Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Mile High Matched Books 1-3

by Christina Hovland

  “Absolutely, no—” Heather started.

  “She says, ‘I refuse to hear him out.’ I say, ‘You be kind to your neighbors.’ You two make up and give me grandbabies before I move back in with your dedushka.”

  “I see you and Babushka are getting along great.” He swung an arm around his grandmother.

  “Hey, I have some deliveries. Ethan hasn’t been by. Can you send him over?” Heather asked.

  “He is late, this Ethan,” Babushka said on a huff. “Ve have deliveries to be made.”

  Because of her vengeance. She forgot to add that part. Deliveries to be made, because of her vigilante justice gone wrong.

  That’s what Jase thought. What he said was: “I’ll send him over.”

  “Good. And I have doctor’s appointment this morning. I need transportation. Who vill drive me?” She brushed his arm off and pointed between the two of them.

  “That’s a negative for me. I’ve got a full afternoon. But I can call Anna.” He was already pulling his phone from his back pocket.

  Babushka waved him away. “She is busy today. I asked her.”

  “Then I’ll call Mom.”

  “She is at luncheon this afternoon.”

  “Dad?” Jase scowled at his phone in an apparent attempt to dream up more family member names.

  “Golfing.”

  “Zach?” Jase asked.

  “He spends time with his girlfriend. I not bother him. They will be married, and I will have grandbabies.”

  Jase leaned his hands on the countertop, a scowl plastered on his face. “I’ll ask Ethan.”

  “I can do it,” Heather volunteered. “It’s her car and I’ve got to go pick up the prom tickets, anyway. They’re done at the printer.”

  “You want to take her to the doctor?” Jase confirmed. Heather clearly didn’t know what she was stepping in.

  “I don’t mind. I can drop her off and pick her up.”

  “Well, then, thank you, Heather.” He hugged his grandmother and headed for the door.

  “What time is your appointment?” he heard Heather ask.

  “Foot doctor is at ten, then heart doctor, then eye doctor.”

  Yup, stepped in it.

  “Oh,” Heather said in reply.

  “After eye doctor, then late lunch. Best steaks in Denver. All you can eat for ten dollars.”

  On that, he glanced back.

  His grandmother’s cheeks folded into creases with her smile. “My treat.”

  Heather drummed her fingers against the arm of a chair in the waiting room of Cherry Creek’s most esteemed ophthalmologist.

  “Ms. Reese?” One of the nurses, the one in the blue scrubs, opened the doorway leading to the back rooms. “Nadzieja had her eyes dilated, so she’s having a harder time seeing than usual. She should be better by this evening.”

  “I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.” Phone stuffed back in her pocket, Heather stood and gathered her purse.

  “She insists she doesn’t need a wheelchair.” The nurse’s expression turned sympathetic.

  Of course. She was Babushka, master of her own independence.

  “I’ll help her to the car.” Heather followed the woman to where Babushka sat, ankles crossed like a demure debutante instead of a feisty old woman. “They say you won’t use a wheelchair.”

  “I am dying. I’m not dead.” Babushka boosted herself to stand and grabbed on to Heather’s arm. “I vill use vheelchair vhen I am dead.”

  “Nadzieja, you’re not dying. We’ve been over this.” The soft-spoken nurse was no match for Babushka. Even Heather could see that.

  “Vat do you know?” Hand raised in goodbye, Babushka pulled Heather toward the exit. “She knows nothing.”

  “The cardiologist agreed with her,” Heather pointed out.

  “He knows nothing. Now, ve go to lunch.” Babushka plowed ahead.

  Heather had to do a tug-and-yank combination to keep her from toppling over an old man with a cane.

  “Vatch vhere you go,” Babushka admonished him. If she’d shaken her fist at the guy, Heather wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Let’s head back to the shop. I’ll order in.” Heather could keep things contained at the shop. Things meaning Babushka.

  “No. It is eye doctor day. Ve go to steak. This is how it alvays is.” Babushka nearly stepped into oncoming traffic.

  Heather gripped her arm and pressed the walk button. “Hold tight. The crosswalk is still red.”

  “Cars vill stop. You go. They stop.”

  “Or we can wait for the light to change so we don’t become one with the asphalt. Then we can get in your car, head back to the shop, and I’ll order you lunch.”

  “Steaks.” The one word said it all. Babushka was going to get her piece of a cow.

  “Yum,” Heather replied. Thumb shoved on the crosswalk button again, Heather contemplated becoming a vegetarian.

  “We cannot go in here.” Heather slumped farther down into the beige leather seat of Babushka’s Buick.

  “Vhy not?” The black-sunglass-wearing old woman peered at the building.

  The building with the sign that read Pistol Polly’s and showcased a vintage-style pinup woman riding a pony in short-shorts and pigtails. The building everyone in Denver knew housed a strip joint—as in poles, VIP back rooms, and topless waitresses. The building Heather was absolutely not taking Babushka into.

  “It’s a gentlemen’s club.” Heather slid a side-eye to her…whatever the heck Babushka had become to her. Baker. Grandmother figure.

  “Vomen are velcome, too. This is Morty’s place. Best steak in Denver. I alvays come after eye doctor.”

  After she couldn’t see anymore.

  “Always?” Heather confirmed.

  “Oh yes, this vas my driver’s favorite.”

  Well, Heather just bet. Her old driver appeared deserving of his firing.

  “Your old driver? He brought you here?” Heather confirmed.

  “Yes.” Babushka harrumphed. “He knows good steak. Bad driver. Alvays goes so fast, but good vith picking restaurants.”

  That point was debatable.

  “He brought you here because you had your eyes dilated and you couldn’t see that… It. Is. A. Gentlemen’s. Club.” Not that there was anything wrong with that. A girl had to make a living. But Jase would likely murder Heather in her sleep if she took his presently blind grandmother to lunch at a place that also served up half-price lap dances between three and five p.m.

  “This is no true. He also brings me to Le Peep for breakfast.” With that, Babushka pushed open the car door and scooted outside, her orthotic-covered feet shuffling across the parking lot.

  Heather didn’t trust her in a parking lot. The woman could barely make it from the ophthalmologist’s office to the car without getting swiped by a Chevy. Heather rushed after her.

  “You vill love steaks here,” Babushka assured with all the confidence of a mostly blind elderly woman entering a strip club.

  It better be the best damn steak of her life, because Heather was pretty certain she’d have a front-row seat at her own funeral soon enough. Throat thick, she heaved open the metal door to follow Babushka straight past the vacant hostess station, through a darkened waiting area with leather-covered walls, and straight into the lion’s den. Low blue and pink lighting, fog-covered stage, polished poles where two women in bedazzled G-strings gyrated their hips to Lady Gaga for a couple of suits in the front row.

  “Where are we going?” Heather stumbled along with Babushka.

  She pointed toward the bar area, away from the stage. “My table is in back.”

  Of course Babushka had her own table at the strip club. Because that made total sense.

  “Nadzieja.” An old man with a comb-over and a wide smile ambled toward them. “I was hoping you would come today.” He folded Babushka in a hug that seemed to go on a few seconds too long.

  “Morty, it’s good to see you again.” Babushka leaned in for a cheek
kiss as Morty held on a few seconds more. “This is Heather. She is Jase’s fiancée.”

  Hell-to-the-no.

  “Hello, I’m Heather.” She shook Morty’s warm hand. “Definitely not Jase’s fiancée.”

  Babushka climbed onto the barstool and gestured for Heather to join her. The thickness in Heather’s throat turned to ash. She glanced to the stage, to Babushka, finally settling on the varnish of the table. Perhaps she could step outside. Call Jase and explain what had happened. That would absolve her of any guilt.

  “They have lover’s quarrel.” Babushka held her large purse tight against her lap, leveraging it between her knees and the table. “Vill make up soon enough.”

  “Ah…my Nadzieja. Always taking care of her grandchildren.” Morty’s cheeky grin spread even wider. “When will you let me take you out and show you a good time?”

  Was he…? Yes, he was hitting on the old battle-ax.

  Babushka waved him aside. “I am here for lunch, not romance.”

  “Ah, but my sweet, we have time for both.” He had the glimmer in his expression of a fox about to devour his victim. “Let me take you to my office. I’ll show you the time of your life.”

  One, ew. And, two, now there was no way Heather could leave. He’d have Babushka in a VIP room before Heather could count to ten.

  Babushka ignored his advances. “I vill have the steak. Medium. Vith vodka. The good kind.”

  “She always turns me down. Someday I will get through.” Morty winked at Heather. “For you, my dear?”

  Heather’s phone buzzed in her purse. She ignored it. The sooner they ordered their steaks, the quicker they could be out the door. “I’ll have the same. But water. Please.”

  “Coming right up.” Morty strode away, whistling along to Lady Gaga.

  “You see? This is how you do it.” Babushka sat taller.

  “Do what?” Heather asked.

  “Get a man.”

  Heather scratched at her ear, she couldn’t have heard that right. “Sorry?”

  “You play the hard to have.”

  “Hard to get?”

  “Yes. This is how you do it. I have decided I am a tiger.” The smack of Babushka’s napkin against the table was an exclamation point to her announcement.

  What on earth was the woman jabbering about now? “A what?”

  “A tiger. You know, a cheetah. A leopard.”

  Maybe the stuff they used to dilate her eyes had seeped into her brain. “I’m not following.”

  “Older woman goes after younger man,” Babushka explained.

  “A cougar?” Heather asked.

  “Yes. That is the one. I am cougar. Morty, he is ten years younger.”

  A waitress with two star-shaped pasties covering her nipples dropped their drinks in front of them. Babushka downed her vodka and slapped the empty glass on the table. Heather was seriously reconsidering her choice to have water.

  “If you’re so sure you’re dying, why start a relationship? Doesn’t that seem like a bad idea?”

  “Oh, ve vill have an entrance romance.” Babushka nodded briskly.

  A what? No, Heather didn’t want to know. But still… “Entrance?”

  “You know. He sees other vomen. Ve don’t get too close. Just physical.” Babushka waggled her bushy eyebrows and…ew.

  “An open relationship?”

  “See, you know these things.”

  Heather swirled the ice in her red plastic tumbler. “You’re really going to go after this guy?”

  “No. He comes for me. This is how it is. Next time he asks, I vill say yes. This is vat you do vith Jason. You say no, make him work for it, but vhen time comes, you say yes.”

  Not flipping likely.

  “Heather Reese,” a male voice called.

  “Yes?” She glanced up.

  Shit. Jase.

  Not happy-go-lucky, dancing Jase. Not the Jase who would be propositioning her for a tumble in a VIP room. Not with the way the blood vessel pulsed in his neck and the tips of his ears tinged red.

  No, this was furious Jase.

  Oh. Hell.

  8

  Chapter Eight

  “Dial it back.” Eli, Jase’s buddy, tightened his hand on Jase’s shoulder in the dusky strip club.

  Eli could dial it back when it was his grandmother lounging at Pistol Polly’s. With Heather Reese. In a fog-filled room with a woman in a G-string dancing on a stage.

  He closed his eyes and did a few deep breaths. Counted to twenty. The smoke. The lights. The flashes. Memories of another place hit him hard.

  But this wasn’t there. This was here.

  The blood that’d been thrashing in his vessels kicked even stronger. He might die of an aneurysm right there next to a poster of Kitty Wyn—the weekend headliner.

  The root of each hair on his head throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

  His friend forced him to stop plowing forward through the neon haze of the club. “Don’t do something stupid.”

  Like take-his-grandmother-to-a-strip-joint stupid? That kind of stupid?

  “Breathe, man,” Eli said in a low voice.

  Jase’s vision tunneled, but he took a breath.

  Things Jase could do? Take a breath. Defuse an underwater bomb. Fast-rope out of a MH-60S Seahawk. Arrange tulips into a goddamned masterpiece.

  Things Jase could not do? Control any aspect of his life, currently.

  “Babushka?” he asked as calm as he could.

  “Jason! You have come to join us for lunch.” Babushka slipped from her stool and wrapped him in a hug.

  Heather looked like one of the guys up front getting caught by his wife while he stuffed dollar bills into a purple G-string. Her lips round, her eyes mirrored his own shock when he’d stopped in to chat with his grandmother and she wasn’t at the cookie shop. So he checked Babushka’s location on her cell tracker and found it to be at Pistol Polly’s. Of course he hadn’t believed it could be right, but he had to check it out. Make sure her phone hadn’t been swiped. He hadn’t expected to actually find her here.

  Eli had come along…well, originally because they were stopping at Pistol Polly’s to figure out what was wrong with Babushka’s phone tracking app that said she was there. Now, apparently, he was trying to save Jase from strangling Heather.

  “C’mon, we’re going home.” Jase wrapped a protective arm around his grandmother and guided her toward the door.

  “Vat? No. Ve have steaks.” She pushed him away. Hard. “All you can eat for ten dollars on Tuesday.”

  His arm held firmer to get her to the exit. To sanity. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Vat? It is Tuesday. I got my eyes checked. Ve have steaks.” The way she said it made it sound totally logical. And yet…nope.

  “She had her eyes dilated at the ophthalmologist,” the traitor on the barstool chimed in. “She can’t see anything.”

  That made this better?

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He dropped his arm from around his grandmother and stepped toward the table.

  On the barstool, Heather was nearly eye to eye with him. Nearly. She met his stare and didn’t blink.

  Of course she didn’t. She was a traitor.

  “I trusted you to take care of her, not bring her here.” He gestured to the bared breasts on the stage to make his point.

  “Okay, whoa. First of all, you trusted me?” She stood, planted her feet, and stared up at him. “You were too busy today. She needed help. I offered to help her, not you.”

  “This is crazy. She’s not working for you anymore.” And he needed a goddamned beer. At home. Once he got his grandmother out of there.

  “You think this was my idea?” Heather had the nerve to laugh at him. “Try again. She dragged me here. The driver your family hired for her brought her here when she couldn’t see. She doesn’t know any better. And we’ll leave after we’ve had our steaks because it’s important to her. I had to suck it up and deal with the atmosphere. You
can, too.”

  He ran a palm over his hair. God, this woman infuriated him. “It’s important for my grandmother to have steak so close to naked women?”

  “They’re not naked.”

  “What would you call it, then?”

  “They’re just not totally dressed.”

  “You see? They fight so they can make up,” Babushka side-whispered to Eli. She smiled like a cat that robbed the dairy section of the Kwik E Mart.

  Eli with the stupid, smug-ass grin sketched on his conspirator’s face helped Babushka back on her barstool and pulled one up beside her. Then the bastard called over the waitress with the stars glued on her chest.

  It took everything Jase had in him not to cover his grandmother’s eyes.

  “We aren’t staying.” He would hold his ground like the goddamned soldier he was trained to be. He didn’t give up when the desert sandblasted his face and the sun burned off the top layer of his skin. He sure as hell wouldn’t give up now.

  “Ve are eating a nice lunch, Jason. Now, apologize to Heather and sit.” Babushka gestured to the chair across from her—the one with the view of the stage.

  Now, normally, he could appreciate a good bump and grind. But for the love of all fucks, this was the most uncomfortable situation he’d been in since Afghanistan.

  “Hhhhrhmm.” Heather cleared her throat and continued to stare at him.

  “I think she’s waiting for that apology.” Eli took a sip of beer out of a Fat Tire bottle. The jack-wagon hadn’t even ordered him one.

  No way was Jase apologizing. He wasn’t wrong.

  He turned to his grandmother and got close enough so he knew she would hear. “It’s inappropriate that you’re here.”

  His grandmother patently ignored him.

  “For the record, Mr. Barge in Here and Pretend You’re a Hero, your grandmother can’t see anything right now. So, she’s not going to be tarnished by star-shaped pasties or a”—Heather glanced to the stage—“bedazzled lavender G-string.”

  He looked down at the finger she’d pressed between his pecs. She blushed and dropped her hand.

  She was right, though. He wasn’t a hero. Never had been. All the medals in the world and all the reassurance couldn’t change the fact that he’d never been, and never would be, a hero. He swallowed against that regret.