Odd. To say the least.
The envelope in my pocket seemed to weigh more after seeing how nervous Travis was. It crinkled like it was full of cash. Drug money? Because that transaction was nothing if not laced with guilt and worry. My cheeks flamed.
Had I just aided and abetted a felon? My mom was dating a cop. Maybe I should ask Roy. My hand rested on my server book protectively as I thought of my implication. Maybe I shouldn’t.
Acting way, way too casual, I headed for Devlin’s workstation in the back.
“Rena! Table sixty going out!” another server called, lifting a tray of food onto his shoulder. I called out my thanks. I had about a minute before I needed to run out and check on my table. Just long enough to hand over the money and pretend this never happened.
I found Devlin at a stainless steel table deveining a pile of shrimp and swearing at the same time. Other than a pair of grungy prep guys on the other side of the room mixing buckets full of salad dressing and having a conversation in Spanish, the back was empty.
Devlin swore again, and I turned my attention to him.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He looked up, his blue eyes bright, his jaw sharp. Far too beautiful to be in the back of this kitchen. Busted-up face and all. Would nothing quell my displaced attraction for him?
“Mild allergy.” He peeled off the blue gloves he wore and showed me a very red and swollen index finger. “Must have a hole in the glove. Feels like I’m fingering a jellyfish.”
My eyes widened.
“Sorry.” He offered a sheepish smile, an expression I’d never, ever seen on his handsome face.
I shook my head to let him know he hadn’t offended me. “No, I—” but then I didn’t want to explain. I wanted to get the (possibly outfitted with a tracking device) stack of money out of my pocket. “Travis was here.” I shot a look over to the guys still chatting and laughing. They were ignoring us completely. I scooted closer to Devlin anyway.
His lids narrowed as he studied me too closely for comfort.
“Travis,” I repeated on a whisper, “was here.”
He watched me quietly for a second. Now I was sweating.
“What do you think you have there, Rena?” His voice was low and curious. I didn’t think he was trying to be seductive, but his words poured over me like warm honey.
I started to pull the book out of my pocket, but he tipped his chin to the door behind me. “Freezer. I’ll join you in ten seconds.”
Without questioning him, I moved toward the adjacent walk-in freezer and through the cut strips of plastic hanging just beyond the heavy metal door. The freezer was maybe a third of the size of the walk-in refrigerator, a greenish fluorescent bulb the only light source. Bracing myself against the cold, I let my eyes wander to the boxes of bread, seafood, and containers of ice cream lining the shelves and tried not to think.
But stalling my thoughts didn’t change the fact that I’d picked up drug money. Fantastic.
Just as my cheeks were starting to chill, the door swung open and Devlin walked in, black cap on backward. He separated the plastic to allow for wide shoulders, dropping the strips behind him. Something about the way he was looking at me solidified my thought that he was dangerous. Dangerous and gorgeous. What a deadly—and irresistible—combination.
I fished the envelope from my black book and offered it. Surely he wanted to get this over with quickly so we could both get back to pretending I hadn’t been the equivalent of a drug mule for the payment of illegal narcotics.
My heart plunged. I didn’t make it a habit of doing illegal things. Except underage drinking. Drinking that had dragged Joshua to a party he didn’t want to go to in the first place. Drinking that forced him to come and get me and drive me home. That’s why I no longer did “bad” things. Bad things led to worse things. A wave of regret licked at my insides like fire. Nothing new there.
Devlin approached, standing so close the envelope crinkled against his chef’s coat and the fire of regret turned into the flicker of desire. He stood over me, mischief glittering in his eyes, mouth flat but a smile hiding there. I sensed more than saw it.
“Answer me,” he commanded.
Answer him? Under his unblinking stare, it took me a few seconds to regroup. “You didn’t ask me anything.”
“Out there I did. I asked you what you thought you had.”
My fist tightened around the money. “I…don’t know.”
“No, Rena.” Slowly, he shook his head, his assertive presence overwhelming. “Tell me what you think is in that envelope. If we have any hope of being friends, we can’t lie to each other.”
Oh, Lord. My heart. Just tommy-gunning against my ribs like it might leap out of my chest at any moment. Me? Friends? With Devlin? I was definitely a drug-money mule.
I pushed the envelope against his chest. “I don’t want to know what it is.” The feel of rock-hard muscle against the side of my hand nearly made me forget where I was.
His warm hand over mine made me forget who I was.
“You think it’s…” He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for me to tell him. I had the notion he wouldn’t let me out of here until I did.
So I told him what I thought. “Drug money?”
A sharp laugh echoed off the steel walls surrounding us. His full-wattage smile, white teeth against the shadow of his jaw, and the black-and-blue bruises decorating one side of his face beckoned my own smile. I couldn’t help it.
“No, sweetheart. Not drug money. A friend who made a bet, and lost.”
I thought of Travis’s shifty eyes. “That guy’s your friend?”
Devlin shrugged with his mouth. “More like an acquaintance.” He lifted his other hand and pushed a few strands of hair away from my face, then settled his palm on my cheek. “You’re cold.”
“We’re in a freezer.”
He chuckled, a low, slow sound that tumbled my internal organs like a game of Jenga.
Without warning, he closed the gap between us and his lips covered mine. Tenderly at first, minding his healing lip. I felt the faint scratch there, then forgot to notice when he clutched the back of my head, pushed his fingers through my hair, and slanted his mouth. A slow burn started in my stomach then consumed my chest, fanned out to my nipples, and struck the tip of my tongue like flint to stone. I ached to taste him. His jaw scraped my face as his fingers tore down my formerly smooth ponytail. His tongue never entered my mouth, but the kiss seduced me all the same.
Then it was over.
He pulled away, took the envelope from my outstretched hand, and licked the corner of his mouth, giving me a peek at the tongue I hadn’t tasted.
At the door, he parted the plastic strips, but before he left, he gave me a once-over. “Might want to fix your hair before you go back out there. Looks like you were making out in a freezer.”
My hand went to my disheveled ponytail as I watched him disappear out the door. I wasn’t cold any longer.
Chapter 6
Rena
My mom, with her dyed (what she called “frosted”) Mom-hair and jaunty sweater covered in knit snowmen and various Christmas implements like candy canes and holly, leaned on her elbows at the kitchen table and gave me “the look.”
Every mom had her own version of “the look,” and when a daughter sees it, she knows, without words, what it means. Hers always said the same thing: You’ve been single too long.
“I think…I work that night.” I stood up from the kitchen table to escape her lethal stare and made a show of rinsing my orange juice glass. She’d invited me over for homemade scones, which I found suspicious because she doesn’t bake. That’s not technically true. She does bake. She doesn’t bake well. But still, I hadn’t expected to her to drop the “I met a nice boy” bomb as I took my third bite. Shockingly, the scones were delicious. That orange marmalade–cranberry one almost made her inquisition worth it.
“His name is Barney,” she said.
I paced back to the table
. “Barney?”
She shushed me with a frown and darted her eyes upstairs to where Roy had vanished. Her boyfriend, the police officer, who I’d prefer never found out about my nefarious money-pickup at the behest of my boss.
“Sit. Honey, please.”
I sat and slumped in my chair.
“His name is Barney. I’m sure it’s a family name,” she added, her voice thick with warning. “And he’s coming to dinner on Sunday evening. You already told me you weren’t working so don’t lie about it now.”
“That’s when I thought you were going to ask me to go shopping.” She frowned at me and I pouted like a peeved twelve-year-old. “It’s awkward, Mom,” I whined.
She was ready for me. She didn’t miss a beat. “So is the fact that you’re almost twenty-three years old and haven’t had a boyfriend since Joshua.” She never spoke his name. She only whispered or mouthed it. Like saying his name quieter might reduce some of the pained memory of finding out her daughter had been trapped in a heap of metal with her no-longer-living boyfriend. I’d been pinned in the wreckage next to him for nearly an hour before help came. Which made the paramedics’ claim that I’d escaped the incident “unscathed” almost laughable.
“Are you seeing someone? Is that why you’re not interested in meeting Barney?”
“Mom.”
“Have you even kissed a boy since Joshua?”
“Mom!” Offended, and nervous because I’d kissed a boy less than twenty-four hours ago and hated her supersonic Batmom abilities, my jaw dropped open in horror.
But Devlin hadn’t kissed like a “boy,” and my reaction was nowhere near as chaste as when Joshua placed his perfectly puckered lips onto mine. Joshua and I had been so innocent. And good. So good.
I cringed. I’d grown to resent being labeled as good.
“I’m sorry to interfere,” she said. “I just want you to be open to the possibility of—”
“Being set up by my mom? What if you and Roy get married?” She shushed me again and angled a glance at the stairs. I lowered my voice. “What if this Barney guy and I work out?” Not going to happen. “Then we’d be like…incestuous or something.”
My mother clucked her tongue in reprimand. “First off, Roy’s nephew is not related to me and therefore is not a blood relation to you, so your argument is invalid. Second, while Barney isn’t Roy’s son, he’s like a son to Roy. We want the two people we love most to meet. That’s all.” She held up her hands like she’d stop but, much to my dismay, kept speaking. “It’s just dinner. If you two ended up liking each other, and I mean like like”—the scones in my stomach rode a wave of nausea at her suggestive tone—“then you could continue whatever relationship you have with him even if Roy and I got married.” Her cheeks lifted and shaded a pretty color of rose.
My parents had divorced right before Joshua died, outfitting my year from hell with an eighth circle. Unlike Mom, my dad had remarried within six months. I wanted to be happy for my mother’s future with Roy, but I couldn’t get the rancid taste of dating Roy’s kin out of my head long enough to feel celebratory.
“Sunday at four.” She lifted a plate still holding two scones. It was a standoff I was going to lose. She lifted the plate higher. “The big one’s chocolate chip.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, taking the pastry. “I’ll go on a date with Barney.”
Devlin
A stakeout might have seemed unreasonable before I got jumped by Flotsam and Jetsam, but after getting pummeled and dumped and left on the side of the road to freeze to death, let’s just say I’d upped my level of suspicion.
Since I couldn’t risk Sonny finding out that Paul had been responsible for my ass-kicking, I couldn’t ask anyone on staff to back me up. I did a minor-league stakeout outside of Paul’s house. Two hours later, after I’d watched him take out the garbage, smoke a cigarette, and flip on several lights upstairs and down, I was ninety-five percent sure he was alone. If not, well, I’d put up as good a fight as I could, then ask them to go easy on the face and focus on the torso.
I got out of my car, my hand in the pocket of my leather coat. I fingered the small knife I’d brought in case of emergency. If threatened, I could get a good stick or two in and then get away. Those guys had been big, and had the element of surprise on their side, but they were slow.
At the front door, I pressed the door handle with my thumb and blew out a breath of relief at my good fortune. Unlocked. I stepped inside, quietly drying my boots on the front mat so I didn’t squeak down the foyer. After treading oh-so lightly, I heard whistling in the kitchen. I peeked around the wall and spotted Paul wearing an ugly pair of pajama pants with reindeer on them and pulling a carton of ice cream from the freezer. His T-shirt stretched over his rounded belly.
I knocked on the wall to announce myself. “Hi, Paul.”
He spun around, knocking the carton to the floor in the process, and gripping the countertop behind him as if I held a pistol, cocked and ready.
I pulled my empty hands from my pockets and held up my palms. “Man, what is with you? I didn’t come to get revenge. I came to help.” I took a step toward him and he nearly crawled onto the sink to get away from me.
Where was the brave-slash-stupid guy who’d clocked me in the face the last time I’d seen him?
I stopped advancing, keeping the kitchen island between us for both our safety. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you? Because if you don’t, then I might have to kick your ass after all.”
He licked his lips nervously. “Can I—can I pick up my ice cream?”
I blew out a breath. “Sure.”
I slapped my palms onto the counter as he knelt. Outside the kitchen window stood a row of new-built houses in the complex behind his. Huge behemoths with no privacy at all. Maybe a twiggy little tree here and there strung with blue-and-white Christmas lights.
Nothing like the neighborhood where I’d grown up, though the houses on our street had had no privacy either, since they were about a yardstick’s length apart. Tight quarters in the ramshackle little house my parents had made do with. They’d poured all their money into Oak & Sage, and the house, well, the house was just for sleeping.
When I noticed Paul had been on the floor far too long to pick up a container of ice cream, I peeked over the island. Ice cream, but no Paul. I took one step toward the family room and saw him army crawling on the carpet.
I was on him in a second. He yelped and tried to kick me as I hauled him up. My hand around his throat, I squeezed his flesh through my fingers as I slammed him against the wall.
Through clenched teeth, I elicited a warning. “Listen carefully. Sonny doesn’t know about the shit you pulled last Friday. I will not mention it if you tell me what’s going on. If you don’t, I swear to God, I’ll tell him everything and you can deal with him instead of me.”
He waved his hands in a frantic gesture and I loosened my hold on his neck. I kept my other hand pressed firmly against his chest and my hips turned to the side, knowing the putz might knee me in the jewels. After that sucker punch, anything went.
“Don’t tell Sonny. He’ll kill me, Dev.” His lip trembled.
“Why would he kill you?”
“I didn’t mean to get in this deep with Tex, but—”
“Tex? Tex Shooter?” His street name. A stupid one at that. He was an up-and-comer in the bookie world, and he and Sonny didn’t exactly see eye to eye. Probably because Tex insisted on stealing our list of customers.
I dropped my hands and backed away from Paul, who looked sick. He should. He was in deeper shit than I’d thought. “So, those two guys…?”
“Came to pick up a payment for Tex. You happened to show the same night.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I yelled as I pointed at the bruises still decorating half my face. “Instead of getting me beat to hell?”
“Because they would have killed you if they knew you were Sonny’s guy!” His frantic shout told me he was lik
ely telling the truth. Or at least what he believed to be the truth.
I huffed and propped my hands on my hips while I thought.
“I can’t pay you both,” he said, his voice going thin. “Dev, what do I do?”
“Besides rent a time machine to go back and avoid Tex altogether?”
He flinched.
My eyes slipped closed, memories rolling over me despite my attempt to push them away. My father had also left Sonny to bet with a bigger, badder guy in town. Dad got in so far over his head, he had actually given the guy my baseball cards for payment. By the time he was turning over the deed to our house, my father’s psyche had begun to crack.
It’d been cold and rainy the night the cops found my dad’s body. The undulating currents of the river had washed him onto the shore a day after he’d jumped. I blamed the rival bookie until I found the suicide note and three hundred dollars stuffed under my mattress. And one baseball card. My cherished Pete Rose. Ironically, a famed gambler.
Or maybe not ironically, I thought with sudden clarity.
I blinked at Paul. Considered his fate. My face felt numb. Was this idiot trying to reenact my father’s past?
“How much are you in for?” I asked him.
“Twenty-two large.”
“Twenty-two thousand dollars?” I exclaimed, my voice raising.
“I know! I know! I thought Tex’s payout was better.”
“Yeah, to get you hooked, you dumbass!” Seriously. Had he learned nothing?
“It’s okay. He is letting me strike a deal.”
I felt my eye tic. “What kind of a deal?”
“Just…a little money laundering.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
A humorless laugh escaped my lips. “Oh, just a little?”
“My accounting skills should pay off in that respect.”
“Yeah,” I said, my tone flat.
“Don’t tell Sonny. I need some time. A week, tops.”
“I can’t believe I once looked up to you.” I also couldn’t believe I was considering helping him out of this. But the night the cops found my dad, it was Paul who showed up and wrapped a blanket over my shoulders and hauled me to his car. Paul who cleared out his home office and bought me a bed to sleep in until I got on my feet. I was eighteen and scared, alone for the first time in my life—like, really alone. I knew nothing. I had no one.
Fighting for Devlin (Lost Boys #1) Page 6