Crazy Hearts

by Tara Janzen

  Probably, he decided. Probably would have done both him and Tommy a lot of good.

  “But then Tommy shows up with this,” Liam said, rustling around in the backpack before pulling out an envelope. He held it in his hands for a moment, then handed it across the table. “Whatever Dad left you is with these lawyers in New York, and when I read it, I...uh, knew I didn’t have any more excuses. I had to find you. You had to know.”

  Dylan took the letter out of the envelope, and paused, his attention shifting briefly to Hawkins at the far side of the room. His second-in-command held up three fingers with one hand and lifted a phone in the other, then turned and headed back toward the dining room.

  Got it. Message received: Dunstan had been spotted on Steele Street. He had two guys with him. And if Dylan so wanted, he could monitor the building’s security cameras on his phone.

  Dylan returned his attention to the letter, noticed it was a copy, which verified what Tommy had told him, then quickly skimmed the contents. Inheritance, patrimony – the letter was brief and did not specifically mention money. Tommy and Big Jack Dunstan were on a fool’s errand.

  And it was going to cost them everything.

  “Jack’s a crazy sonuvabitch,” Liam said. “I saw him put his fist through a window once, trying to prove what he was going to do to you, if he ever got his hands on you.” Another of those small grins curved the kid’s mouth. “But I don’t think he has a clue who he’s up against.” His grin widened as he slowly shook his head. “Not one...single...clue.”

  Smart kid.

  Whatever was going to happen with Jack Dunstan wasn’t going to get past Creed and Hawkins, and wasn’t going to get anywhere near the thirteenth floor and Liam. On the other hand, Dunstan’s crew wouldn’t have much trouble breaking into the building from the alley and racking up another felony. Creed had made sure of it. And to keep everything on the up-and-up, Lieutenant Loretta had stationed a couple of Denver’s finest near Steele Street and 17th Avenue, in case Dunstan had brought some firepower to make good on the plan he’d texted Tommy - I’m on my way, and we’ll blow this bastard right out of his rat hole.

  Not this bastard, Dylan thought, and not this rat hole.

  He slipped his phone out of his pocket, turned it on, and set it on the edge of the table, angling it away from Liam. The kid was half asleep and had been through enough in the last twenty-four hours. Anything he wanted to see, Dylan would play for him tomorrow. For tonight, he was done.

  But the night wasn’t over yet. Two taps on his phone got Dylan what he wanted, a split screen showing both ground level entrances to 738 Steele Street - a massive set of mahogany doors leading to an elegant lobby, and a windowless, ironclad door in a dark alley next to an old freight elevator.

  Liam leaned forward and tossed back the shot of whiskey, then settled into his chair. “So,” he said. “What is it you guys do here? Private SWAT team for hire? Mercenaries? Your own personal army?”

  “Government task force.” A simple explanation for a complicated situation.

  “Our government?” Liam asked, a quizzical expression on his face, as if he wasn’t quite sure whether or not he was ready for the answer.

  Dylan spared him any confusion.

  “Yes.” One word, short, succinct, and without question, the end of this particular conversation.

  Liam got the message loud and clear.

  “Alrighty, then, tell me about Dad.”

  Fair enough.

  “You would have been his favorite, hands down.”

  “Not even,” the boy scoffed, then grinned. “Really? You think?”

  Dylan didn’t think it. He knew it. “Dad had a musical streak, played piano. He was pretty good, always wished he had the time to get better, and he’d be so proud of you. He’d have been your biggest fan.”

  “Cool.” The boy nodded slowly. “Very cool. I play piano, too, and guitar a little, here and there, but mostly I sing.”

  That was one way to put it, Dylan thought. He’d also looked the kid up on the internet, and honestly, had been blown away that he could have anything genetically in common with anyone with as much talent and artistry as Liam Magnus.

  “And you know...” Liam yawned. “You know this is crazy, right? You and me sitting here. This whole crazy lawyer thing bringing us together.”

  “Crazy,” Dylan agreed, figuring the kid had less than five minutes before the alcohol and exhaustion knocked him out

  Liam yawned again and relaxed deeper into his chair. “You’d think it would be impossible to miss someone you never knew, but I always missed him.”

  Yeah, Dylan missed him, too.

  “So how’d you come up with the name Dylan Hart?”

  “Well, no offense to either of us,” Dylan said, “or Dad, or Granddad, but I always thought Liam Dylan Magnuson III sounded more like a fussy old Scottish lord than a guy who could survive on his own in the wilds of Alaska. So, I took our middle name and added an Old English word for a stag. That was the coolest thing I could think of when I was ten.” An explanation, he realized, he might have to give again. Liam had dozed off.

  Twenty-two years old.

  Beat to crap.

  And done for the night.

  A flicker of light drew his attention back to his phone.

  Dunstan and his two guys were at Steele Street’s front door, and Dylan had to say, Jack Dunstan looked like he could keel over any minute. Three hundred pounds of old man hauling around an oxygen machine, backed up by a couple of generic, shaved-head knuckle-draggers. They rattled the handles, shoved on the doors, and then noticed the sign Creed had posted just for them – Deliveries Accepted In Alley.

  It was like waving a dead chicken in front of a pack of hyenas.

  The knuckle-draggers looked around at all the people and cars passing by on Steele Street and took the bait, heading to the alley with Jack bringing up the rear.

  They were out of camera range for a little over a minute before they showed up in front of the iron door in the alley. Under the cover of darkness, the two thugs broke the cheap padlocks Creed had put on the door. When Jack caught up to them, everyone pulled out their pistols and all three men entered the ground floor of Steele Street.

  Police cruiser lights instantly flashed across the upper screen on Dylan’s phone, heading into the alley. Almost immediately, more cruiser lights flashed on the lower screen, coming from the other end of the alley. Within seconds, a couple of explosions went off in the ground floor garage – flash-bangs, compliments of Creed - and the knuckle-draggers stumbled back out the alley door into the waiting arms of Denver’s finest.

  Game over.

  The perfect take-down.

  Not a shot fired.

  With Jack Dunstan finally lumbering out like a beached whale to complete the deal.

  “So, Dylan Hart,” Liam said, coming around a bit. His voice was soft, and a little slurred by the whiskey.

  Dylan looked over at him. The kid’s eyes were barely open.

  “Call of the Wild, Dylan Hart,” his brother said, “where do we go from here?”

  “I say we go to New York, see these lawyers, and find out what Dad left us.” Dylan didn’t have a clue what it might be.

  A sleepy smile curved the boy’s mouth. “And after that?”

  “Forward, little brother,” he said. “We go forward from there.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Seven months later, February, The Canyon Club,

  Denver, Colorado

  A five-piece hard rock band rocking hard was about two more pieces than The Canyon Club could really handle. Dylan’s earplugs needed earplugs. He was jammed up against the back wall and the bar, next to Hawkins, Katya, and Travis. All around them, the crowd seethed, shouted, sweated, everyone fixated on the stage and the tattooed, raspy-voiced frontman wailing into the microphone. The kid had range, four octaves of it, hitting notes up and down the scale from a low growl to a primal scream to the melodies in between.

 
; Dylan’s forays onto the internet had not done the boy justice. His little brother was electric on stage. Born to rule. Liam Magnus wasn’t a singer. He was a Rock Star. It poured off him. Washed over the crowd. Pulled all of them into the palm of his hand – or anywhere else he wanted to take them. A driving bass line alongside the lead guitarist with a Les Paul, rhythm guitarist running a Stratocaster, and a maniac on the drums backed the kid up and fueled the mayhem of Never Celeste.

  For sheer overkill, the band had two very beautiful, very tough-looking, girl dancers, stage names Hell & Fury – a.k.a Red Dog and Skeeter, making it family night at The Canyon Club. All Dylan could say was that women who were incredibly fit could dance incredibly well. He was seeing moves he hadn’t seen before, which got him to thinking the things he was usually thinking when he thought about the blonde. He hoped she didn’t wear herself out too much by dancing half the night.

  Hawkins leaned in close. “The girls have got themselves some serious moves,” he shouted.

  Dylan nodded. Serious moves – shaking, twisting, undulating, totally synchronized, both of them in black bustiers and pirate masks, with black-sequined, ultra-mini skirts that barely hung onto their hips when they shimmied.

  Talk about electrifying. It drove the audience crazy when they shimmied.

  At Thanksgiving, when Liam had come home for the holiday, they’d pushed and wheedled and damn near begged him to let them dance on stage when he and the band previewed their new songs in Denver. At Christmas, when Liam had come home for the holiday, they’d pushed some more, sealing the deal by showing off the routines they’d put together. Needless to say, Liam had capitulated. The girls rocked, and Dylan had to admit it was wonderful to see his hardworking, kick-ass, badass girls do something just for the fun of it. Thank God neither of them could carry a tune, or little brother might have offered them a job. The crowd loved them almost as much as he personally loved the phrase “when Liam had come home for the holiday.”

  Yeah, he and little brother had something going on. Just when Dylan had thought his heart was already full.

  Go figure.

  And now, the week before Valentine’s, Liam had come home again.

  “I’ve got moves,” he said back to Hawkins, in case his second-in-command had any doubts. Maybe not dance moves, but he had moves.

  “Ha!” Hawkins laughed out loud. “If you had a move, boss, I’d have seen it by now. Come on, babe,” he leaned down to Katya, who was doing a little bump and grind in front of him. “Let’s show the boss some moves.”

  Even with damn little floor space to work with, Katya definitely had moves. She turned and flowed into Superman’s arms, taking hold of his hand, her shoulders shaking, her hips keeping rhythm with her husband’s, the two of them dirty-dancing like they were born to it.

  On the other side of Hawkins, Dylan caught Travis’s gaze, and the Angel boy grinned – and started his own move, pushing into the crowd, hips swaying as he slip-slided through all those gyrating bodies.

  No one should have been able to get through that mass of people, but Travis moved like he was moving through water, drifting with the tide, which eventually washed him up on the shore. One-handed, he lofted himself onto the stage. When Liam shoved the microphone in his direction, he took the time to face-off with the Never Celeste frontman and sing the next line in the song, which got him a rousing cheer. Then he turned around and picked up one of the dancing girls, “Hell,” throwing her over his shoulder and exiting stage right. The crowd went wild, and the band played louder.

  Well, Dylan definitely wasn’t doing that.

  No, his girl knew where he was...and it appeared that Hawkins and Katya had dirty-danced their way right out the door.

  Those two – sheesh. Three kids already, and gunning for a fourth.

  Dylan returned his attention to the stage. Liam was wearing a black leather vest embroidered with the Never Celeste logo, a pair of black pants, no shirt, black boots, and their grandfather’s Rolex Explorer, the watch their father had left with Crandall & Ellis in New York for his son.

  That had turned into a helluva trip. Liam had a lot of friends in New York, and Dylan had seen a side of the city that had been...well, a helluva lot of fun.

  He grinned. He was taking Skeeter next week, for Valentine’s, and letting Liam play tour guide to the Big Apple’s underground art and music scene.

  Life was good.

  And getting better. “Fury” danced her way off the stage, making a beeline toward him, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea, which said something about the power of a beautiful blonde with a platinum ponytail hanging halfway down her back and a lightning bolt tattoo shooting up her leg and over her shoulder.

  His woman.

  She’d cornered him one night on the Mother Margot situation, now that they had Liam in their lives. Not a situation, he’d assured her, and it wasn’t. He wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t anything when it came to Margot – except grateful to have a brother. With Jack Dunstan buried in lawyers, felonies, and bankruptcy, Liam was financially supporting her, and even that was more than Dylan needed to know. He’d cut the apron strings long before he’d torched the maternal bridge on that cold and heartless night in Geneva. The bond he’d formed with Hawkins and the rest of the crew at sixteen had held him close. Had held him tight.

  It still did.

  But no one held him tighter than the woman moving in on him with her own shimmy, shimmy, bump and grind. With every move she made, the crowd pushed back, the better to watch her dance. A couple of guys started to reach for her.

  And that’s when Dylan made his move.

  It was his best move.

  The one he was good at.

  No hip shaking.

  No shoulder shimmy.

  Just one solid step forward with his arm going around her waist and pulling her in close, pulling her in tight, taking care of business, taking care of his own.

  That was his move – always. Taking care of his own.

  “Hey, baby.” Skeeter wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

  He kissed her back. “You have fun tonight?”

  “Not as much fun as I’m going to have,” she said, giving him a little shake of her hips.

  He laughed and gathered her in closer. “I’ve got a car waiting out front. Is Grady spending the night at Creed and Cody’s?”

  “Not tonight. The plan was after they put the twins to bed, Creed would take Grady up to our place and get him all snugged in. I’m sure that happened hours ago, and Creed’s just waiting for us to get home.”

  And all would be safe – and quiet. Creed sipping a little whiskey and watching the night and the city lights. Grady couldn’t have better care.

  Special Defense Force, SDF, was an elite team of soldiers, tasked by the United States government to protect the country from threats both near and far – and so they did, time and time again.

  But long before they’d been soldiers, they’d been brothers, lost boys who had banded together to survive, sworn to protect each other - and so they do.

  All the time.

  Every time.

  Hello Dear Readers!

  A few years back, I was honored to be asked to write a short story for inclusion in SEAL OF MY DREAMS, an anthology with a triple purpose: to honor the men and women in our nation’s military; to raise money for Veterans Research Corporation, a non-profit foundation supporting veterans medical research – all proceeds from the sale of the anthology went to the foundation; and to entertain readers with great stories about Navy SEALs. Eighteen romance writers answered the call. PANAMA JACK, with a tie-in to Steele Street, was the story I donated. Had a blast writing it. Hope you enjoy!

  TJ xoxo

  Bonus Story!

  PANAMA JACK

  * * *

  Tara Janzen

  Chapter 1

  Darien Gap, Panama

  * * *

  “You’ve got that low-crawl down real good, ma’am, very fine action
on the move. Very fine, indeed.” Panama Jack Corday had a reputation for calling ’em like he saw ’em, and the girl wiggling up next to him in this godforsaken jungle had a backside worthy of worship.

  “Watch yourself, Flipper,” she said, handing him an MRE—Meal Ready to Eat—and settling back into her rifle. “I’ve got enough trouble without you getting all worked up staring at my derrière.”

  She also had a mouth on her. Flipper. Hell. Nobody had ever had the guts to call him Flipper, but she did it regularly. Her little way of trying to keep him in line, he guessed.

  Fat chance.

  He grinned. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  “Derrière?” She slanted him a quick glance over the top of her rifle. “That’s not dirty, it’s French.”

  “Dirty French.” His grin broadened.

  “In your dreams,” she said under her breath, resting her cheek back on the rifle’s stock and peering through the scope.

  She had that right—in his dreams. Hell, if he’d had a night in the last two months when she hadn’t been in his dreams, he didn’t remember it. Oh, hell, no. Little Miss Blondie with the O.G.A., Other Government Agency, a.k.a. the C.I.A., had been popping in and out of Panama City on a damn near weekly basis, and every week she requested one operator to take her deep into the overgrown danger zone between Panama and Colombia known as the Darien Gap. Every week she requested him, Jack Corday, U.S. Navy SEAL on special assignment.

  Special assignment to cover Little Miss Blondie’s very fine derrière. Yeah, he’d finally figured it out.

  But he hadn’t figured her out.

  He opened up the package of cookies in the MRE and handed her a couple, then put his eye back to the spotting scope and scanned the area in front of them.