Bad for Her

by Christi Barth

  Not that they mattered here, in his new life. Not officially, anyway. Since he was supposed to trust the U.S. Marshals Service would keep their lips zipped.

  Still, no reason to let them get rusty because the Maguire brothers might not be staying long. The next place they landed might not be so peaceful.

  Mick’s appearance had caught him by surprise—something that never, ever would’ve happened in Chicago. The constant battering of the ocean against land had pulled his focus. Now he knew. Next time, he’d be prepped for it. Ears cocked, eyes more vigilant in scanning ahead and to the sides to compensate.

  Because you never knew who’d sneak up on you. Might be a woman, ready to slide her hands down your pants. Or it might be a mobster hell-bent on getting revenge. McGinty’s crew got disassembled, thanks to Rafe’s testimony. So he couldn’t let his guard down for a second. Just in case.

  “I remember that feeling.” Mick sucked in a fat string of air around his eyetooth. “It’s a good one. Not invincible, exactly. Just sure down to the marrow of your bones.”

  “Exactly.” Rafe hadn’t expected to find understanding in a jarhead, of all people. On the other hand, the armed forces were a lot like the mob. There were ranks. Rules. Expectations.

  An ex-colonel would understand Rafe’s old rank. Would share his outrage at being outflanked and double-crossed. Would understand what he’d left behind, what he’d given up to save his own tight family squadron.

  Not that he could ever tell Mick, oh, any of it.

  Or anybody else, for that matter. Not even a green-eyed girl who Rafe already felt like he could tell anything to, and she’d happily listen.

  Nope.

  The marshal wanted him to fit in here. Did Delaney have any idea how damned hard that was when he had to lie to everyone 24/7?

  “You’re Rafe Maguire.”

  The statement startled him out of the quicksand of his thoughts. “Yeah.” Polite or not, years of habit kicked in, and he had to ask, “How’d you know?”

  “You didn’t think three men could appear in a town as small as ours and not be the main topic of conversation, did you?”

  “Never thought about it. I’m not much of a small-town guy.”

  “So Frieda tells me.”

  Ah. His boss. Half owner of Wick’s Garage where he put in his eight solid, five days a week. Rafe almost rolled his eyes at the sliver of moon above. Then he remembered that Delaney had warned them that people being up in your business wasn’t considered gossip in a town like Bandon. Sharing news was considered looking out for each other. Caring, for fuck’s sake.

  Well, he’d play along. “Frieda’s good people for giving me a shot. Guess it makes sense she’d want to spread the word that her garage has a kick-ass new mechanic. It’s a smart way to drum up business.”

  “What big town are you from? Your accent’s faint, but it isn’t West Coast.”

  “Nope. It’s not.” To evade more probing, Rafe bent to tighten an already perfectly secure shoelace. “How’d you guess I’m Rafe and not Kellan or Flynn?”

  “I stopped in at the Gorse two nights ago. It’s less lonely eating at a bar. There are so many people around, you feel like you’re part of something.”

  “Yeah.” Rafe got it. He used to go to the bar to watch baseball games. Football, too. He’d get swept up in cheering or cussing out the home team with everyone else lifting their beers and staring at the TV. It’d been fun. But he could easily see why someone Mick’s age would want the noise and light and busyness of a bar as a refuge from loneliness.

  He should probably ask why Mick was lonely. It was the kind of thing men shared after midnight, in the dark, braced on a big-ass rock against the wind. But that might make a connection between them.

  Rafe couldn’t risk forging a connection. All he could do was try to make the illusion of one. That was safest. It almost broke him to leave behind his life in Chicago. If he started to care about people here, it’d suck donkey balls if they had to go on the run and leave them behind.

  “Your brother Flynn was tending bar.” Mick stabbed a stubby finger that stopped short an inch from Rafe’s face. “He’s got the look of you, with the eyes and hair. He doesn’t talk much, does he?”

  “Not until he’s got something to say. Then you can’t shut him the hell up. Not even for a stripper and five Franklins. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Rafe regretted the honesty the moment it escaped his lips. He knew a major portion of America would go right on red alert at his mention of a stripper. Shit. But if you couldn’t talk strippers around soldiers, who was left?

  Plus, it pulled another raspy laugh out of Mick. To Rafe’s great relief. “I’ve got some friends like that. Used to, anyway. Flynn gave me a fine pour—not too much head on my Guinness. I liked him.”

  “He’ll be thrilled to hear he’s got a fan club of one.”

  “Anyway, Frieda told me her new hire at the garage was the oldest of the three brothers. You’ve got shadows in your eyes, secrets of a life lived, that put you at least a couple of years older than Flynn. That’s how I figured out which one you were.”

  Damn it to hell. How was he supposed to guard against something as half-baked as shadows in his eyes? “It’s after midnight. Whatever you thought you saw, I guarantee they were actual shadows. Moon, stars, and darkness. That’s it,” Rafe said roughly. “I don’t have any secrets to hide.”

  “That’s a load of bullshit. We all have secrets.”

  “I guess mine is that I need to start using face cream around my eyes.” As if challenging him, Rafe held the old man in a stare.

  After wavering between squinted eyes of disapproval and a lip that just kept curving upward, Mick slapped his thigh and hooted. “You’re a smart-ass, aren’t you?”

  “On my better days. The rest of the time, I’m told I’m just an ass.”

  “I’d believe that.”

  That easy acceptance, the lack of any attempt to politely disagree, put Rafe back at ease. Made him feel like he was actually hanging with someone at his level. Even if he was thirty years older. “What were you doing out here tonight? You said patrolling? For what? ’Cause you, me, and the sea are the only things out here.”

  “That you know of . . .”

  Rafe’s eyes cut right. He couldn’t help himself from a quick check on the unfurling wave about to hit the shore. Big, loud, but, you know, normal. Not belching out a giant squid or anything. Then he realized the ex-Marine probably meant he was patrolling for bad guys. Not scary-ass sea creatures that only existed in horror movies on crappy cable channels. And, of course, in Rafe’s imagination.

  He gave Mick a soft punch through the upper sleeve of his camo jacket. “Cut that out. Bandon is too quiet for crime.”

  “You’d better believe it,” the old man said with an exuberant thumbs-up. “That’s because I’m vigilant. There’s no chance for criminals to spot a weakness and swoop in to cause trouble.”

  “Uh-huh.” There was always a chance. A good criminal said to hell with chance and made his own luck. Usually by using money, influence, or both. God knew Rafe had done just that more times than he could count.

  “What are you doing out here at this time of night?” Mick challenged.

  Rafe pushed off the rock to pace to a big piece of driftwood draped in seaweed. It looked like something that should hang on the wall of a beach cabin. It was so iconic that seeing it up close and personal surprised him. Kind of squishy, too. Maybe from, oh, drifting through the water?

  “I had a date.” Yeah, his tone made it sound like he’d spent the evening in line at the DMV.

  “Did it go in the crapper?”

  “Nah. It went well.” He winged the driftwood high over the rock and back out to sea. “Too well.”

  Understanding turned Mick’s forehead and mouth down into a pained grimace. “Ah. Blue balls?”

  “Like you wouldn’t fucking believe.”

  “A beach run’s a smart way to deal with ’em. Or, instead of annoying m
e with it, you could use that smart mouth of yours to charm the lady into bed sooner rather than later. Who was it?”

  Dozens of people probably saw them in the Gorse. No point hiding it. “Mollie Vickers.”

  “Ah. Again, I don’t mind saying that if I was ten years younger, I might’ve challenged you for her.”

  Rafe appreciated Mick’s stubbornness and willingness to fight. No matter how hopeless it was in this particular situation. “And again, I don’t mind saying that it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d get the girl.”

  “If you were so sure of that, you wouldn’t be out here running off a stiffy.”

  Guess he deserved that. Rafe shook his head. “She needs time. I’m happy to give it to her.”

  “Happy?”

  Yeah, he didn’t believe it, either. But this was a small town. Women were not a dime a dozen here the way they’d been in Chicago. And he respected her enough to wait. Rafe wasn’t a desperate twenty-two-year-old. He knew that she was right—sex was better when you liked the person. “Willing, anyway.”

  “I’ll buy that. You be good to poor Mollie.”

  “Poor Mollie? What’s the story there?” Because he thought the doc had a perfect life. Mollie loved being a doctor. Loved helping people. Lived with a family she clearly adored, even if her little shit of a cousin didn’t deserve it. From the number of people who’d stopped by their table to say hi in the bar, the whole town frigging loved her.

  “Her mother abandoned her. Just walked out, almost before Mollie could walk. Decided she was too much work and left her with her grandmother.” Mick wiped his hand through the air. “That woman had her own issues.”

  And there it was. The small-town avalanche of oversharing and gossip. Thank God Rafe had no official backstory for the town to pick apart to this extent. “Issues? Abandonment? This sounds like a remote therapy session.”

  “The way I heard it, the whole town pitched in to help raise her. They did what they could. What Norah would let them do. Not sure it was enough, though.”

  “I’d say she turned out great.” Why did he have to defend her to someone who’d known Mollie what sounded like her whole life?

  “She’s a lovely woman. We’re all proud. But,” Mick limped over to Rafe and leaned in to half whisper, “dating’s not her strong suit. Because of the abandonment thing, according to Norah.”

  Rafe stalked away a few steps. He needed space. Suddenly, the beach wasn’t big enough for him. “Jesus Christ. You scare all her dates off with this speech?”

  “No need. Everybody around here knows about Mollie.”

  “Well, I don’t want to date her,” he yelled a little too loudly over his shoulder. And how many times would he have to make that statement?

  Shit.

  It was probably not the right thing to say to a man who felt even a little pseudo-paternal toward Mollie. It was definitely not a good way to make a positive impression. To fit in. To come off as totally normal.

  Rafe dug his toe into the sand, then sent a clump of it flying toward the breaking surf. He’d have to fix this. Which was ironic, given that Mollie seemed pretty much on board with the no-dating idea.

  “What do you want to do with her?” Mick asked quietly.

  He took his own sweet time turning around. Enough time to notice a sand crab breaking through where he’d disturbed its rest. And the way the starlight glistened on the water as though each individual star landed on it.

  Okay. Maybe the beach at night had its good points.

  Plus, talking to Mick had totally killed off the lingering lust from his date. Mission accomplished.

  Maybe he’d swing by the hospital tomorrow. See how the doctor responded to his version of a house call. As his own test to see how the friends-with-benefits thing would work. Yeah. It was good to have a plan.

  A little calmer, Rafe said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen with her. To be fair, Mollie doesn’t know, either.”

  After another one of those long damn looks, Mick nodded. “Probably suits her just fine.”

  “I think it does.”

  Resettling his cap, Mick said, “You tell her I was looking out for her, though.” The older man walked off, down the beach, with a half salute as he passed Rafe.

  “I’m not playing messenger boy. Tell her yourself.” But there wasn’t any heat fueling his words. It was normal banter. Guy talk. The kind of thing he’d say to a friend.

  Shit.

  How did that happen?

  Chapter 6

  Mollie loved her job. She loved having her regular patients at the primary care clinic, charting the growth of the kids and ultimately being a part of the lives of the adults. She loved that the hospital rotated her into the emergency department as well. Being able to walk to work was a huge plus.

  What she didn’t love? Showing up the morning after a date to do rounds at 6:00 a.m.—even if there were only fifteen beds in the whole hospital—and then moving on to a shift in the clinic. Because she’d gotten no sleep last night. None. Zero.

  She wasn’t of any use to her patients walking around like a zombie. That was why she’d ended the date by exactly eleven o’clock last night. Because that was what mature adults did when faced with having to save lives the next day.

  But Mollie had been too busy thinking about Rafe to sleep.

  Which both excited her and pissed her off to no end.

  Mature adults did not run their fingertips across their lips, reliving the feel of a kiss. Except for, apparently, Mollie. She’d done that for each kiss Rafe gave her. Which, by the end of the night, added up to quite a few. Mature adults did not toss and turn for hours on end, thinking about the unusual offer of sex with no strings. Thinking of the breathtakingly sexy man who’d made it.

  But Mollie did.

  Rafe came off tough as nails, but he’d offered to help Jesse, which was huge. It showed he had a soft heart underneath all that muscle and sinew. He’d made it clear that sex was the only thing he offered, but then he’d been so much fun at dinner. He laughed, he listened, he didn’t scope out the room to look for other women (something that seemed to be a habit with men of her generation). Rafe had been the perfect date.

  Not that she’d let herself fall for him. That would be stupid. Self-sabotaging. Number one, because he lived here, in Bandon. He’d get an earful about poor, pitiful Mollie sooner rather than later. A story that didn’t exactly inspire sexy times. Number two, because she didn’t want to fall for him.

  Mollie wanted to date, sure. She liked sex. Liked some laughs with a man who hopefully called her pretty once or twice. It was good for the ego. But she didn’t want to date date. She didn’t want to open herself up to another person. To be vulnerable. Because besides being humiliating and pathetic? The town lore of “that poor Mollie Vickers” happened to be true.

  Yup, even though she was absent for most of her life, Mollie’s mom still managed to impart one life lesson to her daughter. People can abandon you. And when they do, it hurts like hell. And if her own mother hadn’t wanted her, why would a man? Especially in today’s world, when hookups were plentiful and divorce as easy to get as a belly button piercing.

  Even with all that in her head, it had been impossible to stop thinking about Rafe—the way he got her blunt humor, the way his eyes darkened when he touched her, the aura of total confidence he exuded about everything—and fall asleep. That frustrated Mollie on a whole new level, and—

  “Hey. Paging Dr. Vickers. You’re holding a sharp implement over my barely stitched together body. A body that I hone very carefully to attract the opposite sex. How about a little attention?”

  Her best friend’s voice brought her back to the exam room with the force of a swinging door to the head. Not that she’d admit it to him. Mollie ignored the hazel eyes she could all but feel boring into her and bent lower over the neatly closed gash in his leg.

  “Lucien, I can do stitches in my sleep. Internal stitches. Ones that have to hold organs an
d nerves and arteries together. I’m giving you a whopping four stitches in your calf. They don’t even have to be pretty. I have it on good authority that women find scars on a man hot.”

  He batted at the swoop of blond bangs on his forehead that the ever-present ocean wind must’ve mussed out of his usual gelled perfection. “What good authority?”

  “Mine. Not to mention Lily, Karen, and Elena,” she countered, listing off her closest friends here in town. “And in just about every romance novel I’ve ever read.” She let the suture needle clatter onto the tray. Then grabbed an alcohol wipe to remove the bright orange Betadine from around his cut. Blood, stitches, pain, Lucien really didn’t care. But if she stained his designer clothes with the antiseptic, there’d be hell to pay.

  “You’re saying my cut will get me laid?”

  No need to look up to see the smug grin curving across his surfer good looks. It oozed out of his voice like jelly from her donut this morning. “Well, it doesn’t come with a money-back guarantee or anything. But I think you’ll do okay. If you play it right. Mostly, if you make up a better story than what actually happened.”

  “I saved one of my own employees from impalement.” Mollie’s snort barely disrupted Lucien’s self-important rant. “When that angry idiot snapped his golf club in half and tossed it, it could’ve speared right through Javier like a harpoon. I risked my own life to save his.”

  Sooo melodramatic. As though Hollywood would knock on his door to make a biopic out of his life because of it. Mollie stripped off her gloves. “You dropped a lawn mower blade on your leg.”

  “I chose to let it dangerously fall on me so that my hands would be free to catch the jagged half of a club.”

  Not that Lucien knew squat about repairing lawn mowers. He shouldn’t have been holding the thing in the first place. But his father insisted that he spend time shadowing all the workers at their world-famous set of golf courses this summer. Here it was, only week two, and it’d already cost him blood and skin and an hour with no repair of said lawn mower, since Javier refused to leave the clinic without Lucien. Plus, Mollie was quite sure she’d have to sit through the retelling of the epic golf club harpoon save at least three more times this week.