by Jen Davis
She liked him already. “Amanda, please.”
“And you’ll call me Jared. I understand you’re here with a proposal from Cooper Construction. I’m intrigued.”
“I’ve heard you’ve lost your builder in the Decatur development.”
His eyebrows shot up. GeorgiaSouth’s bankruptcy was very hush-hush. She only knew about it because Mike was good friends with the owner.
“We’d like to step in and take over for them. Cooper isn’t the biggest outfit in town, but we have a good reputation and do quality work.”
Jared crossed his leg at the knee and relaxed into the soft leather chair. “I met Charlie a few times over the years. He struck me as a good man.”
She swallowed. “The best,” she murmured.
“You were his…”
“Daughter.” She shook her head ruefully. “Stepdaughter, actually, but he never made the distinction.”
“And you run the company with his son, correct?”
Jared knew the answer to every one of these questions before he ever accepted this meeting. The man was known for his research. She played along, giving him a patient smile. “Yes. Mike and I are very close. He would be here with me if he weren’t recovering from a car accident.” She paused, taking a chance by dropping the pretense. “Tell me, Jared, what is it you really want to know? Ask me, and I’ll give you a straight answer.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “If I do business with you, will I be working with Charlie Cooper’s daughter or Beau Griffin’s?”
No wonder he was working up to that one. She considered her words. “My father—the mayor—has taught me a lot about business. About making connections, managing money, persistence, and perseverance. Those lessons have made me more successful, and I use them every day. But everything else about the way I do business, I learned from Charlie. Honesty, honor, integrity. Those are my core values, and they shape all the decisions I make for the company he built.”
“Mayor Griffin is not someone who values honesty and integrity.”
It wasn’t a question, so she let the remark stand in the space between them. Either Jared could see past her family ties, or he couldn’t. Arguing about the merits of his decision would get her nowhere.
“What about Nathan Shaw?”
She tried to keep the challenge out of her gaze. “What about Alexa Bell?”
His eyes widened when she mentioned the name of his paramour. Berringer was largely a private man, but even a discreet affair traveled along the grapevine. “Touché,” he murmured.
“I don’t mean to be coarse, Jared, but the people who escort us to parties or warm our beds have nothing to do with the deal at hand. I wonder if you would have asked me the same question if I were a man.”
Dammit.
She didn’t mean to say exactly what she was thinking.
Temper had no place in a business meeting. It was a hallmark of immaturity. How many times had her father drilled it into her head? His lesson had been the catalyst for her Ice Queen persona.
She cringed, waiting for Jared to show her the door. There would be half a dozen other companies he could secure to do the job with a snap of his fingers.
Instead, he laughed. “Oh, you’re Charlie’s girl all right. Beau Griffin would never let me know I’d gotten under his skin. And for the record, yes, I would have asked a man the same question, though it would have been equally as rude. I simply want to be sure there’s no hidden agenda when someone wants to go into business with me.”
She held her palms up. “No hidden agenda.”
“Okay then. Cooper’s financials are good. No outstanding debts for the company or for you.” He stood when she nodded and offered his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Standing, she shook with her new partner.
“Now let’s talk terms.”
***
Kane
Kane hesitated with his hand poised to knock on Mike Cooper’s door. He’d seen the man a handful of times over the years, but always with the buffer of work between them. Even when he was so desperate for a paycheck that he’d sought his old friend out for a job, he’d approached him through the company.
No telling how Mike would feel about him showing up on his front porch at dinnertime.
Clamping down on the fluttering nerves in his stomach, he clenched his jaw and rapped on the door.
There was a time in his life he considered Mike to be family, as much his brother as Scott ever was. After things went south with Mandy, though, it was too hard to maintain the friendship. Mike and his sister were inexorably linked, and Kane needed the distance to heal.
He held up his hand, poised to knock again, then thought better of it. Maybe Mike wasn’t home, or maybe he wasn’t interested in a blast from his past. Shoving his fist into the pocket of his faded denim jacket, he turned toward his bike at the curb.
The door creaked open behind him.
“Kane?”
He froze at the sound of the familiar voice. Damn, it brought him back. To barbeques and baseball games. To late night conversations over beers in the Cooper backyard.
How many nights had he stayed up until dawn, talking and laughing with Mandy, Mike, and Cindy? Those memories were as clear as if they’d happened yesterday. It was like nothing had changed.
Until he turned around and got his first look at his old buddy. The curly blond hair had darkened with age; the brown eyes he remembered always sparkling with laughter were now tired and dull. But those weren’t the biggest changes.
Mike had always been a big man with an easy smile. Now his broad shoulders hunched in his wheelchair. His skin sagged on his bones, and though he smiled, it seemed forced.
It hurt to look at him. He tried not to flinch.
And Mike had to know it because the smile on his face faded when their eyes met. “Yeah. I look like shit.” He sighed and backed his wheelchair into the foyer. “You just gonna stare at me with those puppy dog eyes, or you gonna come in?”
Kane followed him into a cozy living room, then sank into the big brown sofa Mike gestured to. It looked nothing like Charlie’s place, but he felt the echoes in all the important ways. Warm colors bathed the cozy space, all the textures, soft and inviting. A baby swing sat in the corner.
No one would doubt a family lived here.
A pang of jealousy zinged through him until his gaze returned to Mike’s haggard face. “You look like hell, brother,” he said somberly.
Mike barked out a laugh. It wasn’t like his old full-belly laugh; it had bite. “At least somebody’s willing to say it. The girls kind of pretend like everything is fine in front of me. Then they whisper about me in the other room, but I can hear everything.” He scowled. “We have baby monitors all over the house, dude.”
He smiled despite himself. “Got yourself another kid, huh?” He’d heard through the grapevine Mike and Cindy had a son not long after things ended with Mandy. He should have come to visit then, but he was still too raw. “Boy or a girl?”
This time when Mike smiled, it reached his eyes. “A girl.” He rubbed his hand in small circles over his chest. “She looks so much like Cindy, but every once in a while, she’ll get this expression on her face, and I’m looking in the mirror. It’s the damnedest thing. When I start to feel sorry for myself about the accident, I look at her, and I remember how lucky I am.”
“Is she here?”
“No.”
The swift disappointment at Mike’s words took him by surprise.
“But she’ll be back soon. Cindy took her to pick up some ice cream for dessert.” Mike stuck out his lower lip in a parody of a pout. “I’m feeling too bad for anything but Baskin Robbins.”
Something else that hadn’t changed. Mike had been a slave to his sweet-tooth forever. Kane had personally witnessed the man eat an entire gallon of butter pecan in one sitting. “Don’t tell me Cindy can’t see through your pitiful-me bullshit.”
Mike shrugged with a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. “A few
months ago, she would’ve. These days, she’s so determined to take care of me, I think she forgets who I am under all this plaster.” He knocked on one of the two impressive leg casts, the one ending below his right knee. The other extended all the way up his thigh beneath the leg of his cut-off sweatpants. Both were decorated with art of varying skill, from a fair approximation of a butterfly to a skull with crossbones, and some red scribbles, clearly made by a small child.
He also spotted a small heart, marked with the letter A.
Mandy.
He winced, but Mike didn’t seem to notice.
“As bad as it looks now, it was worse when all the metal was holding my pelvis in place. At least now, I’m out of the bed.” Mike’s eyes drifted to the front door as it opened to reveal his wife, a toddler on her hip, a diaper bag on her shoulder, and a Baskin Robbins bag clutched in her hand.
Jumping to his feet, Kane reached out to lighten her load.
Her delicate brows furrowed for a moment, and her grip on her child tightened. No doubt, she was wondering what a grizzly looking biker was doing hanging out in her living room, possibly reaching for her kid.
He raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry CeeCee, I tend to forget my manners when I see a beautiful woman carrying ice cream.”
Cindy’s tension faded into shock, her eyebrows now climbing her forehead. “K-Kane?”
He waved. “Long time, no see.”
She let the diaper bag slide down her arm as she put her squirming child on the floor.
On hands and knees, the kid made a beeline straight to her daddy’s chair.
Cindy gaped as her gaze swept over his long dark hair, worn jacket and jeans, all the way down to his Army Surplus black boots. Then she smirked. The expression took him back more than a decade. “I didn’t recognize you in your Hells Angels costume. Halloween was weeks ago.”
“Still a smartass, huh?” He grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a hug. “Nice to know motherhood hasn’t softened you up.”
She returned his embrace. “Are you kidding? Motherhood makes you toughen up. You try parenting a twelve-year-old boy and see how soft-hearted you can be.” Pulling back, she wrinkled her nose. “You don’t have anything living in your shaggy beard, do you?”
“Bitch.”
“Prick.” Mike and Cindy spoke as one.
The familiar exchange lightened his heart. He released his hold and returned to his seat on the sofa. “I’ve missed you guys.”
Cindy sat next to him, the light dimming a little on her face. “We’ve missed you too.” She sighed, for the first time looking a little older than the twenty-two year old he remembered from his youth. “You didn’t have to cut us off, Kane. Just because you and—”
“I did.” He’d spoken more sharply than he intended, so he tried to gentle his tone. “Things were…bad for me. I was drowning.”
Her hand rested on his forearm. “Times like those, you need your friends the most.”
“But you were her family before you were my friends.” He squeezed her hand. “If there was a break, it had to be a clean one.” Even now, the memories of their friendship still tasted of Mandy. “I should’ve come sooner than this, though. It shouldn’t have taken a near-death experience to bring me around.”
Mike’s little girl started crying and squirming on her father’s lap.
“I think she needs a change, Cin.”
She gave his arm one last pat, then climbed to her feet before scooping up her child. “She needs a bath, too. I’m going to stick the ice cream in the freezer while you two finish catching up.” She shot him a warm look. “Don’t wait so long before you come back next time.”
The crying grew fainter as Cindy moved with her baby deeper into the house.
Mike cleared his throat. “You’re not coming back, are you?”
“It’s complicated, brother.”
Scoffing, Mike leaned back in his chair. “Bullshit. You’ve got to forgive her. It’s been thirteen years, man. You’ve got to let it go.”
“Who says I haven’t?” His voice was deceptively mild.
Mike laughed darkly. “Look at you. You joined your father’s motorcycle gang. You became the thing you hated most in the whole world. You’re the walking definition of someone who hasn’t let shit go.”
“It’s not so simple.”
“The hell it’s not. She left you, and you turned your back on who you were when you were together. You dropped your friends, your dreams. But you could have it all back. Cut your hair, shave your beard, get your fucking degree. And for God’s sakes, walk away from the biker gang. It was never the life you wanted.”
Memories of his dreams for a future were a crushing weight on his heart. It was why he usually pushed them down with beer, bourbon, and pussy. None of which were available at the moment. “The club is all I have.” Flawed though they were, those men were his brothers.
“You have me,” Mike said quietly. “You have the construction job. I hear you’re pretty tight with a guy on the crew. It’s a start.”
“The guys in the club were there when I needed them, brother.”
“And I wasn’t. Right?” Mike’s jaw clenched. A vein pulsed at his temple. “I would have been if you’d let me. Fuck, Kane, I don’t even know what happened. My sister never would tell me. All I know is one day, you were there, and the next, you were gone like a puff of fucking smoke.”
His fingers dug into the soft, fuzzy fabric of the sofa cushion. “You want to know what happened? Your sister ripped out my heart. When I needed her the most, she threw me away, and she never looked back.”
***
13 years ago
October
Scott wasn’t as good of a liar as he thought he was.
Kane would have been more than happy to take the bus to the mall, but his brother had insisted on giving him a ride. No way Scott could know he was planning to look at engagement rings for Mandy, and no way was he going to find out. The man couldn’t speak her name without a sneer on his face.
Still, accepting the ride on the back of his bike meant he could avoid the twenty-minute wait at the bus stop, and he was anxious to start searching for the perfect ring. It would have to be small, obviously. His job at the bank barely covered his tuition, but he’d put aside enough for a down payment. Now he needed a jeweler willing to let him finance.
He’d been thinking about those things when he’d accepted his brother’s offer, and they’d taken off ten minutes ago. Now they idled in front of a shady-looking apartment building in Vine City, nowhere near the mall.
Scott said he just needed to deliver something. He was lying through his teeth. Like always, his left eye twitched as the line of bull came out his mouth. Even worse, a light sheen of moisture dotted Scott’s forehead. Octobers in Atlanta weren’t exactly cold, but generally not warm enough to make someone break a sweat.
Except for whatever reason Scott was hiding.
“Why don’t you come in with me, K? I could use a little backup.”
He folded his arms. His brother couldn’t even look at him. “You know I don’t want anything to do with club business. Why would you need backup for a delivery anyway?” He didn’t even mention the obvious. Scott wasn’t carrying anything to drop off.
His brother made an impatient gesture toward the apartment building. It was one of at least five large, brick structures looming in front of them. A single basketball goal without a net stood amidst the cracked blacktop. An empty Cheetos bag skittered slowly across the pavement, but nothing else moved in sight.
“I’m delivering a message, okay?” Scott’s voice held an edge. “I’m not asking you to do much. Just stand there. You don’t have to think of it as helping out the club; you’re helping out your brother.”
A knot of unease tightened in his stomach. “What exactly do you need my help with?”
Scott didn’t answer. He advanced on the apartment building, his shoulders tense, hands balled into fists at his sides.
&nb
sp; Kane scrambled off the bike to catch up. “Scott—”
His brother’s hand flew up, silencing the question. Then he rapped his knuckles against the third door from the left.
It swung open instantly to reveal a tall heavyset black man with two thick gold chains resting against the vee of a black short-sleeved button-down shirt. He had a cigar cinched between his teeth. With a short nod to Scott, he opened the door wide enough for him to enter.
Kane had no choice but to follow.
A thick haze of marijuana smoke fogged the room, giving the illusion of soft edges in a space where none really existed. Three men sat surrounding a kitchen table littered with clear plastic bags filled with white powder, bricks—presumably of pot—wrapped in brown paper, stacks of cash, and a couple of handguns.
If he lived through this “delivery,” he was kicking Scott’s ass.
The big dude who answered the door stood behind the man sitting at the head of the table and crossed his arms over his chest. The seated guy, apparently his boss, looked sharp in a long-sleeved black dress shirt that managed to appear both soft and crisp at the same time. Black—maybe forty—he wore a fat, round diamond in his left ear.
The man to his left looked younger. Bald and Hispanic, he wore a gold silk shirt and a suit jacket the color of a peacock. The third guy—the one closest to Scott and Kane—was clearly a grunt, a skinny twenty-something with a backward baseball cap.
The boss spoke without looking up from the money he was counting. “Hale.” His voice had no inflection. “This isn’t your normal neck of the woods.”
Scott cleared his throat. “No.”
Placing the last bill into the stack in front of him, the man looked up. “Then what are you doing here?” he asked mildly. The question was all the more menacing with his gentle delivery.
Scott eyed the door, then shifted his gaze to Kane before turning back to the boss.
Oh shit. His heart lodged in his throat.
“Just delivering a message.” A heartbeat later, Scott had a gun in hand and was unloading bullets into the man in black and the bodyguard behind him.