Daring Devlin

by Jessica Lemmon

  “Oh.” I pulled the book from my apron and placed it on the table. He opened it, slipped in a bank envelope—a fat one. He lifted his glass of water and sipped, keeping his eyes on the side exit.

  I took his ignoring me as a hint our transaction was over. I shoved the book into my apron pocket and walked away, stealing a look over my shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen. Travis, hands in his pockets, rushed out the side exit and into the parking lot.

  Odd. To say the least.

  In a corner by the ice machine, I pulled out the thick paper envelope. It was sealed. My cheeks flamed.

  Drug money? Had I just aided and abetted a felon? My mom was dating a cop. Maybe I should ask Roy what to do. I tucked the envelope back into the book and the book back into my apron. My hand rested over the pocket protectively.

  Acting way, way too casual, I headed for Devlin’s workstation in the back.

  “Rena! Table sixty going out!” another server called, lifting a tray of food onto his shoulder. I called out my thanks. I had about a minute before I needed to run out and check on my table. Just long enough to hand over the money and pretend this never happened.

  I found Devlin at a stainless steel table deveining a pile of shrimp and swearing at the same time. Other than a pair of prep guys on the other side of the room mixing buckets of salad dressing and having a conversation in Spanish, the back was empty.

  Devlin swore again as I approached.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  His blue eyes were bright, his jaw sharp. He was far too beautiful to be in the back of this kitchen. Busted-up face and all. Would nothing quell my attraction for him?

  “Mild allergy.” He peeled off the blue gloves he wore and showed me a very red and swollen index finger. “Must have a hole in the glove. Feels like I’m fingering a jellyfish.”

  A breathy laugh came from my lips.

  “Sorry.” He offered a sheepish smile that made him ten times more attractive.

  I shook my head to let him know he hadn’t offended me. “No, I—” But I didn’t feel like explaining. I wanted to free myself of the (possibly outfitted with a tracking device) stack of money.

  “Travis was here.” I shot a look over to the other two guys. They were chatting and laughing and ignoring us completely. I stepped closer to Devlin anyway.

  His lids narrowed as he studied me too closely for comfort.

  “Travis,” I repeated on a whisper, “was here.”

  He watched me quietly for a second. Now I was sweating.

  “What do you think you have there, Rena?” His voice was low and curious. I didn’t think he was trying to be seductive, but his words poured over me like warm honey.

  I started to pull the book out of my pocket, but he tipped his chin to the door behind me. “Freezer. I’ll join you in ten seconds.”

  Without questioning him, I moved toward the adjacent walk-in freezer and pulled open the metal door. I pushed through the cut strips of plastic hanging from the frame. The freezer was a third of the size of the walk-in refrigerator, illuminated by a single fluorescent bulb. Bracing against the cold, I let my eyes wander to the boxes of rolls, seafood, and containers of ice cream lining the shelves and tried not to think.

  But stalling my thoughts didn’t change the fact that I’d picked up drug money. Fantastic.

  Just as my cheeks were starting to chill, the door swung open and Devlin walked in, black cap on backward. He separated the plastic to allow for wide shoulders, dropping the strips behind him. Dangerous and gorgeous. What a deadly—and irresistible—combination.

  I fished the envelope from my black book and offered it to him. Surely he wanted to get this over with quickly so we could both go back to pretending I hadn’t been the equivalent of a drug mule for the payment of illegal narcotics.

  I didn’t make it a habit of doing illegal things. Except underage drinking. Drinking that had dragged Joshua to a party he didn’t want to go to in the first place. Drinking that forced him to pick me up and drive me home. He’s why I no longer did “bad” things. Bad things led to worse things. A familiar wave of regret licked at my insides like fire.

  Devlin approached until he was close enough that the envelope crinkled against his chef’s coat. The fire of regret morphed into a flicker of desire. Mischief glittering in his eyes, his mouth twitched into an almost-smile.

  “Answer me, Rena,” he commanded.

  Under his unblinking stare, it took me a few seconds to regroup. “You didn’t ask me anything.”

  “I asked you what you thought you had.”

  My fist tightened around the money. “I… don’t know.”

  “No, Rena.” Slowly, he shook his head. His assertive presence overwhelmed me. “Tell me what you think is in that envelope. If we have any hope of being friends, we can’t lie to each other.”

  My heart Tommy-gunned against my ribs like it might leap out of my chest at any moment. Friends? With Devlin? I was definitely a drug-money mule.

  I shoved the envelope against his chest. “I don’t want to know what it is.” The feel of rock-hard muscle against the side of my hand nearly made me forget where I was.

  His warm hand over mine made me forget who I was.

  “You think the money is for…” He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for me to tell him. I wasn’t sure he’d let me out of here until I did.

  “Drug money?”

  A sharp laugh echoed off the steel walls surrounding us. His full-wattage smile, white teeth against the shadow of his jaw, black-and-blue bruises decorating one side of his face, beckoned my own smile. I couldn’t help it.

  “No, sweetheart. Not drug money. My friend made a bet. He lost.”

  I remembered Travis’s shifty eyes. “That guy’s your friend?”

  “More like an acquaintance.” He pushed a few strands of my hair away from my face before settling his palm on my cheek. “You’re cold.”

  “We’re in a freezer.”

  His low chuckle shook my internal organs like a towering game of Jenga.

  Then he closed the gap between us and his lips covered mine. Tenderly at first, like he was being careful of his healing lip. I tried to be careful, too, until he pushed his fingers through my hair and slanted his mouth. The slow burn that started in my stomach consumed my chest, fanned out to my nipples, and struck the tip of my tongue like flint to stone. I ached to taste him. The faint bit of scruff on his jaw scraped my face. His fingers tore down my ponytail.

  Then it was over.

  He took the envelope and licked the corner of his mouth, giving me a peek at the tongue I hadn’t tasted.

  Then he parted the plastic strips to leave, first giving me a once-over. “Might want to fix your hair before you go back out there. Looks like you were making out in a freezer.”

  My hand went to my disheveled hair as he disappeared out the door. I was in a freezer, all right, but I wasn’t the least bit cold after that kiss.

  Chapter Six

  Rena

  My mom, with her dyed (what she called “frosted”) Mom-hair and jaunty sweater covered in knit snowmen and candy canes and holly, leaned on her elbows at the kitchen table and gave me “the look.”

  Every mom had her own version of “the look,” and when a daughter saw it, she knew, without words, what it meant. Hers always said the same thing: You’ve been single too long.

  “I think… I work that night.” I stood from the kitchen table to escape her lethal stare and made a show of rinsing my orange juice glass. She’d invited me over for homemade scones, which I found suspicious because she doesn’t bake. That’s not technically true. She does bake. She doesn’t bake well.

  I hadn’t expected to her to drop the “I met a nice boy” bomb as I took my third bite. Shockingly, the scones were delicious. That orange marmalade–cranberry one almost made her inquisition worth it.

  “His name is Barney,” she said.

  I paced back to the table. “Barney?”

  She shushe
d me with a frown and darted her eyes upstairs to where Roy had vanished. Her boyfriend, the police officer, who I’d prefer never found out about my nefarious money-pickup at the behest of my boss.

  “Sit. Honey, please.”

  I sat and slumped in my chair.

  “His name is Barney. I’m sure it’s a family name,” she added. “And he’s coming to dinner on Sunday evening. You already told me you weren’t working so don’t lie about it now.”

  “That’s when I thought you were going to ask me to go shopping.”

  She frowned at me while I pouted like a peeved twelve-year-old.

  “It’s awkward, Mom,” I whined.

  She didn’t miss a beat. “So is the fact that you’re almost twenty-three years old and haven’t had a boyfriend since Joshua.”

  She never spoke his name. She only whispered or mouthed it. Like whispering his name quieter might erase the memory of learning that her only daughter had been trapped in a heap of metal with her no-longer-living boyfriend. I’d been pinned in the wreckage next to him for nearly an hour before help came. Which made the paramedics’ claim that I’d escaped the incident “unscathed” laughable.

  “Are you seeing someone? Is that why you’re not interested in meeting Barney?”

  “Mom.”

  “Have you even kissed a boy since Joshua?”

  “Mom!” Offended, and nervous because I’d kissed a boy less than twenty-four hours ago and hated her supersonic Batmom abilities, my jaw dropped open in horror.

  Devlin hadn’t kissed like a “boy,” and my reaction was nowhere near as chaste as when Joshua had first placed his perfectly puckered lips onto mine. He had been so innocent. And good. So good.

  I’d grown to resent being good.

  “I’m sorry to interfere,” she said. “I just want you to be open to the possibility of—”

  “Being set up by my mom? What if you and Roy get married?” She shushed me again and angled a glance at the stairs. I lowered my voice. “What if this Barney guy and I hit it off?” Not going to happen. “Then we’d be like… incestuous or something.”

  My mother clucked her tongue in reprimand. “First off, Roy’s nephew is not related to me and therefore is not a blood relation to you, so your argument is invalid. Second, while Barney isn’t Roy’s son, he’s like a son to Roy. We want the two people we love most to meet. Is that so wrong?”

  Sort of.

  She held up her hands like she was finished. Much to my dismay, she was not. “It’s only dinner. If you two end up liking each other, and I mean like like”—the scone in my stomach rode a wave of nausea at her suggestive tone—“then you can continue whatever relationship you have with him whether or not Roy and I are married.” Her cheeks lifted and shaded a pretty color of rose.

  My parents divorced right before Joshua died, outfitting my year from hell with an eighth circle. Unlike Mom, my dad had remarried within six months. I wanted to be happy for my mother’s future with Roy, but I couldn’t clear the idea of dating Roy’s kin long enough to celebrate.

  “Sunday at four.” She lifted a plate holding two scones. It was a standoff I was going to lose. “The big one’s chocolate chip.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled, taking the pastry. “I’ll go on a date with Barney.”

  Devlin

  A stakeout of Paul’s house would have been unreasonable before I was jumped by Flotsam and Jetsam, but after getting pummeled and dumped on the side of the road to freeze to death, I’d upped my level of suspicion.

  Since I couldn’t risk Sonny finding out that Paul had been responsible for my ass-kicking, I couldn’t ask Nat for backup. I did a minor-league stakeout outside Paul’s house. Two hours later, after watching him take out the garbage, smoke a cigarette, and flip on several lights upstairs and down, I was ninety-five percent sure he was alone. If not, well, I’d put up as good a fight as I could, and ask them to go easy on the face this time.

  I climbed out of my car, my hand in the pocket of my leather coat. I fingered the small knife I’d brought in case of emergency. If threatened, it might buy me some time. Those guys had been big, but they were slow.

  At the front door, I pressed the door handle with my thumb and blew out a breath of relief at my good fortune. Unlocked. I stepped inside, quietly drying the soles of my boots on the front mat so I didn’t squeak down the foyer. After treading oh-so lightly, I heard whistling coming from the kitchen. I peeked around the wall and spotted Paul, wearing an ugly pair of pajama pants with reindeer on them, pulling a carton of ice cream from the freezer. His T-shirt stretched over his rounded belly when he stood.

  “Hi, Paul.”

  He dropped the carton to the floor and backed against the countertop, gripping it like I was threatening him with a pistol, cocked and ready. I pulled empty hands from my pockets and held up my palms.

  “Man, what is with you? I didn’t come for revenge. I came to help.” I took a step toward him and he nearly crawled into the sink to get away from me. Where was the brave-slash-stupid guy who’d sucker-punched me in the face the last time I’d seen him?

  I stopped advancing, keeping the kitchen island between us for both our safety. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you? Because if you don’t, then I might have to kick your ass after all.”

  He licked his lips nervously. “Can I—can I pick up my ice cream?”

  I sighed. “Sure.”

  I rested my palms on the counter as he knelt. Outside the kitchen window stood a row of new-build houses in the complex behind his. Huge behemoths with no privacy whatsoever. Only a twiggy little tree here and there strung with blue-and-white Christmas lights.

  Nothing like the neighborhood where I’d grown up, though the houses on our street had had no privacy either, since they were about a yardstick’s length apart. My parents had poured their money into Oak & Sage, and the house, well, the house was just for sleeping.

  When I noticed Paul had been on the floor far too long to pick up a container of ice cream, I peeked over the island. Ice cream, but no Paul. I took one step toward the family room and found him army crawling across the carpet.

  I was on him in a second. He yelped as I hauled him up by the scruff of his shirt. He tried to kick me, but I swung away. My hand around his throat, I squeezed his flesh through my fingers as I slammed his skull against the wall.

  Through clenched teeth, I elicited a warning. “Listen carefully. I have not told Sonny about the shit you pulled last Friday. I will not tell him if you tell me what’s going on. If you don’t, I swear to God, I’ll tell him everything and you can deal with him instead of me.”

  Paul waved his hands frantically and I loosened my hold on his neck. I kept my other hand pressed firmly against his chest and my hips turned to the side. I would not put it past the putz to knee me in the jewels.

  His lip trembled. “Don’t tell Sonny. He’ll kill me, Dev.”

  I moved my hand from his neck and rested it alongside my other one on his chest. “Why would he kill you?”

  “I didn’t mean to get in this deep with Tex, but—”

  “Tex? Tex Shooter?” His street name. A stupid one. He was an up-and-comer in the bookie world, and he and Sonny didn’t see eye to eye. Probably because Tex insisted on stealing our customers.

  I dropped my hands and backed away. Paul looked sick. He should. He was in deeper shit than I’d thought. “So, those two guys…?”

  “Came to pick up a payment for Tex. You happened to show the same night.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I yelled as I pointed at the bruises still decorating half my face. “Instead of having me beat to hell?”

  “Because they would have killed you if they knew you were Sonny’s guy!” His frantic whisper suggested he was telling the truth. Or at least what he believed to be the truth.

  I propped my hands on my hips while I thought.

  “Dev, what do I do?”

  “Besides rent a time machine and avoid Tex altogether
?”

  He flinched.

  My eyes slipped closed, memories rolling over me. My father had also left Sonny to bet with a bigger, badder guy in town. Dad had been in so far over his head, he had given the guy my baseball cards for payment. By the time he’d sacrificed the deed to our house, my father’s psyche had cracked.

  It’d been cold and rainy the night the cops found my dad’s body. The undulating currents of the river had washed him onto the shore a day after he’d jumped. I blamed the rival bookie until I found the suicide note and three hundred dollars under my mattress. And one baseball card. My cherished Pete Rose. Ironically, a famed gambler.

  Or maybe not ironically, I thought with sudden clarity.

  I blinked at Paul. Considered his fate. My face went numb. Was this idiot trying to reenact my father’s past? “How much are you in for?”

  “Twenty-two large.”

  My hands formed fists at my sides. “Twenty-two thousand dollars?”

  “I know! I know! I thought Tex’s payout was better.”

  “Yeah, to get you hooked, you dumbass!” Seriously. Had he learned nothing?

  “It’s okay. He let me make a deal.”

  The corner of my eye ticked. “What kind of a deal?”

  His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Just… a little money laundering.”

  A humorless laugh escaped my lips. “Oh, just a little?”

  “My accounting skills should pay off in that respect.”

  “Yeah,” I said flatly.

  “Don’t tell Sonny. I need some time. A week, tops.”

  “I can’t believe I used to look up to you.” I also couldn’t believe I was considering helping him out. But the night the cops found my dad, it’d been Paul who’d shown up and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Paul who’d cleared out his home office and bought me a bed to sleep in. I was eighteen and scared and alone for the first time in my life. I knew nothing. I had no one.

  “I could use your advice on a game. One game.” He pointed to the kitchen where ice cream puddled on the floor behind the counter. “I have the paperwork in there.”

  I was already shaking my head.