and started in on the pancakes before answering. “Oh, I’d say Davey here did all right for a newcomer to the Kansas bar scene –”
My former employee covered his face with his hands and groaned like a drama major. “Geez, Kristen, did you have to start in with the ‘Davey’ thing? You make it sound like I’m two years old when you do that – I mean, are you trying to make sure Cassie never touches me again, ever?”
It turned out Kristen could manage a pretty wicked grin of her own. “Ooh, that reminds me – how is he in bed? You know, is he a go-all-night type, or does he fall asleep right after?”
Dave collapsed face forward onto the counter and wrapped his arms around his head. I barely made out his muffled voice as he asked, “So now who’s being disgusting?”
I decided to show the poor guy a little mercy. “Well, I haven’t actually sampled the goods yet, other than finding out that he is a pretty fair kisser …”
I paused to down two frosty swallows of milk because I like to live large, while Dave popped his head up again, flashing that crooked smile that got to me every time.
“I am not a pretty fair kisser, I am in fact a truly great kisser – these lips were made for glory, and judging by the way a certain somebody’s toes curl when said lips are applied, I’d say she agrees.” He then polished off the rest of his bacon, and burped without an ounce of shame.
Kristen stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re lucky a class act like this girl even gives you the time of day, you filthy pervert.”
Dave plucked an innocent young biscuit from his plate and threw it at her. Kristen dodged like a pro as the buttery missile went flying past her and landed on the pristine dining room table with a splat, skidding to a stop and leaving a greasy smear on the glass.
I reached over and snatched the last remaining biscuit on Dave’s plate, cutting off his ammo supply. While I ate it bite by delicious bite, I watched the two of them trade insults and make faces at each other, and I wondered.
I was Mom and Dad’s one and only child, so I had no reference points for what it must be like to grow up with someone who was closer to you than anyone else, a constant presence and irritant and companion, someone who loved you and exasperated you in a way no one else could. How would I have handled having a brother or sister, or both? They could have helped with the bar, or taken over it entirely while I followed my veterinarian dream – or maybe more mouths to feed would have made us way too poor to even have dreams?
I had no way to know, because I didn’t have anyone like that in my life.
Scratch that. I didn’t have anyone in my life, period.
Except Dave.
And who was he? I was here in what I assumed was his place, eating his food and acting like part of his family, and it hit me that I didn’t even know the man’s full and real name. He said he was a student, sure, but what kind of student lived in a palace in the sky like this? Who was really footing the bill to hide me here? What would happen when the million-and-one people I owed money to came baying for my blood like hounds?
How long before they found me?
I twisted on the stool to look behind me, across the dining room. On the far wall, another mammoth window stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and the angle of the light flooding in through the glass told me it was late afternoon. That made it less than a day since the apocalypse – so I had some time to work with, but not much.
“Dave?”
“Right here, just hang on and let me finish this bacon” – he stole the last two strips of bacon on his sister’s plate, forked them down, and started chewing – “and then we’ll get right to the sexual fireworks. So, are we doing it on the table over there, or do you want to pick out a bedroom? If we ask nice, I bet Sis will film every panting gasp and frantic thrust, and when she uploads the video, we’ll –”
Kristen smiled like an angel, brandished her right hand in front of his face, and made a very un-angelic obscene gesture. “You can cram your frantic thrusting right up your ass, Davey.”
“Um, guys?”
They both turned to me, and it was time for answers.
“You two have been beyond nice to me and I could watch the Big Sister and Davey show all day, but now that I’m awake and showered and fed … well, before panting or thrusting or anything else happens, I need to know what exactly is going on here. No offense, but who are you people? Where am I? And by the way, there are a bunch of creditors back home who will peel the hide right off my back to get the money that’s coming to them – what happens when they show up? What am I supposed to do, hide in here forever?”
Kristen leaned over and put her hand on my arm. “Honey, we may be bringing all kinds of new headaches into your life, but your financial situation is one thing we can make right – so do not worry, because Kristen is on the case.”
She reached down to pick up a briefcase that sat at attention on the floor next to her stool. Thumping it onto the counter next to her plate, she spun the dials of an intricate locking mechanism to pop the thing open, while I wondered how much all that gleaming leather and gold added up to in real human dollars.
“In fact, I’m glad you reminded me, because we need a few signatures from you to make it all official.” She riffled through a
mysterious stack of paperwork inside the briefcase, then pulled out several thick bundles of forms and documents and arranged them on the counter in front of me.
I noticed that Dave was suddenly quiet.
She handed me one of those Mont Blanc pens that cost more than my beer bill for a month. I stared at the thing for a second, thinking about the last bargain pack of Bic pens I’d bought – ten for a dollar, and thank you for shopping at Walmart – and then Kristen tapped her finger on a red ‘X’ at the bottom of the first form.
“Your first autograph goes right here –”
I took a deep breath. “Kristen, I like you and I … well, I more than like Dave, but I’m not signing anything for either of you without knowing what it is and why I’m signing it. How can putting my name to a bunch of legalese make my money problems vanish, anyway? You know, unless I’m signing away my soul to Farmers Federal Savings and Loan in Atchison?”
Dave picked at the syrupy scraps on his nearly empty plate. “See, Cassie spotted the ‘surrender your soul’ aspect of our lives right away – told you she was smart.”
Kristen looked up from the stacks of paperwork. “Dave, two things – one, stop being such a big melodramatic baby, and two, she plainly has no idea who we are, so tell her.”
Dave kept staring down at his plate. He said nothing.
“Davey, please – this girl is tough, she’s a keeper, and I swear on a stack of quarterly earnings statements that she will not disappear in a poof of magic fairy dust if you just tell her your name.”
My ex-cook glanced at me and then returned to communing with his plate.
Kristen gave him a win-the-argument stare. “If she doesn’t know your full name, how can she scream it loud enough to shatter glass while she slices her nails down your back in the heat of fiery sexual passion, hmmm? Answer me that.”
Dave looked up and I saw his infamous lopsided smile. Warmth flared through me from my head to my toes – in that moment, I wouldn’t have given one single damn if he’d announced that he was the secret love child of Vlad the Impaler and Lizzie Borden.
“Cassie, I know it’ll be super hard for you to remember your own name while you’re having one shattering orgasm after another, but when you howl to the heavens about how I’m the god of sex, remember that my name is David Connor Dallstrom, and may God help us all.”
He nodded at his sister, adding, “This razor-sharp business wizard who somehow resists the temptation to kill me every single day is Kristen Sigrid Dallstrom, and she’s way too good to be any sister of mine.”
I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Okay, I’ll remember who you guys are, in case any kinky threesome action happens – but was I supposed to recognize the name Dallstrom? Because other than sounding vaguely familiar, it’s not ringing any bells for me – if you’re notorious for something or other, the news hasn’t hit Kansas yet.”
Kristen shot Dave a look of triumph. “See, you crybaby? She hasn’t even heard of us. Now let me handle things, while you thank God that you lucked into a girl like her.”
Dave turned glum again. “She may not know us, but she knows what the company does. Dad’s dirty fingerprints are all over the news, remember?”
Kristen sighed and then turned to me. “You see what I have to deal with here? I love my baby brother to death, but he can be the biggest drama queen in the world sometimes.”
She picked up the first stack of papers I was supposed to sign, thunked it against the counter to get the sheets of paper all nice and even, and then set it back down. “As for Dad, he’s Einar Dallstrom, the founder and CEO of Dallstrom Defense Systems, the nation’s leading defense contractor and currently holding a net corporate value of a hair over forty billion dollars.”
My brain refused to hear that amount of money, because it couldn’t be real. “Forty million dollars?”
“Billion, honey. With a ‘B’.”
“Genuine American dollars? Seriously? Forty billion of them?”
“With pictures of George Washington and everything, swear to God.”
Dave’s face was dark as a storm – but before I could find out what his issue was with being richer than all the angels, Kristen’s phone sounded off from inside a pocket of her sleek business suit.
The ringtone was the Imperial March from Star Wars.
Dave immediately flipped from dark and moody into full Yoda mode. He scrunched his nose, wrinkled up his face, and had me laughing before his sister could even take the call. “The Emperor summons us! Well and truly fucked are we! Taken the blue pill, we should have!”
“You’re mixing up your sci-fi franchises, you raging geek –”
Kristen favored both of us with a raised middle finger while she answered the phone in a silky-smooth, utterly professional voice.
“Kristen Dallstrom. Yes. Yes, of course. I certainly do appreciate the value of your time.” A brief pause. “Despite how you clearly feel about the matter, I can only insist that I do in fact have the highest regard for your busy schedule. Yes. Certainly. Yes, we’ll be there shortly. All three of us.” A longer pause. “Because I’m quite sure he won’t come without her.” A pause during which I could hear lots of angry loudness on the other end. “I’m even more sure that he does not care if you feel her presence would be inappropriate, and to wind up, we’re on our way. Thank you in advance for spending your valuable time with us.”
She hung up without waiting for an answer and dropped the gleaming iPhone back into her pocket. “Swell, Davey, you’ve got him mad already.”
She eyed him up and down, taking in his battered Converse sneakers, worn jeans, and the faded Welcome to Night Vale t-shirt stretching across his chest. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into wearing a suit, just this once? You know, for me, so he only tears my head partially off?”
“I love you more than the Force and life itself, Sis, but no. Not only am I not wearing a suit for that man, I may even strip down and stroll in there stark naked.”
She covered her face with one hand and groaned, but I saw the smile she was hiding.
Then Kristen turned to me. “So, are you ready to march right into the lion’s den and put your head between his jaws?”
10
I signed the documents in the limousine.
It was a real limousine, not one of those mile-long party limos full of horny guys trying to impress drunk prom queens – this thing was an imposing armored hulk that looked like a mobile command post. Black as sin and bristling with antennas on the outside, and loaded with communication gear, computers, and digital everything on the inside, it was like something the President would use if he needed to drive to a meeting about an impending world war.
Kristen pulled the bundles of paperwork from her briefcase once again, and spread them across a desk in the scaled-down office that occupied one of the many luxurious corners of MechaGodzilla Limousine. I leaned forward on my leather seat that was more of a couch, pen in hand, and she walked me through what I was signing.
One elegant fingernail tapped the first document. “This one completes the legal transfer of the title to the Jayhawk Tavern from you to Dallstrom Defense Systems, so sign here, also here, and” – she flipped to the third page of the document and pointed out a third signature line marked with a red ‘X’ – “and here, and that’s done.”
I signed. The Mont Blanc pen swept across the document without a hitch or a bump as the limousine glided through the streets – and just like that, the wreckage of Mom and Dad’s dream passed into the hands of strangers.
“Kristen?”
She glanced at me as she arranged the next batch of papers for my signing pleasure. “What, hon?”
“What is a defense contractor going to do with a burned-up bar in the most obscure county in Kansas?”
She shrugged. “For now, we’ll just raze what’s left of the building and hang onto the property for the real estate value, and our people will figure out something to do with it at a later date.”
We both looked over at Dave.
He slouched across his leather seat on the far side of the limo’s vast interior, leaning against one of the windows and staring out at the world beyond the tinted glass. He didn’t look at us as he added, “Cassie’s going to be a veterinarian, she’s the softest touch in the world when it comes to dogs and cats, and I think a no-kill animal shelter would be an ideal use of the property. Can we make that happen?”
Kristen thought it over. “I don’t see why not – it’s located on the outside of town, there shouldn’t be any zoning issues, and construction costs in a rural area like that would be dirt cheap. Combine that with people who need work and animals who need help, and sure – I’ll tell our acquisitions and development personnel to put it on the fast track, and the site could be developed as an animal shelter before the end of the year. No problem.”
Dave still didn’t look at us. “Name it after Carson.”
Kristen got up, crossed over to Dave, and wrapped him up in a hug. “Sure thing, Davey.”
So there had been a real Carson, sometime and somewhere, who’d provided Dave with the fake last name he’d used in Kansas?
Kristen came back to me, sat down, and produced the next batch of paper I had to sign. The tears that brimmed in her eyes without quite falling said this would not be a good time to ask about Dave’s namesake.
So instead I signed and signed and signed, and everything linking me to my old life disappeared. Dallstrom Defense Systems paid off the outstanding mortgage balance on the bar, the personal loans Mom and Dad had taken out to cover my veterinary education that never happened, all the past due bills owed to utility companies and beverage suppliers and funeral homes – my parents couldn’t afford to die any more than I could afford to live, but they did it anyway – and even thousands of dollars in medical bills vanished, money that two different hospitals and an army of cancer specialists had been howling for ever since Mom made the mistake of getting sick.
No Dreams Allowed: A Billionaire Romance Page 10