Late in the Day

by Mary Calmes

  “Yes, but none of us have any kind of—”

  “Fingerprints and—”

  “Again, none us have any identifiable—”

  “That’s not the point, is it?”

  It wasn’t, no.

  “There are ways that business is transacted, and because he was where he shouldn’t have been, now I’m having to mop up bullshit to show that I’m still loyal and that my territory is, in fact, my territory.”

  “So you had ronin in your territory thinking they could just take contracts?”

  “Yeah,” he said snidely, “and killing them all has been a pain in the ass.”

  “They must have thought,” I said, staring at Rahm, “that if you were so weak that you let Daoud in then… they could just start back up too.”

  “Exactly. You don’t see me fucking around in his backyard.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t see me taking contracts in Israel or wherever the hell else he is,” Mancuso growled.

  “Right.”

  “Because even though I fuckin’ hate him, I respect him, yeah?”

  I smacked Rahm on the same arm where I’d punched him.

  “I will shoot you,” he whispered harshly, reaching for the mirror polish Hard Chrome Kimber 1911 in his shoulder holster that he’d been carrying lately. We used to carry the same gun, but he liked shiny things. I ignored him.

  “This is the second time he’s done this to me.”

  “Oh?” I asked Mancuso.

  “There was that thing with the Nava Cartel that he fucked around with a few years ago. I could have figured things out between Olivera and Cardoso, but Daoud got in the middle of that one too, and now—he shows up anywhere near my shit again, Harris, and he’s a fuckin’ dead man. Let him know.”

  That was clear. “Absolutely.”

  He huffed out a breath. “Okay, so, you call for anything specific or just to shoot the shit?”

  “I have a contract out on me,” I said because, while it was true, I knew better.

  “You know better’n that,” he groused. “You and me are good. Always good.”

  Funny to hear him use the same words I’d thought seconds earlier. “I figured,” I said, exhaling. “Also, I heard there’s a contract out on some billionaire in Barcelona. Do you know him?”

  “I have a friend in Valencia, not Barcelona, so if I see Isaak on the street before or after, I won’t mess with him.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” I said, shaking my head at Rahm, who threw up his hands, releasing the wheel for a moment as he did it. The message was clear: Isaak was good to come and go in Mancuso’s neck of the woods. Rahm, he’d shoot on sight.

  “Hey, is Evgeni really dead?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Shit, well. It happens. We’ll have to drink to him next time I see you.”

  I cleared my throat. “Really quick, I have something funny to tell you.”

  After I was done telling him about the vault and what I wanted to be called, he laughed at me, but it was the nice kind, the warm kind.

  “All right, Darius it is.”

  “Good.”

  “If you see Daoud, tell him if I see him before he sees me—he’s fuckin’ dead.”

  “I would prefer you both to coexist on your opposite ends of the planet.”

  He grunted.

  “I’ll keep him out of Spain.”

  “That would be best.”

  Once I hung up, I hit Rahm again.

  “Seriously, vault or no vault, I will shoot you in the head.”

  “Holy fuckup, Batman,” I said seriously, flicking him in the side of the head. He reached for his gun and I swatted him again. “You’re really lucky he hasn’t shot you.”

  “Yes, I know, I just—I don’t think sometimes.”

  “I might have made a mistake bringing Lee in instead of you. He actually doesn’t need the structure—you do.”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  I slapped his face gently as he parked the car. “Try not to die.”

  As I got out of the car, he yelled. Not many people got away with hitting Rahm Daoud.

  Inside, after we played a lightning-fast round of rock-paper-scissors to see who got to sit facing the door, I was rewarded for the win with hearing some of my favorite stories of his. Of course, this time, when he told the one about him and a deputy US marshal trying to kill each other in a bathroom in an airport in Tennessee, I asked to hear why he thought ever talking to Lior Cardoso in the first place was a good idea. It was good to have teachable moments.

  Chapter Seven

  A WEEK later I was out for a walk with Sousanna. She was explaining in lavish detail the apoplectic seizure that her soon-to-be-ex-husband had on receiving news of the Viking funeral of most of his prized possessions.

  “What did he say about the car?” I asked as we passed by The Thicket, a swampy area that would have been perfect for dumping a body if it wasn’t an Audubon Sanctuary and covered in snow, as it was at the moment.

  She scoffed. “His lawyer said it was destruction of property, but since my name was on the registration as well….”

  “You told him to suck it.”

  Quick nod before she sighed. “God, this weather is ridiculous.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, in 2015 we got, what, I want to say three feet of snow around this time. Last March was balmy and warm, and this year—well, you can see. It’s rainy and windy, and I bet we get more snow.”

  “That’s Mother Nature keeping you on your toes.”

  “She’s drunk. She needs to go home and sleep it off.”

  I chuckled, watching her as we walked up Wharf Street.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Those are the most ridiculous snow boots I’ve ever seen.”

  “So judgmental today,” she commented. “Maybe you need to get laid.”

  It was lucky I wasn’t drinking anything or I would have choked. “I’m sorry?”

  “What are you waiting for? You’re gorgeous! What’s your excuse?”

  “What about you?” I volleyed.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve been married for the past twenty-five years. The only one who’s been out on dates is my soon-to-be ex.”

  I grunted.

  “Laid,” she said snidely. “Who am I supposed to be sleeping with?”

  “Maybe the handsome man who’s been lurking around your mailbox for the past two days,” I suggested.

  She turned to look at me. “Who?”

  I shot her a look.

  “You mean Dave?”

  My grin, I made certain, was evil.

  “Oh no,” she said dismissively, smacking my arm. “He’s just a friend.”

  “From where?”

  “From college.”

  I nodded. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Did he never marry? Have kids?”

  “He did.”

  “If you make me dig, I’ll just run home, and you’ll have to walk for the next ten minutes here or so alone.”

  She rolled her eyes. “His son is working out there at the Marine Science Center, so he’s been by a few times to see him.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. He’s just checking on his son Kyle.”

  “Because Kyle is so much in need of being fussed over,” I concluded.

  “Dave’s—”

  “A very handsome man,” I reminded her. “Very Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October.”

  “Oh dear God.”

  “What? He is.”

  Her eyes darted to mine. “He’s not interested in me, dear.”

  I was quiet as we made the left onto Nahant Road. “Because why?”

  “I’m old.”

  “You are so not old. In what realm of the imagination is fifty-seven old?”

  “Ask my ex.”

  “Idiots don’t count.”

  Her laughter was good to hear. It was nice to have a
friend who had no clue that I was a very bad man or that she should have been frightened of me, but who, at the same time, accepted things like people coming and going from my house at weird hours, so completely in stride.

  “Don’t hide behind something as asinine as a number.”

  We walked in silence toward Ocean Street.

  “Hey, I have a question.”

  She regarded me warily.

  “Not about your love life.”

  She thawed, smiling again. “Oh, then go ahead.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “When I’m sitting on the back porch looking out at the ocean, if I look left a little, there’s an island. What is that?”

  “Oh, that’s Egg Rock.”

  “Egg Rock?”

  She nodded. “It used to have a lighthouse on it, but it’s been gone for a while. Only birds out there now.”

  “They should rebuild the lighthouse. It would be very touristy.”

  “Perhaps. You know, when I was learning to sail as a kid, the first solo sail was from the wharf, out around Egg Rock, and if you could do it, they gave you a T-shirt that said ‘Egg Rock or Bust!’”

  I just looked at her.

  “What? It’s a cute story.”

  “Mmmm,” I agreed. “Hey, why aren’t we walking your dogs?”

  “They’re napping. I’ll take them out later.”

  “Shouldn’t the dogs be on your schedule?”

  She considered that a moment. “Perhaps, but I think they’re holding out for you taking them on another run.”

  “Oh, they liked that last night, did they?” I teased.

  “Are you kidding? You went for what, five miles or so? They’re greyhounds, they were in heaven!”

  We were all frozen by the time we got back, but the company had been good. Normally I ran alone, but she’d let Archie and Wanda out and they caught me easily, keeping pace the whole time, never once making me have to yell at them to come back or keep up. The same could not be said of all my running partners over the years.

  “You know, I’m not the only one with a gentleman caller.”

  Her statement took me by surprise. “I’m sorry?”

  “You’ve had that absolutely stunning man haunting your front porch since yesterday.”

  Stunning man? “Who?”

  She waggled her eyebrows.

  “You mean Mercer, who works for me?”

  “No,” she said, like I was deluded. “No, no, no.”

  “I introduced you to him.”

  “Yes, dear, I know, and that’s not who I’m talking about.”

  “He’s a very handsome man.”

  “Who, Mercer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you like big and scary, then yes, probably.”

  I chuckled. “All right, so if you’re not talking about Mercer, I’m at a loss. He’s the only one who even knows where I live besides Rahm, who you met as well.”

  “Oh yes, Rahm,” she sighed. “Now that is a handsome man.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “He is! He took my breath clean away.”

  “I guess if you go in for tall, dark, and slightly menacing.”

  “Which I do.”

  I groaned, but then it hit me. “So not Rahm, then. Someone else?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  I was immediately worried, concerned that I’d let my guard down just in time to be murdered by whomever Trevan’s boss had hired.

  “Tell me what he looked like.”

  “Very pretty and talks to himself.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “He has entire conversations with himself on the way to and from your front door. And while I can’t hear what he’s saying from my porch, I know that he asks himself questions and then answers them.”

  We started walking again, and then a jolt of recognition hit me.

  I had been standing on the enormous wrap-around porch on the Lahm Tidewater-style home in Essex, Connecticut, watching Efrem in the backyard. His mother, Livia, walked up beside me, put her hand on my shoulder, and watched him with me.

  “What is he doing?” I turned to look at the beautiful stately woman I had finally fallen in love with after many holiday visits. Efrem’s father and I had bonded right away, but his mother had been unsure of me, certain that her son was in far deeper than I was. That had changed when she came to visit us in Savannah and found me nursing her son through a bout of the flu. Anyone who could still love him when he looked that disgusting, she was sure was a keeper. I’d been thrilled to have her fuss over me as well. Just because I didn’t need a new mother didn’t mean I didn’t like the hugs and kisses and worry.

  “He’s working something out,” she answered, returning my attention to her.

  We both watched him pace, flail his arms, and talk out loud.

  “Huh.”

  “It looks like he’s nuts, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, chuckling.

  “He’s always done it, even when he was little. I was worried at first that he was talking to someone else and they were answering.”

  I snorted.

  “But it turns out that it’s just what he does.”

  “I wonder what he’s trying to figure out.”

  She sighed deeply, and I turned back to her.

  “I think he wants to marry you, sweetheart, and he’s figuring out the pros and cons of that.”

  I jolted, feeling both fear and happiness slice through me at the same time. “We can’t get married, he knows better. We’re in the Army, for God’s sake.”

  “I know, and I don’t think he expects you both to go down to the justice of the peace, because we all know that’s not even possible,” she said, taking hold of my hand. “But I’m thinking he wants to ask and hear your answer, and perhaps get a promise from you and give you one in return.”

  I had no idea what to say.

  “He loves you, his father loves you, his sisters love you, I love you; it’s inevitable that he’d get to this place after five years.”

  I crossed my arms and took a breath.

  “Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you in the same place?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, then, what do you think you’ll say to my son?”

  My sigh was long. “If he asks, there’s only one way to answer.”

  She patted my shoulder. “I thought so.”

  That night, after his parents turned in, I went outside to look at the stars in the crisp fall air, loving November in New England and realizing that I looked forward to the holidays again, especially Thanksgiving, because of Efrem and his family.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Turning, leaning against the porch railing, I regarded the beautiful man who I fell more in love with every day. It was sappy but true. When he squinted at me, like usual, like clockwork, without even making a conscious choice, I was charmed. It turned out that everything Efrem Lahm did melted me right to the floor. It didn’t hurt that he was drop-dead gorgeous. But I realized that more than anything, his smooth whiskey voice with just a trace of gravel did all kinds of wicked and wild things to my libido. The man was irresistible, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  “What are you thinking?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, come on,” he prodded, moving forward, walking in and out of the shadows as he crossed the porch to me.

  “Last weekend when we were at that fall festival downtown, I was waiting for you to bring food to the table, and while I was sitting there, holding our spot, I saw you walking back and realized that I wasn’t the only one looking at you.”

  “I see,” he said, distracted, reaching me and putting his hands on my hips as he stepped in close, trailing his lips over the underside of my jaw.

  From my vantage point, I’d been able to see all the men and women caught in my lover’s wake. All ages and flavors responded to the sleek muscles on his broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted fr
ame and the long, toned legs encased in faded denim moving him in a fluid, swaggering stride down the street. His walk was enticing, as was the siren call of the slow, sexy smile he bestowed like a blessing. It was amazing—even though it was never his intention to be magnetic and seductive, between the sinful curl of his lips and how intent he was when he gave you all his attention, people swarmed him like bees on honeycomb. I’d found myself sighing just as I was doing now through the kisses that reached my mouth.

  Taking his face in my hands, I tipped his head back and turned a sweet kiss into a serious one that had him whimpering in seconds. Pulling back, I stared down into his gorgeous eyes, the blown pupils making me smile.

  “You know, just your breath on my skin drives me crazy,” he rasped, nibbling along my jaw. “The kissing is just overkill.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll remember that.”

  He took a breath. “I want you to marry me.”

  If his mother hadn’t warned me, I’d have been shocked speechless. Instead… “Why’s that?”

  His brows furrowed, and I tried not to laugh.

  “The hell kind of a question is that?” He was indignant.

  I tried to get myself under control, but he looked so put out. “Honey—”

  “Why the hell do you think I want to marry you?”

  “Baby—”

  “You’re such an ass! This is my goddamn romantic gesture.”

  I lunged at him, grabbing him fast, and when I lifted him off his feet, he did what was normal and expected and wrapped those strong legs around my hips tight. “Ask me a question, then. Please.”

  Shaky breath in. “Marry me.”

  “Love to.”

  “Yes? Was that yes?”

  “That was yes.”

  He kissed me to seal the deal, going slow, licking over my lower lip before taking my mouth. When he eased back just enough to whisper, I struggled to hear him over the pounding of my heart.

  “As soon as we’re out, wherever we are, we find a way to tie to the knot. Promise me. No matter what time it is, early in the morning, late in the afternoon, no matter where in the world we are, we figure it out so we’ll be husband and husband. I need it. I want it—so swear.”

  “I do,” I vowed before I kissed him again.

  “Oh,” Sousanna chirped happily, returning me to the present. “You know who it is.”

  “I might,” I said softly. “Pretty, you said?”