Matt nodded. “I thought the same thing. She is Samuel Darcy’s type. Maybe he’s cheating on his mistresses now.”
“How in the hell any man could think having more than one complicated, demanding woman in his life at a time is a good idea is a goddamn mystery,” Bennett said.
Matt pointed at him. “She’s tied your dick in a knot again.”
“Hell, she never untied it the first time,” Bennet admitted gruffly.
Matt went back to the picture. “Pretty blondes are a weakness for two of the Darcy men in particular… but then there’s Clayton. The odd one out. In the middle of a divorce in a small town and no one knows why? You and I both know there’s dirt there.”
“Irreconcilable differences.”
Matt glanced at him. “Reading the gossip columns?”
“Having dinner with my mother,” Bennett corrected. “Every Sunday like clockwork.”
“Does she still make that pot roast? And the homemade mashed potatoes?” Matt asked.
“Yes. But if you come to dinner, Savannah will be there.”
“Never mind…. You know, maybe we’re going at this wrong,” Matt said.
“Dinner?” Bennet asked, then realized immediately that Matt had switched topics on him. “Dude, not all of us have ADD. You need a better lead-in.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Maybe Mia isn’t really the target. Maybe someone sees her as the instrument of revenge.”
“That’s a little Machiavellian, isn’t it?” Bennett scoffed.
“Look at you with the big words! Happens all the time. And Samuel Darcy has pissed a lot of people off… He plays the game. Politicians love him, high society eats up his act, but we all know what a bastard he is.”
“So what’s next then? Assuming that Mia isn’t the prime target, just the expedient one. ”
“You really did get a word of the day calendar, didn’t you?” Matt said and then laughed at his own joke. Growing serious again, he continued, “I’ll see if I can’t get a last name. And I’ll see if I can’t scour the social media accounts and gossip columns related the Darcy men and figure out which one is connected to our mystery woman.”
“My money’s on Samuel,” Bennett added. “Quentin doesn’t like to shit where he eats and Clayton is all business, but I could be wrong.”
“You’re not exactly objective about this topic,” Matt pointed out.
Bennett nodded. “I hate that fucker. I’d never do anything to make it happen, but I swear to God, I’ll laugh all the way to the cemetery just to piss on his grave.”
“That’s still illegal. Not as illegal as say, terroristic threats… unless there are kids present. But that’s a whole different kind of crime and involves major address restrictions for the rest of your life.”
Bennett chuckled in spite of himself. “You are an asshole.”
“Yep. I hear that a lot. The thing of it is, he’s been keeping Mia a prisoner in that house, taking care of her mother for the last ten years. If he’d do that to his own daughter, what the hell do you think he’d do to someone else’s? There are more people with reasons to hate him than not.”
“That’s the damn truth.”
Matt headed for the door. “I’m going to work this angle for a bit. See who Samuel Darcy has pissed off and if there’s any connection to this woman, once I get an ID.”
“Send that pic to my phone. I’ll show it to Mia and see if it rings any bells.”
“Be careful with all this. People do fucked up shit when they’re desperate.”
There was something in Matt’s tone that alerted Bennett to the fact that he hadn’t just come to talk shit or even share info. He’d been running away from whatever the hell he’d seen that day. “I don’t ever want your job. How the hell do you think about this shit and sleep at night?”
“Bourbon helps,” Matt offered. “You can buy me a bottle and we’ll call it even. One big enough to fucking swim in… but make it the good shit, since you’ve got an in at Fire Creek and all.”
“Keep me posted, will you? I don’t like not having a bead on this.”
Matt offered a salute. “I’m sneaking out the back. Your sister might demand my virtue as payment if I go through the front.”
Bennett laughed at that. “We build a lot of shit here, but time machines aren’t one of ‘em.”
After Matt left, Bennett continued cleaning up the workshop. There were other projects that needed his attention, but they were too big to finish in the time he had left for the day. Which meant that Savannah would just have him moving furniture. Heading out into the showroom, he saw Carter leaning over the counter flirting with a pretty young woman who was clearly more interested in him than in the vintage jewelry in the case.
“Don’t let him troll for dates in here,” he said to Savannah.
“Why not? If the men who came in here weren’t married or gay, I would,” she replied. “Speaking of which, Matt Crawford is super-hot. How did I not notice that all those years ago?”
“I’m not your ride or die. We don’t have these conversations,” he said shortly.
“We could,” she offered sweetly. “I’ll paint your nails and you can share all the details with me about how Mia Darcy makes your heart skip a beat. Then I can tell you all about Officer McHottie and what I want him to do with his handcuffs.”
“I’m leaving… and I’m telling Mom you need an exorcism.”
“Do that… and I’ll tell you exactly which sections were highlighted in her copy of Fifty Shades. Mom goes to church because she has lots of things to repent… lots.”
“Leaving. Not listening,” he called back and headed for the door, followed by the sound of Savannah’s laughter.
Outside, the day was still cool, and the wind was howling. Crossing Main Street and headed for his truck, Bennett couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Scanning the street, he saw nothing untoward. Fontaine was a small town, a short drive from Lexington and a farming hub. The vehicles lining the street ranged from the high end of luxury to loaded down with manure. There wasn’t a black SUV with a deer guard among them.
Climbing behind the wheel of his truck. He picked up his phone and pretended to scroll through it, surreptitiously scanning the other cars. At the end of the street, a silver Mercedes pulled out. It was too far away for him to see the driver, but they didn’t approach him, and instead headed out of town toward Lexington.
“Fuck. I’m paranoid,” he said aloud.
With his phone already in hand, he searched the number for Fire Creek and dialed it, asking to be connected to Mia Darcy’s office.
“This is Mia. Can I help you?”
Hearing her voice, all polished and business like, he smiled. “I certainly hope so.”
“Are you crazy? You can’t call me here!” she hissed.
“I need to talk you… Actually talk. Vertically. Which doesn’t happen unless we’re in public. Meet me in Lexington tonight.”
She sighed. When she finally spoke, there was hesitation in her voice. “Where?”
“There’s a bar on Woodland. Mostly college kids.”
“Loralei’s go-to spot?”
“That would be it,” he answered. “I’ll see you there at eight.”
Ending the call, he headed home to shower and tried not to be bothered by her reluctance. He wasn’t cut out for being anyone’s dirty little secret and it was sure as hell staring to get to him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mia pulled up in front of the bar. It was still early enough to manage a parking space in the lot itself, rather than on one of the streets nearby. After work, she’d gone home long enough to change clothes and make sure that Elizabeth had everything in hand for her mother.
Guilt gnawed at her. It seemed so wrong to be relieved to leave the house when her mother was stuck there, but it was a short reprieve, she reminded herself. Also, even though, Bennett had said they were meeting to talk, it felt like a date, and she’d dressed accordingly. Now, the lacy c
amisole and skinny jeans with mile high heels seemed like poor form.
“Too late to reconsider,” she muttered aloud. “You’re already here, so suck it up.”
Climbing out of the rental car and reminding herself that at some point she had to go out and shop for a new car for herself, something she dreaded worse than dental work, she headed into the bar.
“ID?”
Mia dug though her tiny purse and produced her driver’s license, which the doorman gave a cursory glance at it. It would have been a little more flattering if he’d looked a little harder.
“Ten bucks,” he said.
Mia dug out a bill for the cover and then presented her right hand for the wrist band.
“Need your left,” he practically grunted.
She held up her cast. “Then you’re going to need another one of those. One won’t fit.”
He grunted again and fastened the day-glow green band around her right wrist and waved her inside. Bennett was easy enough to spot once she was inside. He was seated at the bar, a beer in hand, and every female eye was trained on him. There might have only been ten women in the club early as it was, but every one of them had her eyes on him.
Letting her eyes travel over his long, denim clad legs, the dress shirt that either Savannah or his mother must have bought for him, because he would never have chosen one that fit so well, and further up to his face, she stopped in her tracks. Every woman was watching him, but he was watching her.
The warmth of that soaked into her and she was greedy for it. After a moment, when it was obvious to every woman present just who he had been waiting for, only then did she step forward.
As she approached him, Bennett’s smile shifted into a knowing smirk. “You do like to make an entrance,” he said.
It wasn’t an accusation she could deny. Instead, she just proved his point by leaning in, pressing her body against his and letting her lips hover just above his for a moment. Every eye in the bar was on them.
“And you like to be salivated over by coeds who were chugging screw top wine in their dorm rooms before they got to the bar,” she shot back, but there was no heat in it, just easy humor. Her life might be a mess, her future was a bleak and depressing void, but there was one thing she was utterly certain of. He wanted her, no matter what.
“Is that why you came? Just to bust my balls?”
Mia kissed him then, just a quick, hard press of her lips to his. It was enough. She straightened, but kept her hand on his chest. It was a heady thing to touch him, to know that she could. “I have other plans for your balls, but they can wait,” she answered and signaled the bartender for a drink.
“Well, that's a thought that's not going to leave me alone anytime soon,” he replied and took a long pull from his beer.
Mia watched him from the corner of her eye, the play of muscles beneath the rolled back cuff of his shirt sleeve, the way his lips cradled the lip of the bottle. She was jealous of the damn beer.
“So, I could be at home, braless and in yoga pants, but I’m here instead. Why?”
“For the pleasure of my company,” he replied. “And also because I talked to Matt today.”
The bartender walked over. Mia ordered a whiskey and ginger. In a college bar, quality spirits were in short supply. Whiskey was a fine thing to mix with other substances, but polluting Bourbon was just wrong. Once the drink was in front of her, she sipped it and frowned. “What did he have to say?”
Bennett placed his phone on the counter in front of her, the picture of Erica and her yet unknown friend on the screen. “Do you know her?”
“I think I do, but I can’t… Did we go to school with her?”
“If we did, she would have been ahead of us. She’s pushing thirty in that pic and it’s from a few years back.”
“Erica is thirty three. She’s a little long in the tooth for Samuel, and according to Clayton, he’s already shopping for a replacement.”
Bennett nodded. “Sounds about right. This woman, whoever she is, has to be connected to Fontaine in some way. Matt, you, and I have all said she looks familiar, but none of us come remember why.”
“Maybe it’s not Fontaine that’s the connection… You remember what it was like in high school. We’d meet up with the kids from Sayre or Lexington Catholic. All those parties on the river?”
“I remember those parties very well. That was the first time I ever got up the nerve to talk to you,” he replied.
She smiled, thinking about how utterly beautiful he’d been with a sweet, shy smile on his too pretty face. “It took you long enough. I’d been putting myself in your path for three damned weeks.”
“So, Matt mentioned something today, that I think bears considering.”
“I’m not going to like it, am I?” she asked, and took another sip of her slightly watered down drink.
“What if you’re not the target, but the instrument?”
“I don’t follow,” she replied with a frown.
“Your daddy inspires a lot of feelings in people. Hatred. Envy. Admiration for those who don’t know him well. And fear. He enjoys the abuse of power.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“All of this… hiding in a vehicle, watching, stalking. I think whoever did this is probably a woman scorned,” he stated.
She considered it, and then nodded. It made sense. “I’d go along with that.”
“It could be someone your dad blew off… it could also be Quentin. Or Clayton.”
“Not Clayton,” she replied instantly. “He’s focused on other things right now… and even if he wasn’t, the only woman on his mind is the one who left him.”
“Imagine that. Your brother and I do have something in common.”
Her only response to that was a baleful stare.
“Right,” he said. “Moving on. So Quentin and your father is where we need to look?”
“I’ll just ask Quentin,” she said. “He’ll be at the house on Sunday for dinner.”
“What are you going to ask him, ‘Oh, by the way, dated and dumped any psychotic, murdering bitches lately?”
“Can’t hurt.” Glancing around at the bar, she realized that ten dollar cover or not, it wasn’t worth being there. “Let’s get out of here.”
“And go where?”
“I’ve never seen Loralei’s shop,” she said. “We always meet at the house because of Mama, or she’ll come by the distillery sometimes and bring me lunch. I want to see what she’s done for herself.”
Bennett threw a bill on the bar to cover their tab. “Can you walk in those heels?”
“Yes. Or I can take them off and go barefoot. It’s practically summer time outside even though we're a week from Thanksgiving.”
“You’re not going barefoot. There’s enough busted glass on those sidewalks to kill a man. And while, I’m not opposed to carrying you, it is about six blocks from here.”
“Fine. But I’m finishing my drink and you’re driving,” she said.
“I’d never stand between a woman and her whiskey,” he responded.
*~*~*
Ten minutes later, they were parked on the street in front of Loralei’s shop. Opening the door for Mia, he helped her out of the truck and wondered how the hell she wasn’t breaking her neck in those damned high heels. Of course, they did amazing things for her legs, and for her ass, both of which were pretty damned amazing to start with.
“This is gorgeous,” she said, eyeing the window display. “I knew it would be… She’s always had an eye for this sort of thing. She’s like Savannah that way.”
It was an easy comparison to make and there was definitely a similar aesthetic, he thought, considering the shabby chic vibe that the shop exuded. Realizing that the words ‘shabby chic’ had sprung, unbidden, to his mind, Bennett hung his head.
“I have got to spend more time with Emmitt and get the hell away from Savannah for a while.”
“What was that?” she asked.
“Jus
t quietly saying goodbye to my man card.”
She laughed. “I missed you… I missed this. I mean don’t get me wrong—hot, mind blowing, earth shattering, my thighs tremble for a day afterward, sex is all fantastic and wonderful… but you always made me laugh, Bennett, and I don’t do seem to do a whole lot of that anymore.”
Bennett didn’t say anything for the longest time. He just looked at her and could see the deep unhappiness inside her. Mia left him for reasons she wouldn’t share, but there was no doubt in his mind that it hadn’t been what she wanted. Somewhere along the way, someone, and he had a good idea who it had been, had convinced her that she had no other choice.
“You used to laugh,” he mused. “You used to sit in the front seat of that old Buick while I drove down winding roads like a bat out of hell. You’d throw your head back and laugh like you weren’t ever going to stop.”
“Some of the happiest moments of my life were spent in that car,” she said, walking past him to look at the other display window.
“I forgot to give you something… It’s in the truck.”
She laughed again. “That’s a likely story.”
He laughed at that himself. “Seriously. It’s from Loralei. She gave it to me when I was in town.”
Mia turned to him, and while her expression was fairly neutral, he could see the panic in her eyes. “You told her about us?”
He raised his hands. “Do not give me that look. Tonight is not for picking fights. And, no. I did not. But hell, Mia, it shows on both of us… do you think anybody can walk around feeling what you and I feel for each other inside them and not have it show?”
“And what is it exactly?” she asked. “What do we feel for each other, Bennett?”
He shook his head and turned to face the window. “I’m not doing that. I’m not pouring my heart out to you when we both know this isn’t going to last… I know what I feel. I know it’ll hurt when you’re gone. That’s all you’re getting from me.”
“You’re right,” she said. “We shouldn’t be fighting. If were smart, we wouldn’t even be near one another… but I don’t really want to be smart.”
Bennett (Bourbon & Blood #1) Page 10
