by Avery Flynn
“Well, I hate to foil your plot to sleep with me for information but it's all a bunch of bullshit.” He stalked toward her, his half-hard cock swinging in the breeze. “There's no treasure so it looks like you wasted your talents on me tonight.”
Pompous ass. He didn't know a damn thing about her, but he sure was quick to think the worst. Battered pride steeled her spine. Let him think she'd slept with him only for some cockamamie treasure story, it was better than letting him realize the truth: that for a few hours he'd made her forget about everything else and made her feel like that princess who slew the dragon instead of the scullery maid always dashing around cleaning up everyone else's mess. Ha. That dragon was kicking her ass right now.
The elevator doors she'd been leaning against opened and Josie tumbled inside, landing on her ass.
Sam scowled down at her. “Serves you right.”
“Maybe, but you're forgetting one thing.” Josie couldn't contain the evil grin tightening her cheeks.
“What's that?”
“You're buck-ass naked and your room key is locked in your room.”
His face turned scarlet and he cupped his large package in his equally big hands.
“See you never, shithead.” The elevator doors slid shut and Josie stayed on the floor during the descent, nursing her wounded pride and an unfamiliar ache in her heart.
Chapter Four
Josie gagged on the stench of bacon grease heavy in the air at The Lucky Seven Diner. Head aching from a lack of sleep, she rubbed her scratchy eyes and dry-swallowed a pair of chalky aspirin tablets. What a way to start the second half of a double shift.
A quick glance at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the employee break room door showed off red-rimmed eyes and violet crescents below. It looked as if she'd spent half the night crying—which she hadn't. A third of the night…maybe.
“Josie, three just sat down at table fifteen. It's yours.” Arlene's voice, muffled by the closed door, bounced around her cranium like a pinball.
Time to make some money and save Cy's kneecaps even though her pain-in-the-ass little brother still hadn't returned any of her million or so messages. Desperate, she'd called the emergency number he'd given her a few months ago. A guy with a gruff voice took the message and promised he'd pass it along the next time he saw Cy, but he didn't say when that would be.
Why did everything have to go to shit at once?
She grabbed her order pad, stuffed a few pens in her apron and shuffled out of the break room. The early bird crowd filled most of the booths. If the seniors were here in force, that boded well for the drunk and disorderly customers who'd stumble in toward the end of her shift. Finally, some good luck.
Her step picked up a little bounce as she strode toward table fifteen and the weight on her shoulders lost a few pounds. On her way past the drink station, she swiped a silver carafe of coffee. Even at four in the afternoon, the early birders liked their coffee right away.
Josie whipped out a pen. “So, what'll you have?”
The words were barely out of her mouth when her heart stopped.
Sam sat flanked by a woman who looked like she'd gone twelve rounds in the octagon and the man from the poker game, whom she'd assumed was Sam's relative. Unlike her, Sam looked as though he'd spent the night undisturbed by what-ifs. Instead, he was all broad shoulders, golden hazel eyes and sex appeal. The bastard looked delicious.
Eventually, the shock wore off and her heart revived, beating so fast she felt the thrum in her ears and her body sizzled underneath her plain black T-shirt and ever-present jeans.
“Hey! I know you.” The younger man broke the silence. “You were one of the waitresses at our poker game. That jerk sure did deserve it.”
“Uh, thanks.” She couldn't tear her gaze away from Sam and the way his ears turned pink, making her want to nibble on the lobes, right after she boxed them.
The man put his elbows on the table and leaned around Sam to get closer to the woman. “It was awesome. This asshole…” He glanced up at Josie. “Sorry about that. This jerk grabbed her tits…” He smiled an apology toward her. “Sorry. This jerk grabs her…breasts during the poker game. So, she takes this ginormous silver tray that she'd been using to carry the drinks and whacks him over the head with it. It was a sight to behold.”
He relaxed back, a goofy grin on his face.
For his part, Sam had gone perfectly still. The sun streamed in from the window behind him, illuminating his light-brown hair and bringing out the auburn highlights. On another man, she'd assume those streaks had come from a stylist's talented hands, but not with Sam. No, he was too earthy for that. Not to mention she'd seen the touch of ginger down below. Her nipples hardened at the mental image, her body disregarding the do-not-want alert her brain telegraphed.
The woman's gaze flicked back and forth between Josie and Sam before she flipped up her heavy ceramic mug. “May I have some?”
Yanked out of her daze, Josie blinked a few times, trying to remember why she was here. “Uh, yeah.”
“Josie,” Sam's low voice rumbled.
His voice rolled over her like a protective blanket and for a second, she enjoyed the warmth—right up until the moment her pride fought through the comforting weight.
A tight smile pinched her cheeks and she jutted out her hip. “Do I know you?” She cocked her head to one side, sending her curls bouncing. “Oh yeah, you were at the poker game too, right? Scotch, neat, if I remember correctly.”
“I…” Indecision wavered in his hazel eyes.
“You're hungry? Well, you came to the right place. Let me get your orders.” Holding her pen at the ready, she turned toward the other guy. “What can I get you?”
After writing down their orders, Josie hurried back to the counter and cornered Arlene.
“Can you take table fifteen for me?”
“Thought you needed the tips?”
“Yeah, well, I'd rather gnaw off my own big toe than take any money from him.”
Arlene smacked her wad of pale-pink gum. “Sure, I'll take 'em.”
Anxious energy burned a hole through Josie's stomach as she marched past the order pick-up station and into the break room. The door's resounding thwack as she let it slam shut did little to relieve her aggression.
“I knew it. I just knew something was wrong. What happened?” Cy leaned against the opposite wall, his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets, an invisible aura of tightly wound energy filling the room.
Relief seeped into her bones. She'd really started to worry something had happened even though her twin alarm hadn't gone off. All the emotions of the past few days surged to the surface and she couldn't repress the tears making her blink or the sniffle that had her nose twitching. What was the point in hiding them? Cy always knew.
“Who is he? I have time to pay him a visit before leaving town.”
At six-foot-five-inches tall, with each inch covered in muscle, her little brother could put the hurt on a man. But this time he was up against someone who brought a bazooka to a knife fight.
“It's Snips.”
He made a gagging face. “Snips? That's disgusting. What were you thinking?”
Men. Of course that's where his brain went first.
“I didn't fuck him, Mr. All Brawn No Brains. He's forcing forty thousand dollars out of me that he says you owe him—money I don't have, by the way. So why don't you tell me what in the hell you were thinking?”
Cy shoved his fingers through his platinum hair, still cut short from his time in a hush-hush Marine unit. “Shit. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.”
“Come to what?”
He grabbed her backpack from its hook and strutted over, dropping the bag at her feet. “You have to leave town. Now.”
“Hey, I would be if I didn't have Snips hounding me to pay your debt or he'll get the cash from Mom and Dad. You know they don't have any money.”
“Mom and Dad are safe. I moved them to Lake Havasu last ni
ght. A buddy worked it so Dad got hired on with a plumbing crew there. Mom's a block away from a dialysis-care unit.”
The twin-thing went on full alert and a jolt of electricity charged down her spine. “Cy, you better tell me what's going on. Now.”
He crossed his arms over his wide chest and hit her with his best menacing glare, but said nothing.
“Look, I know you supposedly can kill me with only your thumb, but stop trying to scare me into shutting up. It won't work.” Josie jabbed her finger into the middle of his hard chest. “Spill it.”
He ground his teeth. “Snips is working his way up the chain of command and thinks that bringing me to the Callandriello capos will get him promoted even faster.”
“No offense, Cy, 'cuz you know I love you, but how does you owing forty K give him more influence?”
“I don't owe Snips a penny. The bastard is trying to flush me out and using you to do it. The Callandriellos want me because they have a hit out on the governor's daughter and I'm the one keeping her alive. You didn't really think I left the Corps to do odd jobs, did you?”
Little incongruities suddenly made sense. The travel. Cy being out of touch so much. The standoffish way he treated her whenever she asked what was going on in his life. “Thank God, I was worried you were gambling again. So who do you work for?”
“That's not important.”
She flayed him with a dirty look.
Cy took a step back. “I'd tell you if I could, but I can't. All you need to know is that I'm with the good guys and that you need to get the hell out of Vegas.”
“What do I do about Snips?”
“Don't worry about him. I'll take care of it.”
“I'm supposed to go to Nebraska and stay at the Rose O'Neill Dry Creek Artist Colony for six months, but how do I do that if you're in trouble?”
“What's wrong, pussycat, you think I can't take care of little ol' me?” He flexed his pecs and winked. “Get your ass to Dry Creek and lay low. I wouldn't put it past Snips to try to use you as bait again if he finds you. I'll check in on you, but Nebraska is one of the last places anyone would ever look. Hell, I don't think most people could find it on a map.”
She rolled her eyes. “Cy, is all of this really necessary? It's Snips. He's a wannabe.”
“He's a scumbag with major ambition to be somebody. How soon can you get to Nebraska?”
“I'll leave after I get off work.”
“Do it. Don't call Mom or Dad after you leave. I have someone watching the 'rents, but I wouldn't put it past that little prick to find a way to tap into their phones. Here, take this.” He handed her a cheap cellphone. “It's a pay-as-you-go phone. Untraceable. Leave your cell in Vegas so they can't track the GPS chip and take this one with you to Nebraska. I have the number already. Don't give it to anyone else.”
Josie rubbed her arms, which prickled with goose bumps. “Fuck. Now you're starting to scare me.”
“Good.” Cy's eyes, the same shade of gray as hers, went dark. “You should be scared.”
They hugged, his sinewy arms squeezing the air out of her lungs. Damn, he hadn't done that since before he’d left for overseas.
“Be safe, little bro.”
He grinned down at her. “If you haven't noticed, I'm not that little. Talk to you soon.” With that, he strutted out the back door.
Cy had saved her back in L.A., bought her first canvas after that debacle and urged her to paint again. He knew, had always known, how important painting was to her sanity. They'd always had each other's backs before, so there was no reason to think this time would be any different.
Josie stepped back out among the diner's tables. Other waitresses buzzed around, dropping off food and pouring coffee. Customer chatter filled the room as if everything in the world was normal, as if she hadn't just discovered her brother was some sort of covert operative working for God knows who and a loan shark with delusions of grandeur was trying to use her as bait.
Desperate to stay busy, she snagged a stack of napkins along with the bucket of loose silverware and headed toward a table to roll the cheap forks, spoons and knives inside the paper napkins. The mindless work would help bring her heart rate back to normal.
“You better have my money.”
A squeak escaped and she spun around.
Snips lounged at the table closest to the employee-only door, usually reserved for busboys scarfing down roast beef sandwiches during break. He wore a gray track suit, a black newsboy cap pulled low over his forehead and sunglasses, presumably to hide evidence of what had to be a gnarly bruise. The whole ensemble made him look like a cheap imitation of the type of people Vegas had in surplus.
Seeing him pissed her off. The little fuck had stirred up all this trouble. It took everything she had not to punch him in the face, but what he lacked in style he made up for with a short-fuse temper and deadly aim.
He smirked at her. “Cy is still avoiding my calls. I can't have that. My rep demands fast action.”
Willing herself not to smack him over the head again with any of the tools of her trade, she took a deep breath and counted to ten. She couldn't let on that she knew the debt was a ruse. Cy needed time to put some distance between him and this power-hungry little shit.
“Look, Snips —”
“Nobody calls me that anymore. It's Jimmy now.” His cheeks flushed.
People had called him Snips since freshman year when he showed up for yearbook picture day with a completely jacked-up home haircut. Even back then he'd been a shithead, but he hadn’t had the paid muscle to back up his flapping gums.
Not so today. Linc, the giant sitting across from him, cracked his scraped knuckles.
Josie had to play it just right. Until she skipped town, he had to believe she was getting him the money.
“Fine. Jimmy, let's do this logically. Cy owes you forty grand. I have ten I can have to you as soon as the bank opens tomorrow. I'll have the rest for you in a month.”
“Oh yeah, how's that gonna happen?”
“I have a line on something.”
Snips looked at his goon and cocked his head toward Josie. “Sounds just like her no-nuts brother, doesn't she?”
Josie dug her fingernails into her palm to keep from snapping back at him. “If you'll just hear me out—”
“Unless you have the full forty K, the only offer I want to hear from you involves you naked and bent over.”
A shadow fell over the table and a hand landed on her shoulder, yanking her back.
“That's no way to talk to a lady unless you're not too fond of your teeth.” Sam angled his body so he stood between her and Snips.
“Who the fuck are you?” The no-neck monster lumbered up from his seat to his full height, towering over Sam, who, at six feet, wasn't exactly a shrimp.
“I'm the guy who's about to teach you two some manners.” Sam puffed his chest out and took a step forward. “Who wants the first lesson?”
This would not turn out well. As pissed as she was at Sam, she didn't want him to end up with a permanent limp because of his misplaced sense of propriety. She whipped around her self-appointed knight and found herself nose-to-sternum with Snips' goon.
“Everybody calm down.” She jutted her butt out, pushing Sam back a few paces. “This is not the time or the place for a testosterone smack down. The last thing I need is to lose this job too.”
“Josie—”
“Can it, Sam.” She leveled at glare at Snips and his smarmy grin. “And you aren't going to get any money if I don't have a job. So everybody chill out.”
Frustration vibrated off of Sam, pummeling her with its intensity. Without thinking about the reason why, she twisted her fingers between his and held tight. He returned her squeeze and together they stared down Snips and his enforcer until the loan shark shrugged as if their wall of defiance wasn't worth getting upset over.
“Whatever.” Snips stood up and adjusted the collar of his track suit, sticking out his pinky finger so the gold ri
ng on it glinted. “I'll be in touch, Josie. You better come up with some cash fast.”
“I'll get it.”
“Good, I'd hate to have to go convince your mom to hock her wheelchair, because that's the only thing of value your parents have.”
“Leave them out of this.”
“Get my money or they'll be my next stop.” He pushed past her, knocking his shoulder against Sam as he went by. “And if I ever see you again, the scar I'll give you will look like King Kong next to that little scratch on your ugly mug.”
“You're welcome to try.” The promise of violence lay thick in Sam's retort.
Heart in her throat, Josie watched Snips and his muscle mosey out of the dinner.
“Nice friends.”
She snorted. “Friend is not the word for Snips Esposito.” Josie looked up at Sam, his face so close to hers. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Help.”
His gaze dropped to her princess tattoo and he brushed a finger across the bright-red dragon tail, a strange, sad smile curving his lips.
Her entire body went on alert, desperate for another touch even as her mind warned her to run away.
He crushed his lips to hers, coaxing them open with his tongue and claiming her mouth like a conquering hero.
Josie curled her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, as soft and pliant as the rest of him was hard and demanding, and kissed him back. The air crackled around them as fire spread through her body, burning hottest at her core.
Sam broke the kiss. “The better question is why I did that.”
Chest heaving, he slid his thumb across her kiss-swollen bottom lip then turned and strode out of the restaurant.
Chapter Five
Howling gusts molded last night's six-inch snowfall into mini-mountains outside Josie's studio window. She exhaled a deep breath onto the cold glass and drew a quick profile into the resulting fog. A proud, straight nose. A square jar set in a stubborn line. A scar slashed across a high cheekbone. Her subconscious had pushed the same face onto every canvas since she'd arrived in Dry Creek.
