Hard Charger: Jake & Sophia: A Hot Contemporary Romance

by Fobes, Tracy

  “So you have no evidence of your mother’s injuries.”

  “No, damnit, I don’t.”

  The officer lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you think Will Hansen is behind the attack on your mother?”

  “Because she owes Hansen money,” he answered.

  “And how do you know that the men who ‘roughed her up’ represented Hansen?”

  “They demanded that she pay up or become a front for some kind of criminal operation,” he replied, striving for patience. “Since Hansen is the only one she owes money to, who else could it be?”

  “Did the two men mention Hansen’s name directly?

  “I don’t remember.”

  The officer shrugged. “As I said, you’re wasting my time.”

  Jake leaned forward in his seat, until he was looking Junior straight in the eyes. “I need you to take me seriously. To look into it. To start with Will Hansen. I don’t want these goons to bash my mother over the head like Ray Morris, because she couldn’t pay up, and you refused to investigate.”

  “Sir, have you been drinking?” Junior asked suddenly, cutting his gaze from the computer screen in front of him to Jake for a moment.

  “No!” Jake replied immediately.

  “I smell alcohol.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  “I’d like you to take a breathalyzer test.”

  Outraged, Jake stood up. “Look, I’m a captain in the U.S. Army. I just returned home from my third tour in Afghanistan. I’m not a drunk and I’m not a liar. There’s something going on and my mother’s in danger.

  “We know who you are,” the officer replied, his gaze on the screen in front of him. “I have your file open in front of me. Ten, twelve years ago, you were a frequent visitor to the police station.”

  “Oh, this is bullshit,” Jake growled.

  “Sir, I’m going to ask you to leave now,” Junior warned him. “If you stay, I’ll have to call the captain over.”

  “So you’re not going to take my report.”

  “Have your mother come down to the station.”

  “Great. Thanks.” He stood up so suddenly that the chair he’d been sitting on made a loud scraping noise. He knew his mother wouldn’t bother. She clearly felt too intimidated.

  The officer shrugged. “I’m just following the rules.”

  Jake left the police station feeling somewhere between disgusted with police bureaucracy and scared for the two women he cared most about. He headed over to the construction site at Holy Trinity, where his boss and the rest of the crew had already been on-site for hours. He’d left a message earlier, saying he’d be in late, and now he walked through the site to the trailer Tom used, with hopes to get a few words in with him. Tom was the only guy he knew with any money at all, and being a decent man at that, Jake felt pretty sure Tom would lend him the cash he needed.

  As luck would have it, his boss was in the trailer, alone, sitting behind his desk and going over some blueprints. Dressed in Carhartts as usual, with his red hair neatly combed, Tom fixed him with a friendly blue-eyed gaze. “Glad you made it in. Everything okay?”

  He swallowed. “Did you hear what happened last night?”

  “No.” Tom put his pen down. “What happened?”

  “It’s about Ray Morris, the guy who owns Rowdy Ray’s Roadhouse,” Jake replied. “I’ve been friends with the Morris’s for years—Ray’s son Luke and I went to school together. And last night... Last night, Ray was killed.”

  Tom sat up straighter in his chair. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.” He pointed to a chair opposite his desk. “Sit down, please.”

  Frowning deeply, Jake sat.

  Tom shook his head, as if the world disgusted him. “How did it happen?”

  Jake gave a terse explanation of how Ray had been found, and how his son Luke had revealed that Ray had gone bankrupt. Pausing to acknowledge Tom’s shocked exclamations, he went on to describe his suspicion that organized crime had gained a foothold in Rockport Grove. He brought up Will Hansen and explained Hansen’s possible ties to organized crime, and told him how Hansen’s ‘representatives’ were pressuring his mom to pay off her loan.

  “That’s not good,” Tom observed, once Jake had finished his tale. “Did you go to the police?”

  “They weren’t interested.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wasn’t present when the goons visited my mom, so my ‘testimony’ is just hearsay. And my mom won’t go down to the station herself—she’s too intimidated.”

  Tom abruptly stood up and walked to the window, where he looked out at the construction site. “It’s hard for me to believe Hansen’s dirty. I work with him all the time. He’s never once suggested anything even slightly criminal to me.”

  “I’m telling you, Tom, he’s as dirty as sheets in a whorehouse. That’s why I’m here, in your office.” Jake took in a deep breath. “I need a favor.”

  “Of course! What is it?” Tom turned away from the window toward Jake, his face tight with concern.

  He took a deep breath. “I need to borrow money from you.”

  Tom frowned, but in a considering rather than negative way. “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand, to cover my mom’s loan and interest,” he said quickly, and then flinched backward slightly. “I know it’s a lot of money.”

  Tom dropped heavily into his desk chair. He picked up his pen and toyed with it. “When do you need this by?”

  “As soon as possible, I’m afraid,” Jake replied. “I’m going to work with my mom to get a second mortgage on her salon, but Hansen’s men aren’t prepared to wait for us to do that.”

  “Goddamn.” Tom shook his head again. “You’re between a rock and a hard place.”

  “The whole damned town is between a rock and a hard place,” Jake observed.

  “So, you want me to loan you the money, and you’ll pay me back as soon as you get that second mortgage?”

  Jake nodded.

  His boss thought it over a little while longer, and then fixed Jake with a direct stare. “I didn’t grow up here, but I kinda think of this town as my home now, since I’ve worked on most of the houses damaged by Sandy, in one way or another. It sickens me to hear about organized crime taking over a town which I’ve been working so hard to restore. You’re a trustworthy guy, Jake, so I’ll lend you that money. I can’t go any higher that fifty thousand, though. It’s going to be difficult to find even that much so quickly.”

  “I understand.” Jake felt his throat tightening with gratitude. “We only need fifty.”

  “I will ask that you pay me back as soon as you can,” Tom added.

  “Of course. I’ll make it a priority,” Jake promised. “Thank you.”

  “Come back to my office tomorrow, and we’ll work out the details.” Tom held out his hand, Jake shook it, and the deal was done.

  They chatted a little while longer, and then Jake left the office with a feeling of hope inside, one that lifted his mood as well as his shoulders. He headed over to Holy Trinity, where a day’s worth of work on restoring the rectory’s foundations awaited him, and began measuring lumber with an entirely new appreciation for both Tom and the graciousness of spirit he’d displayed.

  Jake arrived home that night from work feeling half-dead from exhaustion. It had been a rough couple of days for him, and even worse, of course, for Luke, who no longer had his father around. At least Jake had something positive to report: he would be able to pay his mother’s loan and keep Will Hansen’s goons off her back until he managed to help her get a second mortgage. Feeling a little better, he staggered to his bed and woke up the following morning to dark, gray skies and a drizzle of rain. That nor’easter his boss had mentioned was finally moving in.

  After slamming his hand on the alarm clock button to shut it up, he went downstairs. His mom was already up with a cup of coffee in hand and the newspaper spread out in front of her.

  He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. “So, Uncle Martin�
�s moving in today.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice sounded dull.

  “I have some good news for you,” he offered. “You aren’t going to need him.”

  She quickly glanced up. He was pleased to see that her black eye had faded to shades of yellow and pink. “Good news?”

  He smiled. “I spoke to my boss yesterday. I asked him to loan us fifty thousand, and he agreed. I told him we’d apply for a second mortgage on the salon, and pay him back as soon as the mortgage went through. I’m working on the deal with him today.” He sat back and waited for her exclamation of relief.

  But she only frowned and went back to looking at her paper.

  He put a heavy hand on the paper, blocking her ability to read it. “Did you hear me? I said we can pay Hansen off before the end of the week.”

  She looked at him again with a wounded expression. Her lower lip trembled almost uncontrollably.

  Jake stiffened. A sense of impending doom grabbed hold of him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Jake...”

  He sat forward. “What?”

  The rest of her body began to tremble, too.

  He grasped her shoulders. “What is it?”

  “I don’t owe Hansen fifty thousand,” she said in a low, miserable voice.

  Confused, he released her shoulders and sat back. “You don’t owe him money?”

  “I don’t owe him fifty.”

  He tensed. “How much, then?”

  “Around one hundred.”

  “One hundred thousand?”

  She nodded but refused to look at him.

  He jumped out of his chair and began to pace around the kitchen. His mind boggled at the immensity of her debt. At the lies she’d been telling him. “How the hell do you owe one hundred thousand? And why did you tell me fifty?”

  Tears formed in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “I knew the insurance and government payouts wouldn’t be enough, so I went down to Atlantic City—”

  “You gambled the money away?” he interrupted furiously. “In a casino in Atlantic City?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.” She dropped her face in her hands and started to sob.

  “Jesus Christ.” Jake stopped pacing, yanked the kitchen chair out, and sat down heavily. He regarded his mother with his arms crossed over his chest. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” she cried, and then looked at him with teary, yet defiant eyes. “But I did it, and there’s no going back.”

  “How could you be so stupid?” he asked, despite his every effort to keep those words to himself.

  At his words, she angrily jumped out of the chair, and something heavy clattered to the floor. She glanced down with a guilty look and swiped at the object that had fallen, but he was quicker and he kicked it out from under the table.

  A snub-nose .38 Saturday night special suddenly sat between them. Made of a highly polished silver metal with a faux wood handle, it sparkled brilliantly in the light from the kitchen’s pendant lamp, with the exception of the little black hole at the end of its barrel.

  He stared at it with his mouth hanging open in shock.

  She reached down to grab it, but he got to it first and picked it up. It felt cold and hard and deadly. Wonderingly he examined it from all angles, looking at the trigger, at its grips. He checked the gun’s chamber and saw that it was full of gleaming bullets. “It’s loaded,” he observed darkly.

  She had no reply for him.

  “So this is your plan,” he said slowly. “You’re going to shoot the next guy who comes through the door demanding money.”

  “I’m going to protect myself.”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed. Was this Uncle Martin’s idea?”

  “Martin knows nothing about it. Give it to me, Jake,” she demanded.

  He kept right on holding it. Abruptly he felt a sense of dreamy unreality, like the gun and everything that went with it was some kind of nightmare.

  “What do you want me to do?” she demanded in raw tones. “Just let them use their fists on me?”

  He opened the gun and took the bullets out, one by one, knowing as he did so that it was a useless gesture—she undoubtedly had more around somewhere. Once he’d emptied it, he slammed the gun on the table. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted evenly. “But this gun...it won’t solve anything.”

  Her tears stopped. She walked over to the cabinet, took out a bottle of Scotch whiskey, and poured a healthy amount of it into a fresh cup of coffee. “You want some?” she asked, holding the bottle up.

  “Give me a double,” he told her, and rubbed his face with a weary hand. Not even six AM yet, and here he was, drinking whiskey with his mother. What was next? Riding around on his dad’s Harley with the Guardians knife and skull emblazoned on his back?

  She slung a cup of coffee his way, and he threw another dollop of whiskey into it before he began to drink.

  Chapter Ten

  Five days later, Jake found himself back at Rowdy Ray’s Roadhouse. He’d just come from Ray’s funeral and was now attending the after-service luncheon that Luke had decided to hold at his father’s bar. The place was packed, but reflected a different-from-usual vibe: somber, uneasy, and heartbroken on Luke’s part. A variety of hoagies lay spread out on the bar, and a keg filled with Budweiser sat in the corner. Townsfolk who’d been around a while and who’d gotten to know Ray, as well as the Morris’s family and friends, were helping themselves to the sandwiches and beer, and talking about Ray in low tones.

  Alex waved at him and called him over not long after he arrived. He grabbed a plastic cup, filled it with Bud, and then joined Alex in the booth that—coincidentally—he’d sat with Ray and Alex a few weeks before. Alex, he saw, was wearing his Guardians jacket. The skull on the back of it seemed to leer at everyone who walked past.

  “This really sucks, doesn’t it?” Alex muttered. “Poor Ray.”

  “Did Luke mention if the police had any leads?”

  Alex frowned, his gray eyes stormier than usual. “None so far.”

  They fell silent for a few moments. Jake looked away and noticed a brunette at the bar talking to Luke. Her long, silky hair gleamed with red highlights and a black sweater dress hugged her tall, long-legged body, revealing curves in all of the right places. He didn’t need to see her face or gleaming green eyes to know who she was.

  Surreptitiously he watched her. Sophia was so beautiful, so radiant, and there was a touch of vulnerability as well. He suddenly yearned to warm himself by the fire of her beauty, longed to experience again the scorching heat between them. He was tired of the coldness that stubbornly seemed to cling to his life; tired of being surrounded by death, with the constant threat of aggression around him.

  She turned toward him then, as if she’d sensed his gaze on her.

  Quickly he glanced back at Alex. “So the police have nothing. What do the Guardians have to say about it?”

  “The Guardians know who murdered Ray,” Alex admitted quietly. “They just don’t know how to get to him. Or stop him.”

  Jake sat forward. “Who is it?”

  Just then, Father Al wandered over from the bar to their table. “Hi guys. How are you doing?”

  Alex quickly shut his mouth. Jake nearly cursed aloud at the priest’s timing. Luckily he stopped himself—he didn’t imagine he’d gain any points for cursing a man of the cloth.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Father Al asked, his eyebrows raised.

  Alex shrugged, at just about the same time Jake replied, “We’re just sad about losing Ray.”

  The priest sighed. “May I sit down?”

  “Sure.” Jake slid across the bench to make some room for the older man.

  The three of them sat there morosely for a few moments. Jake drank his beer and felt his mood diving even further downward.

  “You knew Ray pretty well, didn’t you?” Alex eventually asked, his attention on Father Al.

  “Yes, we served in
Vietnam together. Ray was in the Marines, and I was a Navy chaplain, serving with the Marines and Ray’s battalion.” The priest frowned. “It wasn’t the will of God, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, for Ray to survive his injuries, but at least he left this world free of pain and in peace. I’m going to miss him.”

  Alex gave the priest a gloomy smile. “We are, too.”

  “There are many moments that teach us to value life, to hold those we love a little tighter, because in so many ways, we face an uncertain future,” Father Al commented.

  “Yes, we do,” Jake agreed, thinking of his mom. He took a big gulp of beer from his plastic cup and set it down firmly. “This town faces an uncertain future, too. Haven’t heard of anyone getting murdered here for years.” Not since my dad died, he silently added. “When I think about how Ray must have suffered—it makes me want to put my fist through a wall.”

  The priest nodded and placed a calming hand on Jake’s arm for a few seconds. “We can find peace, though, knowing that Ray is at rest and safe in the arms of the One who created him and loves him. Death might win some battles, but it’s certainly not the end.”

  “Ray’s end seemed pretty final to me,” Alex said.

  Father Al glanced at Alex with an understanding gaze. “Death never has the final word. The Creator of Life does.”

  Jake sat back, his gut tight over the memory of the service in Holy Trinity, over thinking his own mother might be next, or even Sophia... “I have to tell you, Father, you delivered that sermon with the strength of a rock star on his first day of a tour. There wasn’t a dry eye in church today. But I needed only one look at the faces and in the eyes of the others there, to know that peace won’t be visiting Rockport Grove anytime soon. There’s a cancer in this town. It needs to be cut out.”

  “My friends and neighbors don’t care about the Creator’s will,” Alex added. “They want vengeance. And they’re afraid they might be next.”

  “The Creator calls people to prayer and repentance, not to arms,” Father Al replied gently. “There is no other sure route to peace.”

  “And how is prayer going to help anything?” Alex asked.