Quiet Man: A Dream Man Novella

by Kristen Ashley

Great.

  “Right then, before we carry on, why did that woman cheat on you when she practically begged you with her eyes to do her against the udon noodles?”

  Mo commandeered the cart and set us in motion, doing this by bending way over, crossing his forearms on the handle and moving forward.

  I quickly grabbed some buckwheat udon and followed him.

  I suspected his movements meant he wasn’t going to answer and I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t my business.

  “She likes dick.”

  After I tossed the noodles in the cart, I walked beside him and had the unusual sensation of looking down on him.

  He kept his eyes aimed forward.

  “And I work a lot,” he finished.

  “Ah,” I murmured.

  I murmured that like I got it, but I didn’t get it.

  Then again, I wasn’t a cheater.

  My man wasn’t taking care of business, there’d be a chat, never a cheat.

  But that was just me.

  “And she’s the kind of woman who’s always on the lookout for the next best thing.”

  I stutter stepped to a halt.

  “What?”

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder and down his bulk at me.

  “What, what?”

  “The next best thing?” I asked.

  “Can we get the shopping done?” he asked back.

  I started moving again, and when Mo moved with me, I kept at him. “What do you mean the next best thing?”

  “You saw her new man.”

  “Yeah.”

  He said no more.

  “And?” I pushed.

  “Let’s not do this,” he said on a sigh.

  “Do what?”

  “Go there.”

  “Go where?”

  He stopped again and looked up at me.

  “I’m a guy, Lottie, and even I can see he’s better lookin’ than me,” he stated firmly.

  I stared at him.

  “He also makes more money than me,” Mo continued. “He’s an attorney.”

  That explained a lot, but only about the boyfriend and his apparel choices for a shopping expedition at King Soopers on a Sunday.

  The rest was still unexplainable.

  “She moved on from you to an attorney?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  I busted out laughing.

  And I did this so hard, I slapped him on the shoulder blade to work some of it out.

  “That’s hilarious!” I cried.

  “It’s really not,” he said.

  I ignored him. “Ohmigod. What an idiot. You dump her and—”

  “She dumped me.”

  I stopped laughing and started staring at him again.

  “She traded up,” he stated conversationally. “Now can we finish this and get back?”

  “She didn’t trade up, Mo,” I told him quietly.

  He sighed again but said no words through it this time.

  “She totally didn’t. And she knows it.”

  “Lottie—”

  “She either dumped you so you wouldn’t dump her, because, really, she’s a bitch and probably knows it and definitely knows you aren’t stupid so you’d figure it out. Or she instigated a faulty play, thinking you’d come to heel if she not only cheated on you, but acted like she was down with losing you and prepared to move on, all this so you’d fight to keep her.”

  “You were around her for maybe ten minutes. I lived with her for two years. I was there, Lottie. I know what happened.”

  But I wasn’t seeing straight.

  I wasn’t seeing anything.

  They’d been living together?

  From far away (even though he was still right there), I heard him murmur, “Oh fuck.”

  I started walking.

  Fast.

  “Where is that bitch?” I demanded, still walking (fast).

  I came to a halt when he caught me by the waistband of my jeans again.

  He used it to turn me to facing him and kept his hand there.

  My breasts almost brushed his chest, we were that close.

  We’d never been that close.

  I was also standing in the curve of his arm.

  He was almost…

  Holding me.

  Whoa.

  “She’s history,” he shared.

  “She’s a bitch,” I returned.

  “Yeah. And so she’s history. Move on. I did.”

  “She didn’t trade up, Mo.”

  “Okay.”

  He said that just to appease me.

  I was not appeased.

  I was a lot of things, including laser focused on his face.

  He thought that.

  He honest to God thought that.

  And something had to be done about it.

  So I decided instead of finding Tammy and taking her down I had bigger fish to fry.

  Though I couldn’t fry them shopping in King Soopers.

  “Let’s get this finished,” I mumbled.

  “Thank Christ,” he said and let me go.

  He went back to the cart.

  I’d lost my list somewhere along the way.

  Oh well.

  Fuck it.

  I’d wing it and if we forgot something, we’d come back.

  We had to get this done.

  I had fish to fry.

  Chapter Six

  Tell Them to Work Faster

  Mo

  He’d thought he’d wanted her back in the way he could have her, that was chattering at him and being comfortable in his presence.

  Another mistake.

  He had her back, but she wasn’t back, as such.

  Any man would read it the way Mo was reading it.

  She was his.

  He knew this partly because the floodgates had reopened on the gabbing, but apparently, it’d been a rainy season because she seemed incapable of shutting up.

  He now knew about all the girls at Smithie’s, who was putting themselves through school, who baked the best cookies, who knew the best zit-covering strategy, and who they were fucking, one doing a bouncer.

  He further knew that Smithie would find out about the bouncer, because he always found out, and fraternization between employees was prohibited.

  He also knew Smithie would go apeshit, but in the end not do anything but be loud and threatening while going apeshit, which was why the strippers routinely slept with the bouncers regardless that it was against employee policy.

  And he knew Lottie’s mom and Tex were always on her ass about adopting a coupla cats.

  Further from that, he knew she was considering it, she just was building herself up to go to the shelters because when she did, if she hadn’t established impulse control, she wouldn’t adopt a couple of cats, she’d adopt fifty (this, by the way, he did not find a surprise).

  And he knew her neighbors were being dickheads not because they had an outdoor TV, but because they played it loud and they did this a lot.

  Mo had no idea what this all had to do with grocery shopping, the subject around which he’d like any conversation to remain, except they weren’t grocery shopping, him as bodyguard with his boss’s client.

  They were grocery shopping as a man and a woman living together and he knew this because when they did talk about shopping, it was when she made him go all the way back through the aisles they’d already been through, forcing him to tell her what shit he wanted in the house.

  Making matters worse, personal space was now just gone.

  Vaporized.

  She didn’t hold his hand or press up against him and give his neck a kiss or anything like that.

  But she stayed close, bumped him with a hip if she was being funny or feeling saucy (something that happened often), grabbed onto his biceps to get his attention or hooked a beltloop and tugged to change his direction.

  All this meant Mo was in agony.

  And that agony wasn’t just about all of that.

  Lotti
e had thrown right down with Tammy, no hesitation, and this was before she knew who Tammy was and what she’d done.

  There was no way to deny it.

  That felt good.

  But it was even worse.

  It was clear Lottie had claimed her man.

  The end.

  And he was that man.

  Mo couldn’t think on this, mostly how it made him feel.

  All of it.

  Fortunately, she was talking so much, his mind didn’t have the opportunity to go there.

  The FBI had come back with a negatory on the language, or any religious radicals in the area they were keeping an eye on that fit this guy’s description.

  This meant they had zero leads on whoever this man was who wanted to harm her, and they’d all made the decision that the second letter, received yesterday, Lottie would not know about because she was already alert and not doing anything stupid.

  But mostly they agreed on that because the degree of disturbing in the latest letter had ratcheted up about fifteen notches.

  Smithie had called the ball on that one, not telling Lottie about it and not taking it to the police, or the FBI. The last two would, after the second letter, want very badly to get involved.

  This was because Smithie wanted the threat eradicated, no dicking around, and although Mo agreed with Smithie (to a point), Hawk did not.

  The guy was gearing up to make a move, building his confidence, getting his shit tight, getting off on the increasing extreme of his letters and the fact he hadn’t been caught yet to take him to the place where he could act out his twisted fantasies.

  They all knew it.

  Smithie wanted it handled.

  Hawk wanted this guy on FBI radar.

  Mo just wanted Lottie safe.

  But Lottie didn’t need to know all of this was going on.

  And Mo did not need Lottie being even more of all that was good about Lottie when this guy was on the loose, fixed on her, and working himself up, her being more of all she was only serving the purpose of making Mo want her more.

  But for the life of him, he could no longer handle the anger and hurt that had poured his way from her the last three days.

  So when Tammy opened it up, and Lottie rushed right through, Mo seized on it and he did not have it in him to shut it down, being a dickhead about it, or otherwise.

  It would probably bite him in the ass.

  Hell, it already was biting him in the ass.

  But she seemed happy, so he’d find some way to deal with it.

  On her street, a few houses down from hers, he saw it before she saw it.

  And when he saw it, he knew things were going to get even worse.

  Terrific.

  “Ohmigod!” she cried, cutting herself off from talking about some peacock outfit she was thinking about stripping in, somehow getting this idea from Tammy’s new man.

  He knew then that she saw it too.

  “You get to meet my nephews!” she exclaimed.

  Yeah.

  All three.

  They were running around on her sloped front lawn, looking like they were playing tag, while a blonde woman who had to be her sister lounged on the front steps.

  Eddie Chavez’s woman and boys, and as Mo brought them closer, he saw he could call that without even knowing Lottie’s sister was married to Chavez.

  His boys were stamped all over with him. Put one in a kid lineup, Mo would have called Eddie, or his brother Hector, no sweat.

  Seeing as they wanted whoever was after Lottie to know she had protection, Mo didn’t park in the garage at the back in case the guy was watching. He parked in the front.

  Something he did right then.

  And Lottie was practically clawing at the door before he even came to a complete halt.

  He threw his truck in park just as she hit the locks.

  Then she was flying out.

  And his day got worse even though many men would describe it as exponentially better.

  This was because she dashed up the slope and was immediately hit with one boy, the tallest, so probably oldest, then two, and finally the third, the youngest, toddled over and jumped on.

  Lottie started going down with the first hit. It was a feint. The kid was maybe seven or eight and not small, but she could have stayed standing.

  But not if she wanted him to think he could best her.

  Something she obviously did.

  Slowly, forcing himself to take in the surrounding area as he did it, Mo got out, rounded the hood, noted the sister, Jet, was up, had moved a bit forward, had hands on hips, but she wasn’t watching her boys wrestle with their aunt on their aunt’s front lawn.

  She was focused on Mo.

  He could see Eddie going there. She was pretty, not as pretty as her sister, but pretty. Curvy. Way more curvy than Lottie. Dressed in jeans, flip flops and a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt that showed no cleavage but still didn’t leave much to the imagination.

  Mo would lay money on the fact that Chavez both loved and hated that T-shirt.

  Loved it when she wore it for him.

  Hated it when she wore it in public.

  This unlike Lottie, who was in another skintight tank, this one neon pink, and faded jeans (but Lottie also was wearing flip flops).

  Well, not now. Both of them had come off in the free-for-all.

  He’d ascended the slope just as the oldest one got her to her back, straddled her, shoving her down at her shoulders while the middle one (maybe five or six years old) threw himself on her legs and the littlest one (maybe three or four) was engaged in the concerted effort of trying to tickle her sides, something that was thwarted by his big brother’s legs.

  “I got you!” the oldest one shouted in triumph.

  “Give! I give!” Lottie yelled through giggles.

  Well, shit.

  Just shit.

  He knew it before.

  He knew it right then for certain.

  He was fucked.

  Because he could totally fall in love with this woman.

  Yeah.

  Shit.

  “Let up your aunt, boys.”

  Yup.

  Eddie’s kids.

  Mom spoke and all the boys immediately moved. He had a feeling “Wait until your father hears this” was immediately followed with the urge to piss their pants.

  It was then, when they were forming a loose row, oldest to youngest, the oldest caught sight of Mo.

  So that was when he whispered, “Holy smokes.”

  Number two turned his head to check out what had his brother frozen in wonder and he caught sight of Mo.

  His response was, “Dios mio.”

  “Dante! Mouth!” Jet snapped.

  “Holy smokes,” Dante decided to repeat after his brother.

  “Hey! Are you Annie Lottie’s boyfrien’?” the youngest screeched at him.

  Jet’s eyes cut to Mo.

  “Whoa,” Dante said.

  “Cool!” the oldest called out. “Auntie Lottie’s dating a badass!”

  “Alex!” Jet spat. “Mouth!”

  Alex was too overwhelmed with Mo to mind his mother.

  This was why he stated, “Dude, you’re yooooooouge.”

  “Do we speak that way to people?” Jet demanded to know.

  Alex twisted toward his mother. “But, Mamá, he’s yooooooouge.”

  “I don’t care. You don’t tell a man he’s large. He knows he’s large,” Jet educated. “And you definitely don’t tell your aunt’s boyfriend he’s large. It’s rude all around. It’s ruder in the family.”

  In the family.

  Oh yeah.

  Shit.

  Mo looked to Lottie who had not only taken her feet but regained her flip flops.

  She was smiling, big and white at him.

  He felt that smile in his gut, his balls and his chest.

  Yeah, he’d been claimed.

  How the fuck had he let that happen?

  Thankfully, she tu
rned her smile from him and declared to the boys, “We were just at the grocery store. Who wants to help us carry in and put away?”

  “Me!” Dante yelled, then raced to the truck.

  “Me!” the youngest shouted, then followed his brother a lot less agilely.

  “Is it all healthy junk?” Alex asked his aunt.

  “Who am I?” Lottie answered.

  So that explained the Dove ice cream bars, caramel M&Ms, Tostitos and salsa and pork rinds, all purchases Lottie had not, in three days, demonstrated she’d ever let past her lips.

  Alex grinned up at her. “You’re Aunt Lottie.”

  He knew there were treats in those bags for her nephews.

  Mo’d been wrong.

  He could not fall in love with her.

  That shit was already happening.

  “Go help your brothers,” she said gently, grinning back at her boy.

  Alex raced to the truck.

  Dante was already digging in the back cab where the groceries were.

  “And this is?”

  Mo had felt Jet approach, but he was engaged in doing another scan of the street.

  He turned back at Jet’s question.

  “Jet, this is Mo, my new mound of hunkalicious boyfriend. Mo, this is Jet, my sister,” Lottie introduced.

  As previously noted, Eddie Chavez and his crew, all of them, including the ones he was linked not-so-loosely to at Nightingale Investigations, did not know about what was going down with Lottie.

  Another reason, after the second letter, they didn’t bring in the cops.

  Or the Feds.

  This meant Lottie’s sister couldn’t know. If she did, she’d be on the phone with her husband faster than Lottie went down when her nephew tackled her.

  This meant they needed a cover.

  And being unprepared for this visit, he had no other cover to give even if Lottie hadn’t already decided, and communicated, what cover he was going to have. No man like him would be with a woman like her just as friends helping her grocery shop unless he was gay.

  He put out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  She stared at it, looked at her sister, then took it and looked in his eyes before her lashes swept down, and pink hit her cheeks.

  “Yeah, nice to meet you.”

  Sweet. Shy. Pretty. Filled out jeans great.

  No wonder Chavez went for that.

  But the sisters couldn’t be more different.

  Yin and yang.

  The kind of perfect balance that made life worth living.