Give It All

by Cara McKenna

  His posture stiffened.

  “Three C’s the obvious choice,” she went on. “People coming and going, tons of witnesses who all know each other, should anyone suspicious come poking around. A local address, to keep the feds happy.”

  Miah shook his head. “I don’t want that man in my house. It’s his company’s fault we’ve got property vultures trying to buy us out at every fucking turn.”

  “Kim worked for Sunnyside when she first got here,” Raina said.

  “As a freelancer,” he cut back. “Taking photos. No agenda. It’s in Welch’s job description to shut troublesome locals up, keep the casino’s wheels greased. In a year or two your dad’s bar is going to be gone, bought out or run out, because of men like him.”

  And because of me, maybe. She didn’t think she could spend the rest of her life going through the motions of a dead man’s dreams, no matter how much she’d loved her father. “Duncan doesn’t work for them anymore. They fired him.”

  “And if they hadn’t, he’d still be marching around, shooting us all those snobby looks he reserves for every last person whose town he’s planning to wreck. So no. No fucking way. Maybe he’s not the enemy, strictly speaking, but come on—he’s complicit. And he’s a jackass.”

  “Jackass or not, we owe him,” Vince said.

  “Then you house the shithead,” Miah shot back, knowing, as they all did, that the Grossiers had absolutely zero room to do so at the moment.

  “Fine,” Raina said, locking her arms across her chest. “I’ll put him up. My place isn’t anywhere near as secure as Three C, but it beats the four of us taking turns playing bodyguard at the motel.”

  Miah’s black eyes widened at that, burning hot. “Fine.” He just about spat the word.

  “Agreed,” Vince said, and though she wasn’t a member, Kim nodded as well.

  Raina looked to Casey.

  “Like I give a shit.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yea.’ Okay, settled. I’m on Welch-protection duty.”

  “You got ammo?” Vince asked.

  “Unless bullets expire, tons.” She’d fired that .22 exactly twice since Vince gave it to her, six years ago—harmless sky shots to scare off coyotes, both times.

  Miah was frowning again, probably reconsidering his stance, now imagining Raina was inviting trouble to set its sights on her home. But even if he suddenly changed his tune and offered up the ranch, she was married to this plan. It appealed to her desire for control. She had that in common with Duncan, it would seem.

  “Any other business?” she asked, looking at everyone. All heads shook, so she grabbed a socket wrench and thumped the worktop. “Adjourned. Drink up.”

  Casey circled Vince’s work-in-progress. “Feel like dicking around?” he asked his brother.

  “Give me a few—I need to drop Kim back home.”

  Kim rolled her eyes. “I’ve got a shoot to prep for—somebody’s wedding announcement photos.” Her expression said it wasn’t her first choice of subject matter.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Raina said, “if you’d ever be interested in a different sort of portrait photography.”

  Casey looked up from what he was doing. “Nudie shots?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Case.”

  “Tasteful ones, obviously.”

  She ignored him, turning back to Kim. “My own portfolio’s pretty sad, photography-wise. I’d love to have some of my tattooing clients over to Benji’s some night, the ones with the work I’m most proud of. Would you ever do that? Photograph a load of roughnecks, in the bar?”

  Kim’s eyes lit up. “That’d be awesome. And I could shoot you—a portrait to use on your Web site.”

  She laughed. “My what, now?”

  Kim’s gears were obviously turning. “I could do that for you, too—you can get a template site for pretty cheap. I’d help you upload and organize everything.”

  “You say this like my clients are especially Web savvy.”

  But Vince looked intrigued as well. “You should. If and when the Eclipse comes along, we’re gonna get a load of bikers coming through. You could be the go-to artist around here. A real destination. You’re good enough for it.”

  She hopped down from the table. “On that much, we agree.”

  “You could make enough to hire more staff for Benji’s, retire your towel. Get to bed before four a.m. for a change.”

  Indeed. She could retire more than her towel—she could shut the bar for good, find her fresh start elsewhere, use the money from selling up to open a little studio someplace. Maybe Kim was onto something.

  “Come by the bar some night soon,” she said. “We’ll talk estimates.”

  Kim was plainly framing shots in her head already, eyes bright. “Deal.”

  “C’mon,” Vince said. “Better get you home.” To Casey he added, “Back in twenty.”

  “Cool.” Casey began organizing tools, and Vince and Kim cruised away. Raina expected Miah to follow suit, but instead he shot her a look she knew well. One that said, Outside. Once upon a time, that had meant, Meet me out back so we can kiss until our lips chap. Not so much anymore. Raina grabbed her beer and followed him into the forecourt.

  She took a drink and held his stare. “Lay it on me,” she said.

  “I’m only gonna say it once—be careful. And be selfish. This guy’s safety really worth putting your own at risk?”

  “Vince said it himself. We owe him.”

  “Where does this end?”

  “I dunno, Miah. I’ll let you know when I get there.”

  He shook his head, gaze on the ground between them, and ran a hand through his black hair. It was getting really long, nearly brushing his shoulders. Looked good on him, too.

  Raina sighed. “We both know you won’t change my mind.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know that all too well.”

  Christ, were they ever going to be able to talk to each other just as friends? Everything was so heavy now, draped in this cumbersome ex-lovers’ shroud.

  “Did you two . . .” He trailed off.

  “No. We haven’t done anything.” She didn’t even bother telling him it was none of his business.

  “Not yet,” Miah prompted.

  False hope would be a cruel gift to offer this man, so she nodded. “Yeah, not yet.”

  His jaw clenched, if only for a breath.

  “You—”

  He cut her off. “How the fuck does it feel like we’ve got so much history between us, after two months of fucking, two years ago?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe because we grew up together. Maybe because we’re so exactly perfect in one way, but so exactly impossible, in another.”

  “Is he right for you?”

  Raina laughed, feeling sad. “No, of course not.”

  “Then why bother? Why bother sleeping with him, if it’s not going to lead anyplace?”

  “You’d never ask Vince this same question, about any of the girls he ever hooked up with.”

  “Because Vince isn’t my ex-girlfriend.”

  “No, because Vince isn’t a girl, period. And like Vince, I don’t need to see a future in the eyes of every person I take to bed. Nice if I respect the guy, but some nights, that’s just not one of the needs I’m looking to meet. I’m not supposed to admit that, though, because it’s unattractive. I approach sex like a man, I’m a slut. You—you approach sex like a woman, wanting affection and connection, and a chance at something permanent. You’re a saintly fucking cowboy unicorn. You win a spot on The Bachelor, and I get a big red skank badge on my sash.”

  “Don’t make this about feminism.”

  “Then don’t you act like you get a say in what I do with my body. I never promised a thing to anybody. And I’ll fuck who I want, maybe somebody you can’t fucking s
tand, and your feelings about it will be your problem.”

  “I know all that.”

  “Good. Then I won’t need to say it again.”

  His eyebrows were a hard line. “No, you won’t.”

  She softened her tone, feeling heard for a change. “I know this sucks, and it probably will for a while. But here’s the deal—I get with somebody, I don’t rub your face in it. You have hard feelings about it, you try your damnedest not to let me see it. That’s what I’d do for you. You fall in love tomorrow, I’ll smile and act like my heart’s not a little bit broken.”

  He blinked.

  “Don’t look surprised. Just because I can’t stay with you doesn’t mean a part of me doesn’t want to be with you. And just because something didn’t end in wedding bells doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile.” Some people wanted to think that, but as it negated Raina’s entire romantic and sexual history, she refused to bend over and take it. “But to all that other stuff—deal?”

  A single, tight nod. “Deal.”

  For a long moment they stared at each other. When Miah finally turned to walk to his bike and strap on his helmet, she headed back inside, feeling some closure, finally.

  Casey shot her a look, one that told her he’d watched the entire exchange. “I guess—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Case.”

  Chapter 8

  Raina climbed into her dad’s truck back at the bar and aimed herself toward the mountains.

  My truck, she reminded herself. She couldn’t seem to get rid of the thing, and it was high time she quit thinking of it as his. His truck, his bar, his apartment. She couldn’t say why she was so cagey about attaching herself to those things . . . as though she hadn’t grown up in that bar and that apartment. As if she hadn’t been borrowing this truck since she turned seventeen.

  But if they’re mine, what’s still his? And if things quit being his . . . would she stop remembering him at all? Was that maybe a good thing, even? It’d make selling the bar easier . . . or at least less impossible.

  She found Duncan’s motel room easily, thanks to the shiny black Mercedes sedan parked in front of it. She frowned as she slammed the truck’s door, spotting something strange—fluorescent orange words, spray-painted in crude capitals across both driver’s-side doors.

  CONFESS OR PAY THE PRICE, JACKAL.

  “Fuck.” Well, she sure as shit wasn’t overreacting, then. Duncan’s name must have made the news, in relation to the bribery charges. Nothing about Duncan Welch said “trustworthy” to the average Fortuitan, and clearly the charges were as damning as a conviction. Great. The way rumors flew around here, Duncan could be complicit in Alex’s murder by sundown.

  He couldn’t know about this yet—if he did, he’d surely have had his precious car in for detailing an hour later. Apparently she got the honor of breaking the bad news.

  She stepped up onto the walkway and knocked on the door labeled 4.

  Duncan answered after half a minute, cracking the door a few inches, enough to frame his handsome face. All those intimate little lines she’d studied while he slept . . . They felt like hers somehow.

  “Ms. Harper.”

  “Afternoon.” Raina felt her eyebrows rise at a strange, strong aroma. Bleach? It flashed her back to a mystery Vince had once asked her to solve, before Duncan had proven himself an ally—to find out why Kim had seen him carrying cleaning supplies into his motel room. At the time it had sounded suspicious, especially coupled with Kim saying she’d seen him talking to someone before slipping inside the door. Perhaps she’d wind up with answers to that old riddle after all.

  Then she heard something that only deepened her confusion. An unmistakable meow.

  Duncan asked, “How may I help you?”

  “Is there a cat in there?”

  “Yes, there is.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Because dogs are filthy?”

  “Right . . . Look, I hate to break this to you, but your car’s been vandalized.”

  His eyes grew wide. In a breath he was exiting, pulling the door shut behind him, sweeping past Raina to circle the Merc. “Bloody fucking shit.”

  She held in a little snort of a laugh. She’d never heard him swear quite so Britishly. She wondered if he got more English, the angrier he was. And he was wearing yellow rubber gloves, which raised her eyebrows. Aside from those, he was underdressed, barefoot in charcoal lounge pants, a nicely fitted navy T-shirt stretched taut between his shoulder blades. She’d bet the tee cost as much as her good leather jacket had. She eyed his feet with distraction. Long and smooth and pedicured, odd against the tired asphalt. Handsome things, just as she’d suspected.

  Duncan shook his head, looking dazed. “Fucking rednecks.”

  “Hey, now,” she said, not especially offended. A lot of her neighbors and patrons did indeed fit that bill. “You should take it to Elko,” she offered. “Fortuity’s mechanics can keep just about anything running forever, but I wouldn’t trust them with that paint job.”

  He stood with an aggravated sigh, snapping the gloves from his hands with a striking—and strikingly erotic—authority. “I suppose I can spare the time. If I’m ever allowed to leave town, that is.”

  “You seem kinda calm, for a man who just got a death threat.”

  “It’s not my first.” He glared at the paint. “Merely the most expensive.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  He shot her a leveling look and walked back to the door. “I can handle myself, Ms. Harper, though your concern is charming.” He didn’t look especially charmed. And if his idea of handling himself was to get fucked-up on vodka and pills again, she’d arrived just in time.

  “Can I come in?” She asked partly to take her attention off the way his shirt fell, outlining a hard set of abs. “To talk?”

  He paused—a long, long pause, eyes seeking the door. “No.”

  At once, her gut plummeted. Because why did men keep women from seeing the insides of their motel rooms?

  “You got a chick in there?” she teased, letting her tone hide the nauseated pang the idea gave her.

  “Now, that would be highly efficient of me, wouldn’t it?”

  She smiled. “You seem like a highly efficient man.” And with the thought fully processed, it did seem a touch ridiculous. But he was hiding something, that was clear. “Are there kinky sex props strewn all over your bed?”

  “If you have business with me, Ms. Harper, we can conduct it here.” He nodded to the walkway under his feet.

  “What’s with that?” she asked, stalling, nodding to the yellow rubber in his fist.

  “That’s nothing.”

  She bit her lip and lied. “I hate to add insult to injury, but there’s more paint, across the back.”

  His eyes grew round, and when Duncan strode forward to inspect the made-up offense, Raina opened his door, slipped inside, and engaged the chain lock.

  The room was dim, curtains drawn. A tabby sat on the queen-sized bed, and it watched as Raina followed her nose, chasing that odd, strong smell. She heard Duncan’s shout from outside, then the sound of the door opening.

  “Let me in this instant.”

  “Just a sec.” The fumes led her to the bathroom, and when she pushed the door in, it hit.

  Definitely bleach. An olfactory wall of it. “Jesus,” she muttered to herself. “What have you been doing in here?” She buried her face in the crook of her arm.

  “Don’t think I won’t have you charged,” Duncan shouted.

  Not finding anything scandalous, she headed back through the room, meeting Duncan’s eyes through the gap in the door.

  “What the hell are you playing at?”

  “You get extra British when you’re angry.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I just wanted
to know why it smells like bleach in here.” And to check for stray conquests and whips and so forth.

  “Let me in my room or I’ll call the police.”

  “Say please.”

  His head cocked. “Fuck you.”

  She nearly giggled at that, giddy to have roused such crassness in this man. She shut the door and undid the chain. He was inside a moment later, the anger draining from him. He was gathering his self-control, shrugging back into that invisible suit of civility. He glanced around the room, expression mellowing. She’d bet Duncan was stingy with his anger, gifting it only when someone absolutely deserved it. She wondered what she’d do next to earn the honor.

  “You know,” he said mildly, “I’ve had fantasies about you turning up unexpected in my room. But it never looked like this.”

  She shot him a look, feeling surprised and a bit warm to hear one of them finally admit it—that this attraction went beyond some chiding game. Or perhaps he was just using that little flirtatious ploy to steal the power back from her.

  “It never smelled like this in my fantasies.” She turned her attention to his outfit. “And you’re underdressed.”

  “I’m cleaning.”

  “So I saw. Why? I can see you being dissatisfied with the job housekeeping does, but to do the work yourself . . . ?”

  Duncan walked to the bathroom and Raina followed. He flipped on the light and fan, illuminating gleaming plastic and porcelain and grout, a red bucket on the floor by the wall, blue sponge perched on the tub’s ledge. His arm brushed hers as he leaned to toss the gloves over the bucket’s rim.

  “Seriously,” she said, “what’s the deal? Why bother?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  Confusion sent wild images flashing across her imagination—of Duncan cleaning blood off a hacksaw or something, disinfecting evidence, complicit all along. “What reasons?”

  “A trillion invisible offenses, ones that no one but I would ever waste half a breath worrying about.” He edged past her to rinse his hands in the sink, drying them primly and refolding the hand towel.

  Raina turned and wandered back into the main room with suspicions nagging. The cat shot off across the bed as she neared. She pulled open the top dresser drawer—crisp shirts, folded with military precision in flush rows, gradating from white to cream to pale gray to charcoal. Ditto his pants in the drawer below. Perhaps a dozen pairs of identical shorts, tidily rolled beside as many pairs of socks. Gleaming shoes stood at attention by the wall beside a pair of stylish sneakers, arranged so neatly they could’ve been occupied by invisible soldiers. Duncan had followed, and he watched, saying nothing. There was a slick laptop charging, its brushed aluminum corner nested perfectly with that of the desktop. Phone set precisely parallel.