Rachel’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. “Shut the front door! Really?”
“Mmhmm. He poured water from his glass into a vial so I would say, yes, really.”
“Wow. I mean I even said that line myself, but I was joking.”
“I’m sure you were. I’ve heard that nearly everyone at some point says that, too, and means it as a joke. But be honest, here, girlfriend. You did wonder, didn’t you?”
“Well, maybe a little.” Rachel shook her head. “Does he know that you know?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed. This town is congenial and welcoming and laid back. But people here see everything.”
“Well, when you think about all that’s happened around here in the last several years, they’ve had cause to become a bit more alert than folks in another town might be.” Rachel had shared with her some of the tales of female derring-do she’d heard about, and Carrie had told her others.
“I think that’s just how it should be. People should have their eyes open.” One more thing Leesa loved about her hometown. The women here were not delicate southern belles. Mess with one, you messed with them all. And they sure as hell didn’t wait around for some man to come and fix every little thing for them, either.
She’d gone to the gun range once with Grandma Kate, Samantha Kendall, and cousins-by-marriage Anna and Pamela Jessop. Those women, not a one of them under sixty, could shoot.
“So do I, especially after what happened to Libby,” Rachel said.
Leesa would never forget the day that Rachel’s good-for-nothing ex-husband had come to town and forced her daughter, Libby, and Libby’s best friend, Bonnie Dorchester, into his car. Grandma Kate had moved heaven and earth to get Rachel’s men to her while Sheriff Adam Kendall had contacted his friend with the DPS to help get the girls back. Fortunately, that incident had turned out well for everyone except Rachel’s ex. There wasn’t a tear shed by anyone who knew him that the bastard was going to be spending many years behind bars.
Leesa brought herself back to the moment. “I’ll tell you what I am surprised at. No one has said a contrary word to Jason. He’s greeted in a friendly manner by everyone and treated with respect, just like everyone else.”
“He’s family,” Rachel said. “It doesn’t matter that he’d never stepped foot in Lusty until a week ago. His grandfather was born and raised here. He’s a part of everything, though he has no idea of what all he’s connected to.”
“You’re right. Maybe it’s also because everyone senses that he’s on a…a quest, I guess you could call it. Though I don’t think Jason realizes that part at all.”
“I think you like him—him and Phillip. I think you like them a lot.”
“We’ve only shared a few words here and there.” Though each time, she’d felt the electricity and the connection. And she’d known, deep down inside, that those men had felt it, too.
“I know you told me that you were going to do nothing to hinder or help things along,” Rachel said. “But I think—I really believe—that if what you feel is real, you need to take a chance. You, my friend, need to make the first move. You need to, as they say, step out on faith. Woman up.”
“Unlike you, Rachel, I am not femme fatale material. I’m kind of stocky and more of a tomboy than I am a girly-girl.” She held out her hands, nails up. “These are so unfeminine, it’s not funny. That’s why we’re headed to the spa next, remember?”
“I think both Jason and Phillip are attracted to you. Who says the men always have to make the first move?”
Who, indeed? The few times she’d spent time with Jason and Phillip Benedict, she’d sensed a kind of seeking within them. In their own way, each man was hurting.
Or maybe I’m just making all that shit up because of what I feel when I’m with them.
“You know which house they’re in, right?” Rachel asked.
“Kind of hard not to in this town.” She would not for the world admit, even to Rachel, that she had, in fact, driven past it the day before.
“So cook something for them as a ‘welcome to town’ gift and take it over to them. You could do that right after our lunch and time it for supper.” Rachel grinned. “Or you can go on pretending to wait for something to happen.”
Leesa tilted her head to one side. “In other words, stop wimping out.”
“You made it to sergeant in the United States Army,” Rachel said. “That tells me you’re smarter, and ballsier, than the average bear. You’ve got this, girlfriend. You’ve got this if you want it.”
Put like that, Leesa realized she really did need to do something. You’ve got this. She had a feeling her bestie had more faith in her than she had in herself.
What Leesa didn’t know was whether or not Rachel’s faith in her was warranted. Well, hell’s bells, I guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?
Chapter Four
His digs weren’t much, but they were cheap, and that was all that mattered to him. Bryce Jordan had some cash in his pocket, a job pushing a mop and a broom for one of the many maintenance services in Dallas, and his side hustle was… small. Too fucking small to make him any real money. So far, things just were not going according to plan. He’d hoped that, by this point in his life, he’d have a large enough stash of cash that he could start over, establish himself someplace a lot more friendly than here.
He’d heard the Caribbean had islands where a man would be welcome and could live like a king for far less coin than what was needed just to survive here in the States. He’d always believed that, one day, he, Bryce Jordan, would be the king of his own tropical island.
Like that will ever fucking happen now.
Bryce was not a happy man. He hadn’t been a happy man for a very long time. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment he realized that everything in his life had really gone for a deep, dark, and permanent shit, but he sure as hell knew the woman responsible for it all.
His fucking bitch of an ex-wife, Leesa.
He wasn’t overly happy with his former friend and business partner, PFC Jerry Levine, either. Ol’ Jer had let him down on a couple of fronts. First, he was supposed to have let him know when and if the bitch ever left the Army. Bryce hadn’t actually expected her to rejoin civilian life. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d stayed in the ranks until retirement and then been buried with her damn boots on. But she’d been out, apparently, for more than a couple of years. Not only that, he’d also just learned that Jerry had been one of the guys who’d waved goodbye to her as she’d gotten on that transport plane out of Afghanistan. Clearly, he’d simply ignored his promise to Bryce. Bastard. Memories of his ex, of how she’d been, swamped him. Leesa was such a hard-nosed bitch, all prim and proper. She probably has the motto for the United States Army tattooed on her fucking ass. Not like anyone would willingly look at her naked ass. That was one frigid bitch. Of course, grab her hair and show her what to do with her mouth, close your eyes, and yeah, it might get a guy off.
He recalled how Leesa had acted all outraged when he’d asked her for a list of the delivery schedules and suppliers for the food shipments coming into the base in Kabul. Like it was a big fucking state secret or something. It was only food, for God’s sake, and she had been the one in charge of coordinating it all. He knew she had no idea about his side business, so she had no excuse not to have shared that information with him—her lawfully wedded husband!
Knowing the delivery schedules, as well as the suppliers would have helped him set up a larger distribution network for his drug sales. He’d had his own supplier and thought to get a leg up on the handful of other guys in the unit working the same scam. Of course, Leesa had been completely oblivious as to what he was doing. He’d thought she’d have been an asset, working for food services, a unit that had outside connections, but it hadn’t taken him long to recognize the truth. If the chain of command said something was confidential, then she kept it that way, not even sharing with her own da
mn husband. Marrying her was a huge miscalculation.
Jerry’s second and most damning failure, though, was in regard to the business. He’d been a part of an elaborate entrepreneurial effort in country. Jerry had been higher up the food chain in that hustle and had been able to stow away a lot of cash back home. Just before everything had gone to shit, Bryce had overheard Jerry telling Johnny Post, one of the other guys involved in the drug business on base about his special stash here in the U.S. A hidden treasure-trove of cash, an emergency escape fund, as it were, that Jerry had set aside before he’d been sent to Afghanistan. He hadn’t told Johnny where it was exactly, but he’d said he’d given Leesa an envelope with directions to his stash, telling her it was a goodbye letter to a cousin, and asked her to hide it and keep it for him—just in case. Of course, Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes had agreed to keep Jerry’s letter for him. Wouldn’t give me inside information but she had no problem keeping a final letter for some other guy. Bryce had no idea why Jerry had done that, but suspected he’d been high as a kite at the time and had done it for shits and giggles.
It had been easy as hell over there, with the long hours his wife had worked, to search her stuff and find that envelope. He’d memorized the directions, going so far as to copy them down and then read them over and over again.
As soon as he’d gotten out of prison, Bryce had gone to the place, a small farmhouse within an hour’s drive of Fort Lee. He’d found the house, apparently abandoned at the end of a long laneway. He’d entered the bedroom at the back of the house, ground floor, and found the floorboards under the bed already pried up. A single Benji lay inside the wide-open safe there, a taunting kind of a “fuck you,” the only payout available to him.
That had been just one more kick in the face he’d been forced to endure. The dream of that cash had been the only thing that had gotten him through prison. He’d been so sure that Jerry had intended to leave that stash there until he retired from the army. He’d gotten in touch with a mutual friend and had been told that yes, Levine was still in Kabul.
One lousy week. He’d missed his windfall by one lousy week.
Bryce pulled himself out of the past and put his attention on the man who’d so recently knocked on his door. He was another old army buddy, Arnie Bates, a man who’d also been involved in the same side business that Bryce, Jerry and Johnny had been in over in Afghanistan. Until Arnie had shown up at his door today, he’d only thought of Leesa occasionally, like when he was completely shit-faced. I guess my rage with her has just simmered all these years. That thought was the truth and brought another. If he could somehow pay Leesa back for what she’d done to him, would his luck change? It was something worth considering.
“So, she mustered out when, exactly?” Bryce took a long drag on his cigarette, the nicotine doing just enough for him that his mind remained sharp and clear. A cold beer in his hand and company that didn’t completely suck. Life wasn’t so bad. It sure as hell had been worse for him.
Sometimes he awoke in the dark of night, sweating from nightmares about prison life.
Arnie shrugged. “I don’t know the exact date. Best as I can tell, a couple years ago. Not long after she took that slug in her shoulder, I think. After that firefight, I got transferred and lost contact with Digger, my guy in food services. Just recently, I hooked up with another pal of mine who’d also been in the business over there. We got to shooting the shit, going down the list of the grunts we’d known, and he told me about her mustering out.”
Bryce spit into the garbage can on the floor to his right. Arnie had led with the news of Leesa having gotten herself shot, likely thinking to make him smile, and he had. Now, considering, he said, “Too bad the bullet got her in the right shoulder instead of the left and a few inches lower down.”
“Naw, you’d a been pissed if she’d been killed over there. That would mean you couldn’t get revenge on her for having you tossed in the brig and ruining your life.”
“Well, that’s true.” Bryce had let all his buds know at the time the only reason he got court-martialed was because Leesa was in tight with her C.O. No need to tell them I lipped off in court.
“I figure I owe you some, because when they nabbed you, you kept your mouth shut about the drugs. You could have ratted us all out, cut yourself a deal, but you didn’t. A lot of us decided if you ever needed anything, we’d be there for you.”
Wish I had fucking known that when I got out of prison. Bryce had spent two years behind bars for assault with an added charge for insubordination. It had been a bogus charge as far as he was concerned, but he couldn’t find anyone to fight for him. A man was entitled to give his wife a pop when she needed it, wasn’t he? Unfortunately, his timing had sucked, because another pain-in-the-ass bitch in his life at the time, Captain Elaine Morris, had seen the whole thing go down.
One of the JAG officers at his court-martial had been a woman, too. She’d poked and prodded at him until he’d lost it. He’d told them all that the charges were bullshit, and why. And then he’d let all those bitches know, in no uncertain terms, what their proper place in life was—on their knees with their mouths open, in front of whatever man wanted to use them.
It’s a free fucking country, and I can say what I want. The army hadn’t seen it that way, and he’d gotten the toughest penalty possible, and then, when his sentence had been served, he’d been tossed out. Dishonorable discharge, my ass. An honorable man controls his woman and his kids—if he’s stupid enough to have any.
Bryce put his attention back on the matter at hand. Arnie’s words replayed in his mind. He wouldn’t mind getting his hands on Leesa. No, he likely wouldn’t kill her, but he'd be happy to smack her around a little, especially if she gave him a hard time about doing her duty by him. The more he thought about it, the more he decided he liked that idea. He’d like to tune her up as payback for being such a bitch and making him hit her in front of a commanding officer in the first place.
He'd really like to pound her senseless for ruining his life. Yeah, that might help.
And how sweet would it be if he could get Arnie to do all the legwork for him?
“Any idea where she ended up?” Bryce asked.
“Naw, I figured you’d know. You always bitched about her sending money to her folks. I just thought that might be where she headed to when she’d mustered out.”
He didn’t let Arnie know he’d forgotten all about her folks—hell, he’d all but forgotten about her. He thought they might be gone by now, the way she went on about how hard they’d always worked and how she wished she could make things easier for them and blah blah blah.
“She came from San Antonio,” Bryce said. “That’s close to where you’re at, isn’t it?”
“I’m over in San Marcos—yeah, ’bout fifty miles or so.” He tilted his head to the side. “I see that calculation in your eyes, pal. What are you thinking?”
“That you could maybe take a drive over there some Saturday and see if she’s living there with her parents. And if she isn’t, you could tell her folks you just wanted to look up an old army buddy. Make sure she was doing okay after being shot and all. They’d likely tell you where she is. I don’t remember their address. Their names are Caitlyn and José Montoya.” It was all Bryce could do not to choke on his laughter. If poor Arnie came face to face with the bitch, she’d just as likely punch him in the face as say “hey.” She’d never liked any of his pals, anyway. Well, except for Jerry.
If that happens, it’ll be Arnie’s face and not mine that gets punched. And he’ll bitch to me about it, which is all good for me. One way or the other, at least I’ll know where she is.
Arnie took a long swig from his own beer and seemed to be lost in thought. Bryce had never had any indication that Arnie was very good at thinking. But it was easy to just act as if he wasn’t eager for his former fellow soldier to do him this solid.
“Yeah, I could do that. I got weekends off in my new job.” Arnie shrugged. “And I have some buds in San
Antonio I’ve been meaning to look up anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“And you’ll let me know if she’s there, or if not, where she is?” Bryce smirked. “That way, I can get me some of that ‘closure’ the pussies all talk about on TV.”
“Sure, Bryce. Don’t you worry one bit. Like I said earlier, I owe you. And I’m going to do all I can to help you get your closure. It’s the least I can do for a pal from the army.”
He wondered for just a second about the look on Arnie’s face. But since he’d long ago decided his old pal didn’t have any real deep thoughts, he brushed aside the concern.
Instead, he thought about just what all closure with Leesa could entail. He felt his lips stretch and decided to just let Arnie think about the expression on his face. And he hoped that expression scared his ol’ bud, just a little bit.
* * * *
Though she’d never gone on one, Leesa had learned, by listening and keeping her senses honed, how to plan a mission.
As she looked down at the covered dish in her hands, she wondered if she was being completely lame, or not. In her belly, butterflies fluttered, threatening to upset the lunch she’d had a few hours before. What she knew about making a pass, a move, whatever the hell you called it, could be written on a Post-it Note, with room to spare for a recipe.
She almost changed her mind. Twice. The first time was in her own kitchen, when she pulled the casserole out of the oven. A Tex-Mex beef and rice casserole, the dish was one of her mother’s go-to dishes, something she’d whip together if company was expected. It was also one of Leesa’s favorites. She’d caught a slightly distorted reflection of herself on one of the glass cupboard doors and thought, what the hell do I think I’m doing?
Love Under Two Financiers Page 4
