by JA Huss
CHAPTER SEVEN - ALONZO
The next day I have one three-hour fishing trip with clients in the morning and that’s it. I offer them two free hours because I’m trying to keep my mind off Tara Tanner’s hot dildo blow job, and they take me up on it because they’re having lots of luck with the grouper. But by the time noon rolls around they’ve caught their limit—plus mine—and they’re ready to get back to land.
So it’s not even one o’clock in the afternoon and my work day is over.
I don’t mind being idle. I’m not one of those true workaholic types who needs to go, go, go all the time. But downtime comes with ample opportunity to think.
And I don’t want to think about last night.
Or no. I do. I want to run the whole thing back and forth in my mind until I’m certain I have every second memorized and maybe, if I’m being honest, jerk off to that memory too. But reliving last night leads to all the questions I suddenly have.
Questions like… do Tara and I have a future together? Or is it time to move on?
The answer is very simple. It is one hundred percent time to move on.
I’ve been pseudo-dating this girl for two years. What do I think is going to happen? She’s just going to throw away her life, and her friends, and her job to move down here with me? Because I’m sure as hell not moving up to Colorado. They don’t have an ocean there and I refuse to become some backwater, fly-fishing guide in the Rocky Mountains. Just the thought of standing in cold mountain rivers makes me shiver. I can’t imagine a life where wearing a shirt becomes mandatory. Every time I have to put on my white button-down disguise for a cam call I get all itchy and hot. I’m starting to think I’m allergic to sleeves.
And here’s a thought. Would sexy, sophisticated, bookish Tara even fit in down here? She wears a lot of clothes. And I get it. It’s Colorado. It’s the kind of place where lots of clothes comes in handy. But she wouldn’t last two hours in those tight, cover-every-inch-of-skin outfits. She’d probably pass out from heat stroke. And let’s face it, when a woman takes the time to put herself together the way Tara Tanner does—to cultivate a persona that comes with a costume, and a hairdo, and a certain shade of red lipstick—that image is part of her. It runs deep. She can’t just wake up one day and say, “I’m not going to be a sexy librarian anymore.”
Who would she be if she lived down here? What would her life look like? Maybe she could pull off that look in linen? Yeah, linen skirts could work. But wouldn’t her thighs get all hot and sweaty? She’d get heat rash for sure.
“Hey… isn’t that your new brother-in-law?”
I snap out of my thoughts and look up at my best friend, and first mate, Quint. “What?”
“That’s him, right? Jesse Boston?”
I swing my gaze over to where Quint is pointing, and sure enough, Jesse fucking Boston is making his way down the dock towards us, grinning like an idiot wearing thousand-dollar sunglasses and designer cargo shorts as he points his finger at me like a gun.
He, for the record, is not allowed to finger-gun point at me. That’s my thing.
Fuck. I forgot he was coming into town today.
“Lonz! What’s up, my man? Emma is in Europe for a week and I got bored. So I said to myself, ‘Jesse—you have your own cottage down there on Dumas Street. Right across the street from your new bro, Lonz.’ And one borrowed jet-ride later, here I am.” He beams and looks between Quint and I like this is a terrific new development and he wants to memorize our reactions. “I figured we’d get in a little brother-in-law bonding time, Lonz. What do you say?”
Oh. I can’t do this right now. Please, someone, if there’s a God, make this asshole go away.
I look at Quint and find him staring back at me with raised eyebrows. That look says, You OK, dude? But he doesn’t wait for an answer. Quint knows me better than any of my real brothers. We’ve been neighbors since we were five. Been working on this boat together since we were eighteen. And he knows all my family secrets.
He takes Jesse by the arm and starts leading him to the office. “Hey, Jesse. I’m Quint. Alonzo’s first mate. Let’s get you settled in the office while Lonz finishes up with the boat. Then I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk bonding time.”
Jesse looks over his shoulder at me as Quint drags him off. “So he’s Gilligan and you’re the Skipper, right? Am I right?”
I don’t answer and a few seconds later, Jesse Boston is pulled inside the office.
Thank you, Quint.
I do not have time for my stupid new brother-in-law. In fact, I kinda wanna pretend that my sister’s ridiculous wedding in Vegas last month never happened. If only we could’ve stopped that last one.
But that wouldn’t really help me. My little brother Luke is now dating Jesse’s cousin, Zach. So this is what I’m dealing with today. Jesse Boston is staying across the street from me in the Emma cottage and Zach Boston is staying two doors down in the… well, I guess that’s the actual Zach cottage now. Because Luke’s cottage, which is right next door to me, is now empty because he moved in with Zach.
I don’t understand how six months ago I had barely even heard of the Boston brothers and now I have two of those dumbfucks living on my street.
Chill, Lonz. He’s gone. For now.
I’m just about to go back to daydreaming about how I could set Tara up with a brand-new life down here in Key West when Jesse Boston comes back out of the office with his phone to his ear. He’s nodding, and talking fast, and once again gun-finger pointing at me as he retraces his steps back down my dock. “Got it,” he says into the phone. “We’ll be there in like thirty.” Then he shoots me that trademark I’m-the-biggest-douchebag-in-the-world smile at me again. “Good news, Lonz. I’ve got a job for you. And my brother Johnny says he’ll pay you handsomely if you could just do us one little family favor.”
“No.”
“Dude. You didn’t hear the favor yet.”
“No.”
Quint walks back up to us, shrugging with his hands. “Sorry. I tried.”
Jesse looks at him for a moment, confused, then back at me. “Listen, Lonz—”
“My name is Alonzo.”
“Right. OK. I can see that we’re not yet on nickname terms, Alonzo. And I didn’t come down here for business, but that was my brother Johnny on the phone and we need you to do us this favor.”
Quint puts a hand up. “What favor?”
Jesse smiles at him, then me. “You remember Johnny’s friend Chek and Chek’s daughter Wendy? They were at the Christmas party at the Bossy.”
I do. But. Not sure I want to admit that. Because I’m pretty sure that Chek dude is some kind of hired killer or something. And no one who ever looks little twelve-year-old Wendy in the eyes ever mistakes her for a kid. There’s just… something wrong with her. It’s like looking at Medusa. Those blue eyes of hers. They’re… creepy. That’s the only way to describe them. Just fucking creepy.
“Anyway. Chek and Wendy are out on a little island about thirty miles southeast of here and need a ride home. I told Johnny we’d be happy to go pick them up.”
“No.”
Jesse pauses, not exactly deflated, but you can just tell he’s recalculating on the fly. “OK. Then... can I borrow your boat?”
“No.”
“Can you call Luke and ask him if I can borrow his boat?”
“No.”
“Does Tony have a boat? He does, right?”
“No.”
“Dude.” Jesse throws up his hands. “Can you just work with me here? Johnny never asks me for favors. This is like a big deal in our brotherly relationship. He’s reaching out for help and if I don’t take his hand and pull him to safety, I’ll never get asked again.”
“No.”
Jesse looks at Quint. “Do you have a boat?”
“No.”
“I’m not talking to you, Lonz.” He snarls my name and I know I’m pushing his buttons. But eh. I kinda like winding Jesse up. He’s always so godd
amn happy. So fucking unaffected. “And hey, if you don’t want to help a brother out, that’s fine. I’ll rent a boat. I’ll go alone. When Emma calls asking where I am, just tell her you let me go on a rescue mission in the middle of the ocean. By myself.”
Quint and I trade looks. This one is like a whole conversation in the span of three seconds.
Quint is saying: He could get hurt.
I’m saying: So?
Quint’s saying: Emma will hold you responsible.
I’m saying: Fuck. Fine.
Then real-life Quint takes over. “OK, Jesse. Where do we need to pick these people up from?”
I turn away before I have to see that stupid grin one more time. But I know it’s there.
He came down here to bond with me?
Right.
Those Boston brothers are as dirty as they come. I know. I can smell the stink of underworld crime a mile away. I’ve been inhaling that scent my whole adult life.
Johnny Boston sent his little brother down here to suck me into their world, and their business, and their secrets.
But I’m not taking this bait.
The Dumas family has their own secrets to protect.
CHAPTER EIGHT - TARA
Later that afternoon Belinda calls me on my cell to ask if I’d like a ride home from work.
“Why?”
“You haven’t been paying attention to the weather reports, have you?”
I walk around the aisle of books I’m currently in and glance up at the window. Snow is coming down in sheets.
When I first got to Colorado I liked the snow. It was fun. I’d grown up in Southern California and so the cold, and the snow, and the fucking sleet, and wind, and rain, and hail—it was all a novelty.
But I’ve been living in it for two years now. The novelty has worn off.
I sigh into the phone. “Sure. I’m done in thirty minutes.”
“Awesome! Vann will be there in his truck.”
“Wait. What? Vann? No—”
“Bye!”
The call drops and I get the hang-up beeps. That sneaky little Belinda. She’s been trying to set me up with Vann Vaughn, the youngest Sick Boyz brother at her tattoo shop, ever since I got to town. But here are all the reasons I will never date Vann Vaughn:
One. He has tattoos. I do not do tattoos. To be clear, I have done tattoos. I have dated lots of men with tattoos. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Phoebe Covington’s type was a man with lots of ink. But those men with tattoos come with things like secret jobs, and secret motives, and police records. In fact, one particular man with tattoos is the whole damn reason I’m stuck here in Colorado pretending to be Tara the sexy librarian instead of Phoebe the sexy private detective.
Two. He’s two years younger than me. Which is twenty-five now, but was twenty-three when Belinda first started trying to hook me up. And no matter how many years go by, I will always see him as a twenty-three-year-old.
Three. He has a pack of brothers at home. I’ve learned my lesson about dating a man with a pack of brothers too. They are loyal like wolves, they always have deep family secrets, and they break all new connections down into two easy-to-classify categories: You are with us, or you are against us.
Plus, Vann has no shortage of women vying for his attention. I’m not into the whole competition thing. He’s a player, plain and simple.
But Belinda loves him. Not as a potential boyfriend, but Vann Vaughn is her BFF while she’s at work. He was just finishing up his apprenticeship in the shop with his older brother Vic when Belinda got hired. He was promoted to full-time artist and she slipped into the vacant entry-level apprentice position at the cash register.
But—the snow is really coming down now. So I’m not going to turn down a ride.
I wait in the lobby until I see his giant black Ford truck pull up. It’s one of those trucks with the lift kit for rock-crawling, or mudding, or whatever the hell tattooed bad boys do with giant trucks like that. It’s tall. There’s no chance we will get stuck in the snow together on the way home.
But that also means you actually have to like… climb up into it to get inside.
Vann smiles at me from the driver’s side when I open the door. He’s easy to look at. Very handsome. All those Vaughn men are. Short blond hair, little bit of facial scruff, a casual burnt-orange hoodie with the Sick Boyz logo on the front. Faded jeans with a few artfully placed tatters. Big brown work boots with round steel toes. Shiny, mirrored sunglasses and a smile so bright, his teeth could be snow.
Everything about Vann Vaughn screams ‘I snowboard in Vail.’
He offers me his hand. “Need some help up?”
I take it because there’s no way I can get inside this fucking truck in a pencil skirt without help.
His hand is warm and big. And he pulls me up in one smooth tug that actually doesn’t make me look like a fool. But I catch him smirking at my useless knee-high boots before I close the door and he revs the engine. “Where to, Tara?”
“Home. Where else?”
“Oh, I thought you wanted to grab something to eat.”
“Fucking Belinda.”
He chuckles as he pulls away from the curb. “Don’t worry. I’m not into you like that.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t get offended now, Tare. I know Belinda is trying to hook us up. But I’m way too young to settle. I have to play the field. It’s practically the law when you’re born with my charming good looks. Besides, if I were going to settle, I’d probably settle with Belinda.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “Oh, God.” Because he is delusional if he thinks Belinda is into him like that.
“But you are hungry, right? Because I only agreed to pick you up because I wanted someone to eat with.”
“Charming good looks, huh?”
“Or I can cook for you.”
“Where? That deathtrap family mansion you live in?”
“Hey, our house is fucking amazing. And it’s not as death-trappy as it was a few years ago. We came into a windfall of money and started fixing it up.”
“La-la-la-la!” I plug my ears. “I do not want to hear how you fell into a windfall of money. That’s TMI, Vann.”
See, this is my point. Big families filled with boys always come with secrets. However the Vaughn family fell into this fix-up money, it probably wasn’t legal. They are tattooed-up bad boys. This conclusion is a no-brainer.
“Anyway, it’s good enough for Belinda.”
She lives above their garage. And no, it’s not good enough for Belinda. That apartment—if you can call it an apartment—doesn’t even have heat. It’s got a hundred-year-old wood stove and a sketchy space heater. Belinda wears clothes to bed. One day last winter the heat went out in my apartment and I had to stay with her for two days and I froze my ass off. And we had to go down to the wood pile in the back of the house to get fuel every three hours. It was awful.
“How about Anna Ameci’s?”
“Huh?”
“You like Italian?”
“You’re really taking me out to dinner?”
“I never said I was paying.”
“Vann, take me home.”
“No. I’m hungry.”
“Go to dinner with Belinda.”
“She’s working.”
“Well, go grab one of those many girlfriends you’re stringing along and take them.”
“No, they require effort.”
“And I don’t?”
“Not really.” He laughs and pulls up in front of Anna Ameci’s.
“I’ll walk home. You have a nice dinner.”
But he grabs my arm before I can get out. “Come on. You’re already here. I’ll pay. And I’ll drive you home when we’re done.”
“Why do you want to have dinner with me?”
He lifts his sunglasses up to his forehead, sucks in a deep breath, and holds it for a second. But his blue eyes are dancing behind his infamous Vaughn grin. “I heard a rumor about you last
week.”
“What?” I frown and furrow my brow. “What kind of rumor?”
He pauses, his grin never faltering. “One that involves the FBI.”
I have to play that last sentence over and over in my head a few times. And by the time the reality of his words finally sink in, he’s already out of the truck. I watch him walk around to my side and open my door. He offers me his hand again. “Come eat with me, Tara. I think we have a lot to talk about.”
Once we get inside the restaurant, I lose my ability to hear. Or… no. I can hear. It’s just the sound of blood rushing through my head pretty much drowns out everything else.
Does Vann know who I am? Why I’m here? What the fuck is happening right now?
Vann greets the hostess at the front of the restaurant by name. “Hey, Soshee. What’s up, sweetheart?”
“Fuck you, Vann.” The very beautiful girl with luxurious, long red hair and blazing eyes to match directs her attention to me. “You two together then?”
My mind is still pretty much back in the truck, stuck on the letters FBI, so it takes me a second to figure out this girl is some jilted ex of Vann’s and she’s pissed off because she thinks he and I are… what? Dating?
But because I’m slow on the uptake, Vann answers for me. “Yup. Table for two.”
Soshee scowls, grabs two menus from the hostess station, and thrusts them at Vann’s chest. “Table seventeen. Seat yourself, dickface.”
Well, she’s delightful.
Vann accepts the menus, smiles at this girl like she’s not immune to his charm, and pans his hand towards the left-side dining room. “After you, Tara.”
I have no clue where table seventeen is but I walk forward anyway. The blood rushing through my head makes the room filled with restaurant noise sound like it’s underwater. But Vann is a hands-y kind of guy, and he directs me to a table with two fingers strategically placed in the small of my back.
I snap back to the present and swat him away.
He stops at a table near the window and waits for me to sit. I’m on autopilot, so I do sit. And then he’s across from me, there’s a waitress there—also someone he knows by name—and he’s ordering wine.
