by Lois Greiman
“I wouldn’t lie to no angel.”
“Uh huh. Why the cheese?” I asked, and stabbed my fork toward the irregular chunks.
“Taste it.”
I did so without taking my gaze off him. It was tangy and sharp, complimenting the bacon, setting the pancakes on their proverbial ear.
“Where’d it come from?”
“My rugged—”
“The cheese,” I said.
“Frita and Whinnie.”
“Where’s that?”
“In the barn. It’s got a dandy hayloft. Wanna see?”
I quit chewing for a moment. “You keep your cheese in the barn?”
He chuckled. “Frita and Whinnie are goats.”
So they had made it themselves. A couple dozen questions sprang into my head, but the cheese was singing its siren song, fuzzing my concentration. I took another bite. “Where am I?”
“Well ya ain’t—”
“Don’t make me stab you,” I said.
He grinned. “I like ’em feisty,” he said.
I raised my fork.
He chuckled. “You’re home, dream dumplin’.”
I didn’t bother to glance around, but I did slow my mastication for an instant. “There aren’t any bedrooms.”
“Not our home. The Home. The Home Place. You gonna eat that last piece of bacon?” he asked, and reached out.
I gave him the glare I had tested on my idiot brothers and sharpened on a hundred inebriated Warthog patrons. “If you’re fond of those fingers you’ll keep them to yourself.”
Romulus, hitherto known as Thing One, chuckled as he entered the room. “Looks like sweet cakes has her some taste, brother. So ya best back off. She’s mine.”
“The hell she is,” said Re and rose to his impressive height.
“The hell she ain’t,” Rom said. “I saw her—”
“Get outta here! Both of ya!” someone growled.
I turned to the right. The biggest woman I had ever seen had just entered the room. Her hair was the color of pomegranates…except the two-inch roots, which more closely resembled ashes. She wasn’t necessarily fat, but tall and broad and…okay, under her posy-sprigged housedress, she was fat, too. But I’d rather have had my spleen removed with a salad fork than share that little factoid with her. Especially once I recognized her as the bulging-biceps chicken killer I had seen outside.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Sorry, Momma,” the twins muttered, and slunk away like scolded collies.
She was six feet three inches of shoe leather cooked in cactus sap, and when she turned her glare on me, I felt myself shrink to wart-sized proportions.
I swallowed. She glared.
“So you’re a thief and a freeloader.”
The men at the door/table beside me stared, unblinking, seeming braced for a speedy exodus. I abandoned my breakfast with only a small whimper.
“I…” The squeaky sound that escaped my lips was embarrassing. After all, I had just managed to face off a mammoth-sized portion of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dope. But perhaps that was only because men are so desperately fond of their balls. This creature didn’t have any balls to worry about…maybe. “I, um…” My mind was spinning as I remembered Rivera’s desperate plea for me to remain hidden. “I’m afraid I left my wallet at the…” I thought wildly for a likely story: laundromat, coffee bar, soccer match—all seemed a little tame for this alternate universe. “Cock fight?”
Quizzical didn’t quite describe the look she gave me. What the fuck might have better summed up her expression. But she moved on, stabbing her gaze through the window/table at my bare legs.
“You sickly?”
I raised my brows, waiting for her to continue, but I wasn’t rude enough…or anywhere near brave enough…to demand an explanation from this backwater Amazon.
“Why else would ya be so skinny?” she asked, making me realize with sudden clarity that for a backwater Amazon, she was pretty perceptive.
“No. No.” I cleared my throat. “I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Then ya got yourself a job. Minimum wage.”
I opened my mouth. Maybe to object. Maybe to inform her that I had a PhD. Maybe to inhale my unfinished breakfast, but she thumped a tire-sized palm against the table, causing me, the other customers, and perhaps the rest of the planet to jump.
“But you keep your hands off my boys.” She leaned in, breathing hard. I leaned back; her forearms weren’t the only things strong enough to take down a rhino. “I don’t want none of your loosey-goosey ways seepin’ into ’em. Ya understand?”
I nodded, though I can honestly say I understood nothing.
“Good, then finish eatin’, cuz I don’t care how scrawny you are, there won’t be no faintin’ once you start takin’ orders.”
“Orders?”
“Waitressing,” she said. “You got enough brain cells twittering around in that pretty head of yours to do that, don’t ya?”
Chapter 11
If her feelings for bacon were any stronger, the relationship’d be condemned by the Pope.
—Peter McMullen, who, for a troglodyte, knew his sister pretty well
The next thirty-six hours passed in a blur of king-sized orders and an oil tanker of beer.
I had slept in Rivera’s Jeep, consumed another breakfast that would make a vegan weep, and jumped back to work.
“A cheddar bacon omelet with a side of steak and extra rolls,” I said, slapping the order onto the pass-through window that looked like it had been hacked out of the wall with a fireman’s ax. “A taco salad with a side of steak. And one burger. Rare, with a side of steak and—”
“I do not make burgers.”
I glanced up, stunned. An unknown man returned my stare, steel-blue eyes impassive, cappuccino hair pulled back in a man bun. He would have looked hipster perfect except for the scar that nicked across his forehead and into his hairline. And those kill-me-now eyes. “Where’s Eli?”
“I do not make burgers,” he repeated. His face, a honey-gold hue that suggested a mad-dash fusion of exotic races, was absolutely expressionless.
I glowered. I’d been on my feet for approximately two eons. Breakfast was but a distant dream. Lunch had been a feeding orgy at Hades’ favorite trough. I had no idea how so many people could have learned about this place. As far as I knew, the establishment didn’t boast so much as a Post-it Note to draw in passersby. But maybe there was some kind of bacon-flavored homing beacon I knew nothing about.
“Who are you?” I scowled through the serving window at him.
“Hiro.”
“Is that your name or your occupation?”
What passed for his expression suggested he didn’t find me particularly amusing. He looked as cool as a cucumber. I felt as hot as banana flambé. Hot, exhausted, and just about ready to tear someone’s head off. His was the only one currently within my line of vision.
“No burgers,” he repeated. He was only slightly taller than I was and not particularly muscular. I was pretty sure I could take him if he used that better-than-thou tone again.
“The guy at the car hood wants a burger.”
“That is not my concern.” Despite my instant dislike for him—I mean, a man bun and a knuckle-sized rough-cut earring…really? In numbfuck nowhere?—I admit, although reluctantly, that his features were somewhat intriguing. Native American, maybe, with a dollop of Polynesian. But what the hell was he doing in that weird-ass poet’s shirt? And his accent. It was…Okay, truth to tell, I wasn’t entirely sure he had an accent. Neither did I care. He could have been President Obama’s conjoined twin and I still would have wanted to whack him upside the head with a dining room chair. See how well I was reconnecting with my redneck roots? I was even adopting an accent of my own. I called it southern discomfort. What better disguise for the elite Christina McMullen, PhD?
“He said he had two yesterday,” I parried. “For breakfast.”
He held my gaze with unblinking steadiness
. “One must cease living in the past to fully embrace the present,” he said, and turned away.
“Listen!” I leaned over the pass-through. “If ya don’t wanna embrace my—”
“He said he don’t make burgers!”
I jumped like a spanked spaniel. Big Bess, aka Momma Hughes, stood glaring at me from three feet away. How she moved around like a powder puff on her size-forty-seven feet, I had no idea, but it was as creepy as hell.
“And if Hiro Jonovich Danshov says he don’t make burgers…” She tilted her impressive bulk toward me a little. “He don’t make burgers.”
“But the guy at the car hood—” I began. She cut me off at the pass.
“Had better not be unhappy with the service in my establishment.”
I needed this job and/or a ride out of perdition, but my temper was beginning to make some serious inroads into my fear. “Then Confucius there better start fryin’ up some beef patties before—”
She took a step closer, crowding me toward the serving window. “What’d you call him?”
“Ahhhh…” I’m no wilting daisy, but all things are relative. She was relatively the size of a Humvee on steroids, and I was beginning to suspect she might have the hot and heavies for her short-order cook. “Confucius?”
Her brows lowered like angry hedgehogs.
“Cuz he’s so…” I would have liked to shift my gaze to the object of her affection, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off her, lest she mistake me for a chicken and find something other than my neck to hold up my head. “Insightful?”
“Convince ’em to order the lasagna,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed.
I didn’t have much choice but to return to the car hood.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “Sir” was a balding gentleman wearing a pair of overalls that looked as if they might have, at one point, been used to clean radiators. Ditto for what remained of his hair, however, so I was trying not to preemptively pass judgment. He was bookended by a pair of fellows who were half his size and a quarter his weight. “I’m afraid burgers ain’t on the menu today.”
He nodded laconically, glanced at his flatware, then shyly raised his gaze to mine. It wasn’t until then that I noticed his eyes. Dark brown and Johnny Depp soulful, they drew me in like linguine in burgundy sauce.
It was also at that moment that I wondered how I had sunk into the ninth circle of hell so quickly. It hadn’t been forty-eight hours since I’d left L.A., and here I was comparing this behemoth to one of Hollywood’s sexiest sons. This behemoth who, by the by, may have actually eaten Johnny Depp.
“How ’bout you?” he asked.
I canted my head. “Beg yer pardon?”
“You on the menu?”
Soulful eyes or not, I prepared to blast him out of his steel-toed work boots. But just then, Bess cleared her throat. It sounded like a foghorn through Appalachian mist. And somewhere from my past, during the time I had spent schlepping drinks at the Warthog and defending my honor…or not, I remembered a couple of lines that I had used on more than one inauspicious occasion. “I ain’t very heart healthy,” I said, and glanced at him through my lashes, stubby and unenhanced though they were.
I felt my employer’s glower darken. My spleen quivered in response as I remembered the hapless…and headless…chicken, but I continued on.
“If ya order the lasagna, though, I promise to get yer system racing when I deliver it.”
The fellow on his left snorted, threatening to spew beer from his nose. The other one just gaped.
“I guess I kinda do have a hankerin’ for Italian,” he said.
By the end of the day, my feet throbbed, my back ached, and my brain felt dirty, but I had survived a million-hour shift. Plus, after disrobing down to my tank top, the gratuities had improved considerably; I had scored a pocket of change and a Texaco coupon. Clutching the crumpled voucher to my chest like a dying friend, I limped out to the Jeep. Slumping into the driver’s seat felt heavenly. I sighed, immediately slipping into a haze. But I roused myself with effort. I didn’t know where to go or what to do, but I was certain of one thing: I had to leave Hillbilly Haven.
The Jeep rumbled when I turned the key. Muttering my thanks to every deity ever conceived by guilt-riddled minds, I shifted into drive and turned the wheel. But before I had even reached the bumpy lane, the engine coughed, sputtered, and droned to a gasping death.
Alternatingly cursing and praying, I turned the key again. But there was no hope. It wouldn’t start. Apparently, deities are jealous little bastards who don’t like to share prayers. I dropped my head against the steering wheel, but I was too angry to cry. Too tired to sleep.
That was the last thought I had before sliding into oblivion.
“Holy fuck, you’re beautiful,” Rivera said, and he was right. I was lean, clean, and well-dressed. Even my hair looked good. That’s how I knew I was dreaming.
“And you’re an ass,” I said.
He grinned, bite-me lips kicking up a little at the corners. “But you still want to do me.”
“Do not.”
“Oh come on…” He sauntered toward me, shoulders, hips, attitude, all moving in synchronized seduction. “You can do better than that.”
I raised my chin, fighting down the inferno of desire. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lying.” He was close now. Close enough to see the Butter Brickle flecks in his dark chocolate eyes, to feel the smoldering pheromones fly off him like wind-blown sparks. “I know you can do better. Hell…” He lifted one long-fingered hand, touched my cheek. “Harley can do better.”
“Harlequin.” My voice sounded funny, but his touch had always turned my brain to mush, my inhibitions to ash. “How is he?”
“Safe.”
Tears burned my eyes. “Make sure he gets his soup bone. And that…and that Eddie brushes his teeth.”
He slid his palm across my cheek, caressing my ear, massaging my scalp. “Who would have thought that’s what would do it for me?”
“What?”
“I’ve dated heiresses, geniuses, starlets. There might have even been a few who were prettier than you.”
“Screw—” I hissed, but he tightened his fingers in my hair and pulled me in for a kiss, searing my lips, setting fire to my libido.
“But none of them loved a Great Dane with a flatulence problem and suicidal tendencies. None of them loved like you.” His eyes burned into mine, seeing through my carefully erected walls to my trembling soul.
“He’s not suicidal.” It was difficult to speak, almost impossible to remain upright.
“No?” He kissed my jaw with such sweet slowness that I felt myself melting from the inside out.
I tilted my head back a fraction of an inch. “He’s just…”
He’d found the pulse in my throat. It thrummed like a kick drum against his lips. “Dense?”
“No.”
“Yeah.” He breathed the word against my sensitized skin. “He is. But you love him anyway. Makes me think there might be hope for me.” Drawing back, he found my eyes with his. “For us.”
“Rivera…” My throat felt tight. I gripped his shirt in frantic fingers. “Yeah?”
“Don’t die. Promise me.”
His lips twisted up in succulent, irreverent humor. “On one condition.”
I nodded, too hopped up on emotional angst to speak.
“Stay gone,” he said.
“But I—”
“Until I come for you.”
“But how—”
“Stay gone,” he repeated, sliding his hand down my back to cup my derriere, “and I swear to God I’ll make it worth your while.”
I awoke in the backseat, curled up on Rivera’s leather jacket like a lovesick kitten. I breathed in the scent of him, wanting to remain there forever, to believe his whispered words. But my urinary system would not be ignored. I sat up. The Jeep’s windshield was dripping with condensation, but in the wakeni
ng dawn I thought I could see the sketchy outline of a building hidden by scraggly trees and an asymmetrical hill.
Thinking anywhere would be better than Home, I scanned the area in all directions. There wasn’t a soul in sight. Popping the locks, I stepped to the ground and headed into the woods.
The barn was tall, devoid of paint, and slightly lopsided. In short, it was in only marginally better shape than the restaurant.
Desperately hoping there were facilities inside, I hurried to the door and set my hand on the latch.
Something honked in my ear. I jerked around, heart stammering, but the donkey that eyed me from a few feet away looked unaggressive and ridiculous.
I pressed my hand to my boobs and managed to keep the contents of my chest where they belonged. But my bladder was not going to be so easily contained.
The scare had almost made a restroom superfluous.
Turning rapidly, I yanked the door open and stumbled into the barn. Inside, it was as dark as an Irishman’s soul, but I could make out a few rundown stalls and the tools necessary to clean them.
Hurrying past pegs holding everything from pitchforks to curry combs, I rushed into the nearest enclosure, squatted behind fifty-pound bags of who knows what, and answered nature’s primitive call. From between the planks of the adjacent stall, a pig the size of Denmark watched me with squinty-eyed curiosity, but I didn’t care.
My shoulders slumped with relief. Heaving a sigh, I scanned my surroundings: straw bales to my left, hay to my right, and just past those, wooden rungs rising to an overhead loft. A glimmer of light shone from above. I straightened, curious.
“My kingdom for a dollar bill.”
I squawked like a plucked duck and spun around, dragging my shorts up as I did so.
One of the Things grinned from ten feet away. “Cuz that’s the best show I seen in years.”
I lowered my head, face hot. “What are you doing here?”
“I just come by for a little ass,” he said, and took a step toward me.
“Don’t come any closer,” I warned, and grappling for my keys, held them in the defensive position touted by those who were, apparently, against arming women with rocket launchers.
