Bautista heard voices outside his door and looked at his watch. Rooster was early…That didn’t seem right. He was never early for a talk.
The door opened harshly, slamming the stop, but Bautista remained relaxed in his chair as Sofia invaded his office. Paint dotted her hair and skin.
The bartender, Tariq, said, “I told her not to come back here, but she lied about going to the ladies’ room.”
“I didn’t lie,” she said. “I do have to pee, but I can hold it until I say what I need to say to Bautista.”
Signaling for Tariq to leave, Bautista considered her. It had to be a crime to put dungarees on this woman. She’d been blessed with beauty, and folks in this town were paying attention. To look the way she did and hole herself up in a sex shop was starting to draw the kind of interest that had women whispering and men lurking around for more than an eyeful of mannequins simulating sex.
He had to ask. “What the hell are you wearing?”
“Overalls. Is Eaves united in some hatred for overalls? I was painting.”
“Why don’t you finish that up? Come back here when you don’t look like a ten-year-old and I can take you seriously.”
“No, we do this now.” The flare of courage and insult was organic, not practiced, and at last he sat up straight and nodded.
“What do you want?”
“The truth would be a great place to start, Bautista.” She leaned in, resting her fists on his desk. “Or would you prefer that I call you Judge?”
So she knew. It’d taken longer than he expected for the gossip to circulate. How had he been described to her—as a monstrous thug who let his gun do the talking for him and pillaged and ravaged just because he could, or as some damaged vigilante hero to be idolized and imitated because TV motorcycle outlaws were so goddamn cool?
“When we first met, I told you to call me Bautista.”
“I know about the Dead Men.”
He couldn’t help but smile. She’d heard about his club, but she didn’t know. He’d destroy hell itself before he let that world touch Luz’s girl.
She was his woman’s flesh and blood, and she’d come back to live Luz’s legacy—that made her his girl, too. She was his responsibility, his to watch over.
Sofia would repel the thought of it. She was independent. She had a mighty chip on her shoulder and secrets inside her that he didn’t want to carry. His conscience and this chair could hold only so much.
“Who are you?” she cried. “I’ve been here for weeks and never knew you owned Bottoms Up.”
He shrugged. “Gossip’s traveling slower than usual. The tourists must be distracting everyone.”
“The gang. You’re all outlaws.” She glanced around and he wasn’t altogether sure she wasn’t looking for weapons on the walls or a shrine to his club’s patch. “You’re killers.”
“Pipe down.”
“No, I won’t!”
“If you thought I was a killer or some evil monster, you wouldn’t be in here disrespecting my office.” He pointed to a chair near the door. “Sit down. On second thought, don’t. Wet paint on my furniture’s just going to piss me off.”
“It should’ve dried by now.”
“Go ahead.” He waited for her to drag the chair over and perch on the very edge of it. Even upset with him, she was considerate. Some kid his Luz had raised. “I’m not a killer. I’m a protector.”
“This isn’t tomayto, tomahto. I heard your club’s been involved in territory disputes and shootings. Blood’s on your hands.”
“I haven’t killed anyone,” he maintained.
Her slim throat worked as she swallowed the realization. “You didn’t deny that blood’s on your hands. You didn’t say you weren’t involved in the territory disputes and the shootings.” She spied him. They were caught in the middle of Eaves’s first heat wave of the year, so he’d pushed up his sleeves and wound his braid at the back of his head. The tattoos running down his forearms were exposed. “Luz never told me about you. She wasn’t wearing your ring when she died. Maybe you invented a relationship to soothe your ego or something, and she was too afraid to tell you where things stood.”
“Your aunt wasn’t afraid of me. She pushed me and she tested me, wanted to see how far she could go before I snapped against her. But it never happened. I loved her from the night she came to this bar and tied a cherry stem in her mouth.”
Sofia softened with a smile. “The cherry thing. That’s Luz, all right. I’ve seen her do it before.”
“I never hurt Luz.”
“Did you ever hit her?”
Bautista trapped her attention, as if he held her face between his hands. “Never without her consent, and she never hit me without mine. We respected each other’s safe words.”
Color rose on her cheeks. The woman who’d posed mannequins in positions he didn’t think were possible was blushing about sex play?
“Okay, I don’t think I needed to know that about Luz.”
“You asked if I hit her, and I wanted to make it clear that this isn’t a game of tomayto, tomahto. So if you can handle the answers to your questions without turning the color of a tomato, then we can keep talking.”
“Sorry, but I’d rather not know the details of my great-aunt’s sex life, thanks.” Yet even as she said the words Sofia absently stroked her arm with her fingernails and rocked on the edge of the seat.
There was a delicate line between repulsion and captivation, and the living proof of that was a woman with the face of an innocent and the mind of a debauchee who sat in front of his desk at the halfway point between turned off and turned on.
Bautista rose, followed the perimeter of his desk, and stopped behind her chair. “Who’re you thinking about, querida?”
“What…? No one.”
“Liar.” Someone had gotten to her. He knew what attraction looked like, knew what lust smelled like, and knew that someone who worked for a sentimental greeting card company didn’t dive into arranging hot-as-hell window displays unless she had some specific inspiration in her head.
He had a guess, but he’d keep it to himself. He didn’t need her secrets, didn’t want them. His duty was to fulfill his promise to Luz. He’d protect Sofia and guide her as if she were his own—but as for anything else, it was up to her to open her eyes.
“All you’ve shared is that you and Aunt Luz had an…uh…adventurous sexual relationship. It doesn’t sound like a happy, great love to me.”
“Great loves aren’t happy. They’re torture and they drag you through hell, and if you make it to the other side you think it was so hard-won that you just go with it.”
“That makes it sound as if love’s about winning or taking what’s in front of you just because it was hard to get and not necessarily because it’s with the right person.”
“Then maybe all that matters for you is what you think love ought to be. For me, love was confronting that I’d give up everything I thought was important to me for the benefit of my woman. That woman was Luz. I put my bar on the line for her.”
Sofia coiled her body in the chair. “Excuse me?”
“I offered to mortgage the bar to get her the money I thought she needed to buy the Cape Foods building between us.”
“So she wanted to grow Blush and, what, carry more product?”
“That’s what I believed, that she wanted the building for Blush.” The documents her CPA had turned over after her death had exposed that lie. “To get her the money to make an offer on the property, I geared up to sell this bar—”
“And give up the place where your meetings were held? Or might still be held?”
“My club doesn’t meet here.” His comrades sought counsel here; people came here for money and requests for favors. But she hadn’t asked him that. “I was going to sell Bottoms Up to help my future wife grow her business.”
“What stopped you?”
“A few things. The property owner refused to sell, my future wife died, and I found out she was
so damn well off that she didn’t need the proceeds from the sale of this bar.”
“Maybe she wanted you to sell the bar to end the chapter of your past that involved the club. You’re retired…or partially retired. I can’t blame her if she wanted you to be truly done with that life.”
He couldn’t have blamed Luz, either, had that been true. But it wasn’t.
Bautista returned to his chair, easily imagining that if he didn’t, the thing would erupt without his weight to press down the secrets it held.
“Your disagreement about this bar is a moot point, isn’t it?” she asked. “You want Caro to take it on. She asked if I’d go in on it with her.”
“What’d you say?”
“I didn’t say no. The way you talked about this bar makes me believe you don’t want to let it go completely. So don’t. Let Caro have a slice and let her help. I’ll help, too, but I can’t be associated with your club. If I take a piece of this, I’m taking a piece of a bar and nothing else.”
So she was asking him to make a choice. Retired or not? In or out?
“Noted, Sofia.”
She exhaled, as though finally free to release a pent-up breath. “Okay.” She relaxed a little. “Why’d the property owner refuse to sell the Cape Foods building anyway? Suppose I want to purchase it. If I can’t get my furniture hauled up to the apartment I’ll need the extra space for storage.”
“Always have a plan, Sofia. If there’s one thing I can teach you, it’s that.”
“I’m sure I can learn plenty if I’m privy to half of what Caro’s overheard.” She winced.
So Caroline Jayne had filled in a few blanks for her. It didn’t bother him. He held Caro in the highest regard. Anyone who could survive her trauma and be an unquestionably devoted mother deserved his respect. She was also a gifted bartender and whenever he left his place in her hands, he needn’t worry about a damn thing. “Caroline’s been keeping you entertained with stories?”
“I have no reason to doubt what she says. Don’t be upset with her.”
“I’m not. I protect her, the same as I protect Slattery across the street and the stationery folks, the same as I protected Luz and Old Man Wolf—” Though years before the man’s death Bautista’s instincts had warned him to take a closer look at the grocer. He might’ve if Wolf’s kid had come back, but Burke had kept himself scarce until after his father died. “Society Street’s my street, Sofia. I’m invested in the safety of everyone on this strip. Think of me as a neighborhood watchman.” Checking the time, he saw that Rooster would arrive any minute, and he didn’t want the two crossing paths—not today. “Are we finished here?”
“Yes, but would you give me a hand moving up some furniture?”
“I have a meeting.”
“A meeting.” Her eyes narrowed momentarily, then she stood and started for the door. “Fine, then I really will shove it all into the building next door.”
Bautista resumed his relaxed posture in his chair and breathed in the smell of aged leather. “I think the owner of that property might not appreciate it if you do. But if you’re a believer in ‘it’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission,’ then go for it.”
“Who’s the owner?”
And so it begins.
“Burke Wolf.”
CHAPTER 10
Sofia paused, wasn’t sure she so much as blinked for several seconds, as Bautista’s words registered. Burke owned the old market building, and he’d consciously ignored opportunities to tell her. The vacant real estate diminishing the street appeal of both Caro’s and her businesses was his responsibility. On top of that, Luz had approached him about purchasing and he’d refused to sell.
The chirp of her phone cut Sofia off from dashing out of the bar, hopping into her SUV, and driving to the Eaves Marina while still wearing the overalls that were apparently more offensive than the mannequin sex in Blush’s windows.
She would find him later, after she showered off the paint and traded the overalls for something…sexy. She could do that, amp up her appeal for the singular purpose of charming the truth out of him. So Caro was right—charm was a device, and Sofia intended to use it for all it was worth.
Retrieving the phone from the apron pocket of the overalls, she saw Joss’s name paired with a headshot of her wearing whiskers. That had been snapped at a Halloween party last year when Joss had squeezed herself into patent leather, put on cat ears and a tail, and called herself a sex kitten. Sofia had sewn her own lingerie-inspired costume to achieve sex appeal while covering her scar, and had accessorized with long ears and a fluffy tail and called herself a Playboy bunny. “Hey, Joss,” she said into the phone, turning to leave Bautista’s office when he threw his hand forward as a signal to get out now. “I’m going already!”
“What?” her friend squeaked.
“Not you,” she assured. “That was meant for the grumpy tattooed man currently throwing me out of his office.”
“Where are you, Sof? I wanted to surprise you, but the store’s locked up tight.”
“The store? Joss…are you here, in Eaves?”
“Yeah. I wanted to go to the beach. Surprise,” she said, though her next breath was shaky and the enthusiasm in her voice had waned. “I’m sitting out front, but people walking past keep giving me change. If you’ll be much longer, I’m going someplace to buy a scone. Some guy gave me a buck and told me to get a scone, so I might.”
Sofia was immediately alarmed at her friend’s erratic babbling and that she’d up and driven to the Cape on a weekday without so much as a Heads up, I’m on my way! “Something’s wrong, Joss. Tell me.” She heard movement behind her and turned as Bautista rounded his desk.
“What happened to her?” he demanded.
“I—I don’t know.” Returning to the call, she said, “Joss, just wait there. I’m down the block but on my way.”
“Okay. Sof? I’m sorry.” Then she disconnected.
No, that didn’t sound good at all. “Joss is in front of Blush and people think she’s homeless. I need to get to her before she runs off to buy a scone.”
“What?” Bautista asked, opening the door and guiding her out. “You gotta know that last part makes zero sense.”
“Joss is a pastry snob—her words. She prefers to eat homemade pastries, her own creations. It’s all part of perfecting her craft, as she says.” Sofia noticed him walking out with her and shutting the office door as the noise of the bar enveloped them. “I thought you had a meeting. That’s why you can’t help me move my stuff upstairs, isn’t it?”
“Change of agenda,” he said, not expounding. As they passed the bar, he cuffed a patron on the shoulder. “Hold it down till I get back.”
Sofia was occupied with making her way to the exit and didn’t pry. Sunshine and heat fell over them as they reached the sidewalk, then turned the corner.
Joss stood up, dusting the seat of her jeans. Luggage barricaded the boutique. She wasn’t the world’s most practical packer, but not even she would bring a dozen cases and bags for a day trip to the beach.
“Hi!” The false perkiness was further alarming—so was the way she winced when Sofia hugged her.
“Are you hurt?” Sofia asked, and fell speechless when Bautista reached forward and took away Joss’s sunglasses.
“Hey—” Joss gasped, snatching them back and putting them on.
But Sofia had already seen what her friend was trying to hide.
A bluish-gray bruise edged with a yellowish tinge ringed her right eye. There was a dash of red where the skin had split. The bruise was sickeningly beautiful, and Sofia’s heart hurt. “Oh, God. Who did this?” In her gut she knew, but she needed to hear the name.
Joss shook her head at first. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here like this. I’m functioning on emotion.”
“Who touched you?” Bautista’s voice was quiet yet firm enough to garner an immediate response. Joss’s crisis didn’t involve him, but his presence was strangely a comfort
.
“Peter.” Joss sobbed into her hand. “I was going to stay away from him, but he was so persistent. He apologized for cheating and then he set up an interview for a pastry chef gig at a restaurant on Park Avenue. But the interviewer was an ass and I walked out. Peter found out, said I embarrassed him, and we fought about it. He hit me, shoved me down.”
“Please tell me you reported him,” Sofia said.
“I called the cops, and his parents got him sprung five minutes later. The word of an upstanding heir to New York royalty versus the word of New Jersey trash, right? When he got out, he dumped me.”
“That son of a bitch.” Sofia looked at the luggage lined up along Blush’s storefront. “You’re not going back to New York, are you?”
“My name’s shit now. Peter took away every good thing he made happen. I’m like Cinderella at midnight.” She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt. “The rest of my clothes are in my rental car. It’s parked across the street.”
In tandem Sofia and Bautista looked from the collection in front of them to Joss. There was no way it’d all fit in the apartment’s bedroom closet.
“Sof, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you out when you suggested I join you here. I thought I could play Peter Bernard’s game and win.” She shrugged and turned to gaze at the store. The display in front of her featured a teddy-clad female mannequin straddling the lap of a nude male. A black cloth covered their hips to add mystery and suggestion. The male’s hands were secured behind the female’s back with silk ribbon. “Mannequin porn. I’m standing on the street looking at mannequin porn. Your Aunt Luz must’ve been some kind of talented pervert. I would’ve liked her.”
“Oh. Aunt Luz didn’t set these up.”
“You?” Joss smiled. “Then I’m proud to be the friend of a talented pervert.”
Bautista stood watching Joss, his eyes hooded, his jaw tight with tension Sofia couldn’t name. Finally he spoke. “You can handle this from here, querida?”
“Yeah, but I thought you were going to help with the furniture—”
Meant to Be Mine Page 14