Brand New Me

by Meg Benjamin

  He shook his head. “I don’t expect that. People work for me. They’re not obligated to give a damn.”

  “They care about you,” she repeated. “They’re the closest thing we’ve got to a family. Both of us.”

  “Your father…”

  “Is maybe not as bad as I thought, but right now I’d still trust my Faro family farther than I’d trust him.”

  “Your ‘Faro family’?” He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Sue me.”

  Tom sighed. “I’d rather shag you.” He slid his hand down to her hip, feeling the slight jut of the bone against his palm.

  “Good,” she said, “that’s what I had in mind too.” She ran her tongue along the edge of his collarbone, then dipped down, sliding tongue and teeth in a line across his chest and stomach.

  He closed his eyes. Wherever she ended up was okay with him.

  She placed her hands on his thighs, then arched herself over him to slide her tongue around the tip of his cock. He gasped in a quick breath as she leaned forward, taking him deeper. Her hands reached beneath to cup him, one fingernail scratching along the underside until he gasped again.

  He looked down at her, at her dark head moving against his body. As he watched she opened her eyes, gazing up at him, smiling.

  “Jesus,” he croaked. “Come here.” He pulled her up, settling her in his lap, his cock jutting against her. She adjusted herself to take him in, pulling him into her dampness and heat, then she placed her hands on his shoulders, staring down at him, eyes wide, and began to rock against him.

  Tom kept his gaze on hers as he felt heat flowing from the depths of her, as his own body began to strain. He placed his hands on her hips, moving her in time to his own rhythm, joining her, joining them to the beat of his pulse, the rhythm of his body. Deirdre’s hands tightened on his shoulders, and she moaned, moving against him more desperately.

  Her breath came in small sobs, her body stiffening in his hands. “Tom,” she panted, “I can’t…I need…”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, you can. Now.”

  She convulsed against him, her body pulling him deep, setting off a series of shocks through his spine, heat rushing upward like an electric charge. And then he was plunging into her, stabbing deep, his voice ringing in his own ears as he shouted.

  Deirdre collapsed against his chest, sliding her arms around his neck, her breath hot against him. After a long moment, she raised her head slightly. “You’re the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me, Tom Ames. You and the Faro. I wonder what I did to deserve you.”

  For one of the few times in his life, he couldn’t think of a single coherent thing to say. “Likewise,” he muttered finally.

  From the living room he heard a scrabbling of claws against glass. “Doris doesn’t approve,” Deirdre murmured.

  “Doris is probably jealous.”

  Tom didn’t blame her a bit. He pulled Deirdre close again, still buried deep inside her, not even trying to pull loose. His eyelids finally drooped, and he rested his cheek against her hair. The nicest thing that’s every happened to me. That sounded about right.

  As he drifted off, he wondered if he could locate a male iguana somewhere. Why shouldn’t Doris have a chance to feel this good too?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  By Saturday afternoon, with Chico and Leon’s help, Tom had managed to get the beer garden into minimal shape for the show. He was glad for once that Junior Bonner didn’t draw the same crowds as Frankie Belasco. They’d probably be able to handle a medium-sized turnout, and if Junior suddenly got popular, they could always pull some tables and chairs out from the main room.

  He’d located another washtub for the beer and he and Chico had dragged a keg out to the space behind the makeshift bar. He was still trying to decide whether to leave the frozen margarita machine inside or bring it outside when he heard somebody yelling in the main room.

  He ran back through the door just before Chico did, grabbing Leon’s push broom out of his hands in case he had to persuade somebody to shut the hell up and get out of his bar.

  Depressing how routine that request was becoming.

  The man who was doing the yelling looked too old to be one of Dempsey’s minions. Also too well-dressed. He wore a silver-gray suit with a subdued tie, accompanied by a cream-colored Stetson and what looked to be hand-tooled cowboy boots. If he was a thug, Tom decided there was more money in thuggery than he’d ever realized.

  “Where’s the goddamn owner of this goddamn dive?” the man yelled. “And where’s my goddamn daughter?”

  Tom stepped in front of him, doing a quick size assessment. The yeller was maybe an inch shorter, and definitely soft. Also, he appeared to be in his early sixties. Tom figured him for a one-punch wonder, but that one punch would probably be good. “I’m the owner here,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  The man turned furious eyes in his direction. Furious and oddly familiar. “You the asshole who kidnapped my baby?” he bellowed.

  Tom heard a sigh, and suddenly noticed Nando standing at the end of the bar, well out of reach. “Mr. Brandenburg, I’ve already told you. Your daughter is safe. Tom here is the one who rescued her. The kidnappers are in Austin being arraigned. Chief Toleffson is out on a call, but when he returns, he can…”

  Brandenburg ignored him. “You,” he snarled at Tom. “You take me to my daughter. Now.”

  Tom shrugged. Right offhand he couldn’t see any reason not to. “Last time I talked to her she was next door. We can go over and see if she’s still there.”

  Deirdre took one more quick look around the shop. She’d managed to push most of the junk into the back room so that the main room looked neat, at least. And, of course, the walls and shelves had all been painted. She hadn’t really had a chance to put down the rich brown acid stain she wanted to use on the floor yet. Still, the shop looked acceptable. Neat, professional, and ready for her father.

  She’d heard him yelling at least a half block away, and she figured he’d head to the bar first. After all, she didn’t even have a sign up yet, and she didn’t know whether Craig had told him about the shop. In fact, that was one of many things she was hoping to find out.

  She ran her hands over her hair to smooth it a little, and pulled down her T-shirt. At least it was for Fat Jack’s Pizza. If she’d known her dad was coming, she’d have dug out the one for Rustler’s Roost.

  The yelling next door reached a crescendo and then stopped. Deirdre took a deep breath. Show time.

  Tom pushed open the door, his expression blank. “Someone to see you, Deirdre.” He stepped aside and Deirdre was face to face with her father for the first time in over a month.

  He looks old. It was the first thought that popped into her head. Either her father had aged a decade or so since she’d last seen him or she hadn’t realized just how old he’d looked before.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said softly.

  Her father took a long shuddering breath. “Dee-Dee,” he said and then stopped for another breath. “I got a note at the office. Said you were kidnapped. A million dollars. And then some asshole from the FBI showed up. And you left all those phone messages. I thought…” He closed his eyes for a moment, then seemed to pull himself together. “I don’t know what I thought. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, Dad. I was kidnapped, but it didn’t last very long. Tom rescued me.” She smiled at him, then caught sight of Nando leaning in the doorway with Chico and Clem. “Along with the police. Everybody helped. So everything’s okay now.”

  Her father stared at her blankly. He looked a little like a man who’d just stepped off a particularly steep roller coaster. After a moment, he shook his head. “Who’s this Tom who rescued you?”

  “That would be me.” Tom leaned easily against the counter behind her. Deirdre resisted the urge to join him. “Tom Ames. I own the Faro next door.”

  Her father looked at him, then nodded. “Thank you, then. For saving my
daughter.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Her father started to say something else, but Deirdre cut him off. “You owe him more than that, Daddy.”

  “I owe him?” His eyes began to take on some of their old spark again. She felt a little like smiling.

  “Craig Dempsey hired men to break up Tom’s bar after you sent him down here to force me back home. You need to pay him for the damages.”

  Her father stared at her for several moments, open-mouthed. “What?” he said finally.

  She waved an impatient hand. “Craig followed me down here like you told him to do. When he found out I was leasing this shop and working for Tom, he tried to bribe him to fire me and break my lease. Tom wouldn’t do it, and Craig decided the best way to force me back to Houston was to drive Tom out of business. Since Tom’s business was hurt because of your orders, you need to make it up to him.” She folded her arms across her chest.

  Her father closed his mouth for a moment, and then opened it again to bellow. “Goddamn it! I never gave that pissant Dempsey orders to do anything except find you and offer you your job back. I sure as hell didn’t tell him to hire anybody to break up a bar. If I ever see that SOB again, I’ll hang his scalp on my desk.”

  “I may be able to help you there, Mr. Brandenburg.” Nando grinned. “Mr. Dempsey is currently in residence in one of our jail cells, after being picked up last night for invading Mr. Ames’s home and threatening him and your daughter with a gun. Of course, if you want to scalp him, you may have to get in line behind my boss.”

  Her father stared at him blankly, his mouth open. “Home invasion?” he choked out finally. “Gun? On Dee-Dee? I’ll kill that bastard!”

  Deirdre shrugged. “No you won’t. Now sit down.” She pushed a chair toward him. Her father collapsed into it almost gratefully.

  “Whether you ordered him or not, Craig damaged the Faro because he thought that was what you wanted.” She raised her chin. “You need to pay Tom for his trouble.”

  Her father narrowed his eyes in a slightly crafty expression. “That can be negotiated.”

  “Negotiated? For what?”

  He darted a quick glance at Nando, Chico and Clem in the doorway. “Let me take you to lunch.”

  “We can do lunch right here. Clem does one of the best lunches in town.”

  “The best lunch,” Clem snapped, then shrugged. “Except possibly for Allie Maldonado. I’ll send Leon over with a couple of plates.” She turned back toward the Faro, jerking Nando and Chico along with her.

  Tom pushed off from the counter. “Speaking of that, I need to go get set up for the lunch crowd.”

  “I’ll be there in a little while.” Deirdre squeezed his arm as he passed her.

  Tom smiled. “You can take noon off today. It’s been a big week.”

  She leaned back against the counter, studying her father again. He still looked older than she remembered, but he’d picked up more color in his cheeks. She recognized that expression. He was into Dealing Mode.

  “Okay, why won’t you just pay Tom what you owe him? Craig was down here as your representative even if he did overstep his orders.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind paying for the damages. But I always like to get something for my money. You know that.”

  Deirdre gave him her driest smile. “And moral satisfaction isn’t enough?”

  “Nope.”

  “What would be enough?”

  “I need you back in Houston.”

  She shook her head. “Not negotiable. I like it here. I’ve got friends and family. And I’ve got my coffee roaster, or I’ll have it in a month or so.”

  Her father leaned back in his chair, studying her. “Suppose you came back part-time. Just a couple of days a week?”

  She shook her head again. “Wouldn’t work. I know the company, remember? You can’t get by with a part-time executive.”

  Her father pushed a hand through his hair, grimacing. “Okay, here’s the thing, Dee-Dee. You remember Kaltenberg? The accountant?”

  Deirdre nodded, warily.

  “His work turned out to be as screwed up as you said it was. And now I need somebody to straighten it out. And you already know what the problems were so you’ve already got a head start. Anyway—” he sighed, “—what would you take to come back to work? As a consultant, say, or a contractor? Until we get this all taken care of?”

  She grinned, feeling warmth spread down to her toes. “That might work. I can come back part-time as a consultant until my shop is ready to go, which I estimate will be around a month. In return, you will pay for all the repairs Tom needs in the Faro, and you will unfreeze my accounts to give me access to my own money. Which, by the way, was a really lousy thing to do since that money was mine to begin with.”

  Her father shook his head, looking sheepish. “Sorry. I forgot all about that. Lost my temper, I guess.”

  “I guess.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you will stay for dinner tonight to say hello to Docia and Aunt Reba, along with the rest of the family. And you will get to know Tom, who will make a much better son-in-law than Craig Dempsey in my humble opinion. And, of course, my opinion is the one that counts.”

  Her father’s mouth dropped open again. “Son-in-law?” he croaked. “The bartender?”

  “The bartender. The man I love. The best son-in-law you’re ever going to have.”

  “You got that right.” Clem pushed through the front door, carrying a tray with two covered plates. “Sooner rather than later would be my guess. Of course, this will all be news to Tom, but he catches on fast.”

  She placed the tray on the counter. “Tortilla soup, with gulf shrimp nachos. I would have brought wine, but Tom still hasn’t talked to the distributor, so you’ll have to make do with Shiner. Enjoy.” She grinned at Deirdre, winked at her father, and walked back out the door.

  Her father stared after her blankly. “Who are these people?”

  “My friends and co-workers.” My Faro family. Deirdre took the cover off the plates. The soup smelled of cumin and cilantro. Fat pink shrimp coated in shreds of melted cheese spilled over the edges of the corn tortillas. “Which reminds me, I need to get back to work. Bobby Sue can’t handle the lunch crowd we’re pulling in these days, no matter what Tom says. Eat up.”

  She placed his plate in front of him, then twisted the top off the beer. When she looked up, her father was chewing on a nacho, his expression blissful. “Hot damn, Dee-Dee. Whoever that woman is, she sure can cook.”

  Deirdre grimaced, gathering a nacho off her own plate. “Okay, that’s one more demand. My name is Deirdre, not Dee-Dee. If I’m going to be your hired gun, you need to at least use a name that doesn’t make people snicker.”

  Her father was busily slurping up tortilla soup. “Anything you say, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Anything you say.”

  Tom surveyed the beer garden, listening to Junior Bonner tune up. It seemed he’d seriously underestimated Junior’s following. Along with the tables they’d managed to rig up in the morning, they’d ended up dragging another half dozen from the main room to the outside. And people still stood around the edges.

  The Steinbruners had given up the chairs around the pool table, acknowledging that they didn’t sit down that much anyway. Some of the drinkers had moved to the bar, and a lot of the usual customers from inside had moved outside. Grumpily maybe, but they’d moved nonetheless.

  The Toleffsons took up an entire side of the garden. Cal and Docia sat with Deirdre’s father and a platinum-haired woman who had to be Docia’s mother. Considering the way the two of them muttered at each other all night long, she and Deirdre’s father were obviously sister and brother. Pete and Janie sat with Lars and Jess. They hadn’t brought any of the kids, but Tom could see it happening sometime in the future. Kids running around the beer garden while the band played had a nice feel to it. Maybe they could put in a sandbox in the corner.

  Around nine, Erik Toleffson walked in with Morgan. Even out of unifor
m, he looked like a cop. Probably a real advantage in his line of work, although it did put a damper on a table of college kids down from Austin. Tom had already checked their IDs, but they still looked faintly nervous when Erik glanced their way.

  Deirdre was working, although he’d told her to take the night off so that she could sit with her family. She’d ignored him quite pointedly. Every once in a while, he’d catch her father watching her, looking totally confused. Tom didn’t blame him. He found himself feeling the same way a lot around Deirdre these days.

  Once Bonner started to play, almost everybody moved outside, so he and Chico transferred the remaining tables to the edge of the garden, while Harry served beer and mixed drinks at the outside bar.

  Although calling it a bar was a stretch, given that it lacked everything most bars had, including a sink. He planned to call around about repairs on Monday, but Deirdre told him not to worry about it because the new bar would be even better than the old one. He’d asked her what she meant exactly, but she just shook her head and went back to grabbing beers out of the washtub. Tom figured he’d find out in time—he frequently seemed to be the last one to find stuff out these days. Right now he just enjoyed the view.

  The Toleffsons were dancing around the edge of the bricked area on the far side of the garden. They took up a lot of room, but they seemed to be having a great time. Deirdre’s father had apparently invited his sister to dance at one point, but she’d given him a look that would have turned a lesser man to stone.

  Deirdre dodged around them all, delivering beers and margaritas. Her father said something and she tossed him a look that was very similar to the one her aunt had given him earlier. Tom wondered how long they’d keep the man in the doghouse—not that he really cared.

  Around eleven, the band swung into a tune that sounded vaguely familiar. Deirdre appeared in front of him, dropping her tray on the bar. “C’mon,” she said. “Dance with me.”

  Tom wondered for a moment what he would have said a few weeks ago if she’d made a similar demand. Probably Not right now. But then again, maybe not. Maybe he’d always been ready to dance with her, from the first time he’d seen her in the doorway, with her terrible clothes and her absolute determination. He tossed his towel on the bar and took her into his arms.