Текст книги "Burn It Up"

Автор книги: Cara McKenna

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

“Jesus, honey, slow down.” He laughed, feeling drunk, and did his fly and buckle back up. “Can’t we kiss, instead?” Do things in the right order, at least. He’d wanted this girl for too long to rush now.

“Yeah,” she whispered, “we can do that.”

His hands were on her again in a breath, but more innocent this time—that soft cheek against his palm, silky hair in his fingers. Every nerve was screaming for him to dive right in, but he slowed himself down before their lips touched. He’d savor this moment, even as everything about it screamed high school grope-fest, right down to it happening on a friend’s parents’ couch.

He held her gaze for breaths on end. Her eyes were bright in the sunshine, as blue as sapphires or robins’ eggs or any other insanely blue thing. But here in the den, lit by only the fire and a reading lamp, they were dark and deep, full of secrets, it felt like. Her lips looked just as they did in every fantasy he’d ever had about her—her mouth small but her lips full, seeming as innocent as the rest of her. Deceptively so.

Did those lips come up to meet his? He couldn’t say how it happened, but they were kissing, light and distracted, voices hushed, hers faint and sweet, his deeper and rough now. He heard her name on his breath, the sound coming from no conscious corner of his head. As the final syllable settled between them, he took it further.

She tasted minty. Just like she ought to, he thought, the notion nonsense. Like he really knew her at all, had any clue what to expect from her. Not anymore, not now that he’d felt her hand between his legs, more brazen than he’d ever have expected. She was everything, here on this couch, in this moment. Sweet and wicked, a seductress and an innocent. A temptation and a terrible idea, and a foregone conclusion.

Emphasis on the terrible idea, his higher brain interjected.

Fuck off.

Her hand was drifting once more, seeking him between their bodies, cupping his aching flesh through his jeans, then rubbing.

“Oh God.” Tell her to stop, for fuck’s sake. “Jesus, honey, don’t stop.”

Wow, well done.

Her mouth was at his throat, her hair a soft, heavenly weight draped over his wrist and knuckles. And her hand . . . Christ, her hand was everything. He hadn’t been touched like this in six months or more. He’d almost forgotten how essential it was. His head dropped back, inviting her kisses.

For half a minute he let her spoil him, until he was hurting and crazed and needing to kiss her back. Needing to give back, instead of taking. He held her head, fingers in her long hair, and drew her face back so he could meet her eyes. He let her see the desire surely burning in his, and then he kissed her exactly as he’d always fantasized he might. He cupped her jaw in both hands and brought his mouth down. She roused hunger in him—always had—and he let her feel that with every deep sweep of his tongue, every soft grunt from his throat, every needy flex of his hips, pressing his erection to her palm—

The worst sound in the world. The rattle of his phone buzzing on the coffee table.

He wrenched his face from hers. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Abilene went still. “It’s late. It might be important—Vince or somebody.”

Doubtful. But he knew exactly who’d just be sitting down to start on her evening’s business. With Abilene’s hand still on him, he leaned forward and snatched the phone, accepted the private call. “I told you no, now fuck off.” Hit END, tossed the thing aside.

“Not Vince, I take it?”

“No, it was nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing.”

The intrusion had sobered him. It offered a chance to end this, do the smart and honorable thing—the thing a better man would do—and land himself with the blue balls he deserved for having succumbed in the first place. He put his hand over hers once more, coaxing it to the safety of his thigh. “We should stop.”

Her lips pursed, expression changing in an instant. “That wasn’t, like, your girlfriend or something, was it?”

“No, just an old colleague. I mean, hey, I’m not a great guy, but I’m not a complete shit.”

She looked deflated for a breath, then smiled. “You don’t think you’re a great guy?”

“Oh, hell no.”

“How come?”

“You don’t want to know, trust me.” She was a good, Christian girl. He hadn’t heard her so much as swear in the past four months—not since the pregnancy mood swings and the throes of labor had passed. She didn’t need to know about his old life. Best-case scenario, it’d disappoint her. Worst case, those pesky morals would have her phoning the fucking feds on him. The latter felt unlikely, but in any case, the truth of his past was a burden this girl needed like a hole in the head. My past and my future both. Man, was he ever a fucking catch.

“You’ve been good to me,” she said. “And to Mercy.”

“That’s different.” And it was new. He was a good boss, he supposed, and tried to be a good friend. But he’d not always been the best son or brother, and while Casey had never intentionally hurt anybody, he was far from an upstanding citizen.

As his body cooled, his thoughts turned to that little fantasy house of Abilene’s.

There were lots of places around Fortuity that fit the bill—modest little ranches that you could buy for pretty cheap. For now. When the new casino was up and running, who knew what might happen to the property values, but until and if that all went through, you could get a decent place for as little as fifty grand.

Casey thought about that job Emily had called with. His own savings was all tied up in the bar, but right there was an easy twenty grand. A fat down payment, and with a couple more gigs like that, he could buy a place outright for Abilene and her daughter. She couldn’t afford it herself, not on a part-time bartender’s wages, but it sure would do her good, that kind of stability. Before she’d come to Three C she’d been living in a rented room in a cranky old lady’s basement—not exactly home sweet home.

Maybe three final jobs, and I could be her goddamn hero.

Except she’d want to know how on earth he was able to afford it, and telling her wasn’t an option.

Fucking shame, too. The thought of it excited him. For plenty of good reasons, he couldn’t ever be her man. Chiefly because of his mental health, but he couldn’t tell her about that. Or rather, he wouldn’t. He was only now beginning to face it himself—not only the shame and embarrassment of feeling faulty and doomed and helpless, but the guilt over how he’d handled his mother’s decline. The dread of wondering sometimes if maybe he’d earned this fate, maybe he deserved it, for failing her, for running away as he had. So no, he couldn’t tell Abilene why, and no, he couldn’t be her man. But being a benefactor wasn’t a bad consolation prize.

They’d gone quiet, and Casey’s heart felt all warm and mixed-up. The kiss needed acknowledging, that much was clear. Hot as it had been, right as it had felt, they needed to agree it could never be repeated. Last thing this girl needed in her life was another complication.

“What just happened,” he said, trailing off. “That kiss, I mean. That was unexpected. Real nice, but . . .” Tell her it can’t ever happen again, dumb-ass. “Unexpected,” he repeated.

“I know. I wasn’t thinking straight, exactly.”

“Me neither.” He rarely was, not when this woman’s body was within ten feet of his.

“I don’t regret it,” she added.

“No, I don’t either. But given everything you’re dealing with right now, I think we ought to agree not to do that again.” He laid his arm along the back of the couch. “Not to pretend it never happened, but just . . .”

“Yeah . . . But it was real nice, just like you said. Nicest thing I’ve felt in ages.”

He smiled, and in a breath he felt sad. He wished this was last summer. Wished this was the ignorant and blissful world he’d lived in when he first met her, back when he’d had no clue she was pregnant, no clue about her ex, no ties to her aside from his attraction. No ties to Fortuity, so when he inevitably fucked it all up, he could just roll back out of town with his sights glued firmly on whatever came next.

Oops. Should’ve thought of that before you bought a bar and started bonding with her goddamn baby. Shit. He’d gone from a completely free agent to a business owner, boss, babysitter, and bodyguard in what felt like a breath.

Guess when I step up, I step all the fucking way up.

“Tell me about the house,” he said, wanting a distraction, and something familiar and innocent, to settle his racing mind. “Where’d we leave off? Two bedrooms now. Washer and dryer.”

“Tell me about your tattoo,” Abilene countered, her voice spacey and quiet, barely louder than the crackle of the fire.

He glanced at his outstretched arm, his sleeve pushed up to expose the ink on his shoulder. “What about it?”

“Why a horseshoe, but then a thirteen in the middle of it? Doesn’t that kind of cancel out any good luck you’re gunning for?” She traced the simple black design—dark gray, really. He’d gotten it in Vegas during his gambling days, probably seven years ago, now. He shivered at the touch, chest and neck warming in its wake.

“Horseshoe’s only lucky if its ends are pointing up,” he told her. “Like above the entrance to the stables, out back. Like a cup, to catch the luck or something like that.” His was the inverse.

“Oh. Then why on earth would you get an unlucky horseshoe?”

“Because fuck luck.” He smiled at her. “Luck is for idiots. If you’re smart enough, you operate above that bull.”

She looked thoughtful a moment. “You used to count cards, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s legal, even if it doesn’t make you too popular with the pit bosses.”

“Was it just you, on your own?”

“No. I worked with a team of about twelve to fifteen, and we moved around constantly, trying to stay forgettable. You never do, though. But anyhow, fuck luck. Only suckers gamble for real.”

“Huh.”

“What?” he asked. He eyed her hair, curling his fingers into a fist behind her to keep from touching it.

“I dunno. I believe in luck. I mean, it feels like the only thing propelling people through life, some days. I wouldn’t be sitting in this beautiful old house now if it wasn’t for having the good luck of meeting all of you. I wouldn’t have a job, either. Though I wouldn’t have wound up here to begin with if it hadn’t been for a bunch of bad luck. And some good stuff mixed in too, I guess.”

“That’s bullshit,” Casey said. “Bad luck is just what people who make shitty choices blame their problems on.”

She sat up, frowning, looking hurt by that.

“I don’t mean you, honey. Abilene,” he corrected quickly. Can’t go calling the girl “honey,” now, can I? Fucking dangerous territory to go wandering into. Though which of them he was worried about getting attached, he couldn’t say.

“Sometimes our circumstances are out of our control,” he said. “And that’s not bad luck, either—there’s no such thing. That’s just life.”

“I guess,” she said slowly, still frowning, but looking more curious than offended now. “I never thought about it like that. About choices. I always thought I was just getting shuttled around by these things that would happen to me, like a leaf in the wind. I’d end up someplace bad, or maybe someplace good, and I was either scared or thankful about it. I guess I never gave much thought to it being all my doing.”

“Well, not everything is within a person’s control. But it’s not luck—that’s for fucking sure. At the end of the day, there’s always someone to blame. And in my experience, it’s almost always your own self.”

“Huh.”

“Luck’s just an excuse that dumb-asses use so they never have to smarten up.”

She cracked a smile at that. “I’m probably at a point in my life where I’d better learn to quit being such a dumb-ass.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think you are one, but yeah, now’s probably the time to steal a little control back from the world. Luck’s for people who don’t want to make choices. But there’s always a choice, no matter how trapped you feel.”

“Do you ever feel trapped?”

He had to think about that. What he felt now—tied to this town by the business and his commitment to Duncan, tied to his uncomfortable home life by his promise to Vince . . . Trapped wasn’t quite it. Tethered, maybe, but he’d secured every single one of those knots himself.

“I don’t think I’ve felt trapped since I was about twenty,” he decided aloud. “Since I started looking around Fortuity and realized I was on a track to wind up a nobody, in a no-place town, for the rest of my life. ’Til someday I woke up with a bad back from four decades working in the quarry, forced to retire and spend my days bitching with the other old-timers by the Benji’s jukebox. Sounds fucking cocky, but ever since I was a kid I thought I was too big for this place. Had more exciting shit due to me. I feel like an asshole saying it now.”

“You’re not a nobody here, anyhow. You’re a business owner. You’re going to preserve an important part of Fortuity’s past for when the casino changes everything.”

“Yeah, I hope so. But I also know my fifteen-year-old self would’ve been fucking horrified to hear I never made it out of here.”

“But you did. And like you said, it was your choices that brought you back.”

“Yeah.” And now, at thirty-three, a little older and more sentimental, a little more vulnerable to guilt and regrets, Casey could admit that if he was doomed to lose his marbles in the next ten years, that time was better spent doing right by his mom and building some kind of professional legacy that didn’t have him flirting with a place on the ATF’s dance card.

The fire was mellowing; crackling yellow flames turned quiet and orange, lapping lazily at the pink logs. Beside him, Abilene yawned, and in its wake her gaze went to his tattoo again.

“For what it’s worth, I feel real lucky to have met your brother, and you and Raina and Duncan.”

Again, that was choice, not chance—she’d gone to Vince for help. But it was a nice sentiment, so he didn’t contradict her. “And I feel lucky that I’m in a position to be of use to you.”

“That’s real sweet.”

He squeezed her around the shoulders, just for a second. “I know. Don’t tell anybody I said it.”

She laughed.

“You should get back to bed,” Casey said. “You’ll need whatever sleep you can get tonight.”

And as if on cue, the dreaded noise drifted down from above—a soft, single coo, promising full-blown wailing to follow inside a minute.

“Spoke too soon,” he said, just as Abilene stood.

She paused to look back at him as she slipped her feet into blue flip-flops, smiling shyly. “Thanks for the distraction.”

“Don’t know if I should say you’re welcome, or apologize for letting it get as far as it did.”

“Don’t apologize.”

He nodded.

She pursed her lips, then bent down and kissed his cheek. “Night.”

“Sleep well.”

She smiled a final time, then headed for the stairs, holding up the legs of her pajama bottoms like a kid, to keep the hems off the floor.

Like a kid. So unlike the woman who’d just turned him inside out—and without ever crossing third base. He shoved the thought aside.

Get your head on straight. Tonight was a one-off. A slip of her good sense, probably a need to escape from whatever thoughts she had coursing through her mind regarding what might come once her ex was out.

A dangerous ex, Casey thought, and that child’s father. Sometimes he caught himself nearly getting attached to that baby, and had to pull himself up short. Just because I can change diapers now, and heat formula, and have puke stains on the shoulders of half my shirts, doesn’t make me anything more than a babysitter to that kid.

The only thing he’d earned for sure was James Ware’s anger, should the man find out how close Casey had gotten with his ex and his daughter. He swallowed, collar feeling tight.

Just keep it to yourself. Hope maybe you get nicknamed Uncle Casey, but beyond that, leave it the fuck alone. Quit feeling shit you have no right to feel.

No right, because he was his mother’s son, with a sad fate likely awaiting him. And because he was his father’s son to boot. He wanted to think he’d never turn his back on a commitment as huge as a child, but then again, if he’d been a big enough shit to skip town when his mom had started getting bad . . .

And because sure, he’d done better in the past few months, but that didn’t change one important fact—at the end of the day, Casey was every bit the criminal Abilene’s arms-smuggler ex was.

The only difference is, I’ve been smart enough not to get caught.

And he’d better hope to hell that good, God-fearing girl never found out the truth about him.

Chapter 6

Client’s paranoid, major boner for discretion. Wants you. $30K in your stocking if you come out of retirement. Fucking hurry, he’s losing his nerve.

Casey rolled his eyes at the text. He’d forgotten about it until six thirty, while he’d been brushing his teeth. He tossed his cell in his duffel bag, resolving not to reply. “Fucking no means no, Em,” he muttered to the empty den, then pulled on a clean tee and a sweater. He ought to just toss the pay-as-you-go phone in the nearest wood chipper and cut the fucking cord with his old life. All those contacts gone, and no way for any of them to reach him, no temptation to go back to that scene, lucrative or not . . .

Soon. Maybe not just yet, but soon, he thought, remembering that house of Abilene’s, those beauty school classes. No sense burning bridges just yet.

The smell of sausages had woken him, and he headed for the kitchen, finding Jeremiah Church sitting alone at the table, leafing through a newspaper.

“Hey, man.” Casey passed by, reading the headline over his friend’s shoulder. “‘Canola Meal Prices Stagnate, Expected to Dip.’ Wow, fucking riveting shit.”

“I’d mock your business right back, if I had the first clue what it is you do, Case.”

“I’m a bar owner.”

“And before that you were a youth minister¸ I’m sure.”

Casey walked to the coffeemaker. “You seen Abilene yet?”

Miah shook his head. “Think she’s sleeping in.”

“Good.” And you didn’t hear any weird noises coming from the den last night? Nothing that made you worry for the sanctity of your family’s couch? His body roused at the thought and he felt his face warm.

“Ware’s out when, exactly?” Miah asked.

“Ten. High alert starts around noon—he couldn’t get here any quicker than that, if he can even manage to find out where Abilene’s staying. But she’s driving out to Elko with your mom in a bit, anyhow. Baby’s got a checkup.”

“That’s probably best. Keep the girl distracted.”

The girl. Right. Abilene the girl, so impossible to parse with Abilene the woman who’d sexually assaulted Casey last night in the best way. He swallowed, trying to dismiss the memory of her mouth against his, her hand between his thighs. Worst possible day to get distracted, Grossier. He turned his thoughts to her ex and let the anxiety scare some slim measure of his excitement away.

He stirred milk and sugar into his coffee and took a seat opposite Miah, taking note of his friend’s clothes. He was the ranch’s foreman, but he wasn’t dressed in his usual dirty jeans and boots and flannel, prepared to spend the day on horseback. Instead he was sporting gray corduroys and a black button-up—the equivalent of formal wear, around here.

“Way you’re gussied up, I’m guessing you’re stuck showing those environmental people around again.”

Miah rolled his eyes. “Another survey, yeah. Meant I got to sleep in an extra hour, though.”

“What are they after, exactly?” Casey knew only that they showed up wielding clipboards and hard hats, and that they’d been by twice since he’d moved Abilene in.

“Silver State, the casino’s new contracting outfit,” Miah said, “is requiring the town to conduct a geological survey. They say they’re worried about run-off from the construction messing up our groundwater, things like that. Sounds all conscientious and admirable, but I’ve got my money on them just wanting to cover their asses against any potential lawsuits. After what happened with Virgin River, they’ve got to know the town’s feeling skeptical about the entire project.”

Virgin River Contracting had been the proposed Eclipse resort casino’s first construction company, but they’d turned out to be corrupt. Some higher-ups had tried to keep the accidental death of an illegal worker secret, so they wouldn’t risk the bonuses promised to them by the casino’s development company, for finishing on time. That crime had snowballed, resulting in the death of a sheriff’s deputy—a good friend of Casey’s, once upon a time, in fact—who’d seen too much, and then the sheriff himself, who’d been tangled up in the contractors’ racket.

“In theory it’s a good thing,” Miah said, “regardless of the motivation. Though it kills me to be spending my morning chaperoning them around when the last thing I want is for that casino to even go through. How many people have lost their lives now, yet we’re still willing to welcome the goddamn thing? Welcome it to come through and rip this whole town to pieces, and for what? Some tax breaks? A load of menial service jobs built on tricking people out of their hard-earned money? Jobs that probably won’t pay well enough to even keep the struggling locals in town once the property values get bloated out of all reason.”

Miah wasn’t alone in his thinking there. Plenty of people in Fortuity hoped the casino wouldn’t get built—Casey’s brother being one of the louder voices in that camp. Casey was undecided. A part of him would always resent the casino; a childhood friend would still be alive if not for that project. But on an impersonal level, he wasn’t afraid of change, and the competition to the bar didn’t scare him. Bring on the tourists, in fact. He was alone in his ambivalence among his friends, though. The rest of them liked their town the way it was.

“A club meeting’s been called for tomorrow, early,” Miah said. “Six a.m.”

Casey dropped out of his thoughts and back down onto the hard wooden bench. “Goddamn.”

“I know. But it’s the only time your brother and I can swing it. If you’re gonna feel bad for someone, make it whoever’s stuck closing the bar tonight.”

“True.” And what a fucking way to kick off the day, Casey thought, getting Miah in the same room with Raina and Duncan. Miah had dated Raina a while back, and the guy was still struggling to get over the fact that she was now in love with a man he took for an entitled, pompous prick. So they weren’t the best of friends, no.

“Consolation is, my mom promised to make pancakes.”

“What a butch-ass load of bikers we are,” Casey said. “Fucking homemade pancakes and everything. What’s the meeting about?”

“Scheduling, mainly, making sure there’s always somebody here with Abilene while this Ware situation unfolds. Plus I got a couple agenda items of my own. Nothing dramatic, just stuff to keep an eye out for.”

Casey grabbed a fork from a small pile of cutlery and stabbed himself a sausage link from a dwindling platter. “Well, I’m gonna open the bar this afternoon after Abilene heads to Elko, so I’ll tell whoever’s around about the early wake-up call.” No doubt Miah would prefer to avoid calling his ex and her lover.

“Sounds good.”

An urge tugged at Casey, an impulse to ask Miah if he thought that he and Abilene messing around had been just as bad an idea as he suspected it was.

Or do I secretly want to hear him tell me to go for it? He had to wonder. That was just his dick talking, surely.

In either case, Miah might not be the right man for the job. He still regarded Casey as his best friend’s obnoxious little brother in some ways. Easy for him to judge, when he’d been born into a respectable business, his path all laid out in front of him. Casey tried to imagine Jeremiah Church, future Three C patriarch and Prince of Fortuity, ever messing around with one of his employees, and decided, no, this was not the friend to confide in.

Duncan, however . . . Perfect as the guy might look, he’d fucked up his fair share of stuff. Plus he was discreet. Casey resolved to ask him when he went into town later. One thing was for sure: He could use some perspective.

•   •   •

James Ware shifted from foot to foot, waiting for the official at the discharge desk to return with his bin, all the shit he’d had on him when he’d been incarcerated back in July.

Eight months sounded like nothing compared to his first stint—five years—yet he felt way out of practice at this whole free-man thing. His jeans felt weird on his legs, heavy and stiff after all this time in orange scrubs and sweats. His belt felt strange, like the contraband it would have been only two hours ago.

He was tired and amped up, punchy from sitting through the release spiel and listening to his PO tell him about all the fees he’d accrued and when exactly they were due. He just wanted to get outside and to know that if he started walking, he could just keep on going.

Within reason, anyhow. Fucking parole.

Still, he was lucky he’d only been given a year, and served the minimum in the end. Amazing what a half-decent lawyer could get you.

The female officer appeared with the beige Rubbermaid and dropped it unceremoniously before him on the desk. He gathered his wallet, his phone, pager, sunglasses, keys. A half-eaten Snickers bar. He held it up. “Really?”

The officer smiled. “Your property, Mr. Free Man. Enjoy it.”

With that, James headed down the corridor and out the penitentiary’s front door. One of the guards on duty gave him a curt nod. He didn’t return it.

He followed a sign to the visitors’ lot, where an old black Ram pickup awaited him—his own wheels. There was dust all over the paint and scrub grass in the wheel wells, which told him Angie’s deadbeat boyfriend had probably taken the poor thing off road. No fucking shock.

The door swung out and his sister jumped down.

“Ange,” James offered.

“Big brother,” she countered, and tossed herself around his middle. The heartfelt act would last all of a minute before they both remembered they couldn’t stand each other. Wasn’t as though she’d visited, apart from Christmas. Neither had their mom, come to that.

She stepped away. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks. You look good.” She looked like hell—too skinny in baggy jeans that used to fit different, and her brassy blond hair had black roots all the way to her ears. She looked like she was using again, but that was a fight for another day. And besides, she hadn’t sold his truck out from under him. That was good enough for the benefit of the doubt on such a day as this.

“Where’m I dropping you?” he asked, climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Richie’s.”

Figures. Fucking waster lived forty miles away in the wrong direction, but hey, Angie had shown up, after all. On time, even. More than he’d expected of her.

“Same place? Down near Ely?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” He adjusted the seat and mirror and started the engine. Goddamn but it felt good to have his hands around this wheel again.

“You staying to visit?” Angie asked.

“No. Got business to take care of.”

“Your first day out?”

“Overdue.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Up north.”

“You’d better stop and see Mom, or she’ll never fucking shut up about it.”

“Soon. But not today,” he said, turning them onto the bleached-out desert highway.

Not today. Because yeah, he had business to take care of. Serious fucking business.

A debt to collect.

And tomorrow, an old girlfriend to track down.