“What’ll it be?” said the bartender. He wore an old-fashioned white apron that suited the Old World ambience of the place. Soft music piping from the speakers settled over the few patrons.
Kate pursed her lips. “Grey Goose, twist of lime, three cubes of ice.”
“Nice. I like a woman who drinks like a man.” The voice came from her left. She glanced over at the guy.
“I wasn’t aware vodka was a man’s drink,” she responded with a lift of one eyebrow, a move she’d perfected in junior high school.
“Touché,” he said, sliding a predatory smile her way. He looked good. Toothy grin, disheveled brown hair, five o’clock stubble designed to make him doubly irresistible. Any other time and Kate might bite.
But not tonight.
She gave him a flashbulb smile and turned ever so slightly to her right.
Stay away, buddy.
But he was like any other man—couldn’t read a woman’s body language.
She felt him scoot closer.
The bartender set the glass in front of her. Without hesitating, she picked it up and downed the vodka in one swallow. It felt good sliding down her throat, burning a path to her stomach.
“And you drink like a man, too,” her unwanted companion said.
Kate turned toward him, not bothering to toss him a smile this time. “How do you know I’m not a man? We’re in Vegas.”
His eyes raked her body. “I can see you’re not a man.”
Kate narrowed her eyes. “Good vision, huh? Well, don’t trust your eyes. Don’t trust anybody, for that matter.”
She didn’t say anything else, just turned from him and studied the way the light illuminated the bottles lining the mirrored bar. It made their contents glow, made them seductive.
Bars of “Sweet Caroline” erupted from her purse and she rifled through it until she found her cell phone. A quick glance at the screen and she knew her friend Billie had finally got around to returning her earlier call. Finally. She could seriously use a sympathetic shoulder. And not of the rumpled, sexy, “can I buy you a drink” variety.
She punched the answer button on her iPhone. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Oh, my God, I’m like
so
having an emergency here.” Billie’s normally sarcastic tone sounded like neurotic chicken. A whispery neurotic chicken.
“What’s going on?”
“He freakin’ proposed!”
“Nick?” Kate asked, picking up the fresh drink in front of her.
“No, the Easter Bunny,” Billie huffed into the phone. “I’m in the bathroom. Oh, God. I don’t know what to say…I think I’m hyperventilating.”
Kate pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. Where was her calm, self-assured friend? The one she needed now that her business was doomed? “Okay, first thing, head between your knees.”
“The toilet area’s not real clean. I’m gonna stand.”
Kate wanted to scream that she’d lost everything today and didn’t need to hear about Nick and his damned proposal. But she didn’t. Instead she said, “Okay.”
“Kate, he has a ring and everything. He actually got down on one knee.” Billie’s voice now sounded shell-shocked. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Kate picked up the vodka and tossed it back. It felt as good going down as the first one. “So you said…”
“I said I had to go pee,” Billie whispered.
Kate couldn’t help it. She laughed.
“Don’t you dare laugh, Kate Newman!” Billie snapped. “This is not funny.”
Kate sobered. Well, kinda sobered. The vodka was working its magic. “You’re right. It’s not funny. It’s sweet.”
“You can’t be serious,” Billie whispered. “He’s talking marriage.
Marriage,
Kate!”
Kate heard something muffled in the background, then Billie’s quick intake of breath. Then she heard Billie call, presumably to Nick, that she’d be right out.
“Okay, stop chewing your hair.”
“What?”
“Do you love him?” Kate asked.
“Yes. I totally love him,” Billie whispered.
“Then say yes.”
“Are you joking?” Billie said. “Did you just tell me to say yes? You don’t believe in marriage.”
It was true, she didn’t—well, at least not for herself. Love was fairy-tale bullshit. She shouldn’t be giving relationship advice to a dead cockroach, much less a living, breathing friend. “I don’t. But you do.”
The line remained silent.
“Can you imagine waking up with him every morning even when he’s old and wrinkly and…impotent? Can you imagine watching your grandchildren together? Filing joint taxes? Painting a nursery?” Kate couldn’t seem to stop the scenarios tumbling from her lips. “How about picking out china patterns or cleaning up your kids’ vomit—”
“Okay. I get it. Yes,” Billie said.
“Then hang up, open the door and take that ring.”
Kate punched the end button and tossed the phone on the bar. If Billie was so stupid as to reject a man who loved her despite her seriously weird attributes, then she deserved to stay locked in Nick’s bathroom. With pee on the floor.
When she looked up, the bartender and her previously pushy friend stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Well, she had. And her business along with it. And now Billie wasn’t even available to her. Kate was on her own.
Like always.
Before she’d hit the ATM machine several hours earlier, she’d contemplated borrowing the money she needed from Billie. As a successful glass artist with international acclaim, her friend had steady cash flow even in a bad economy. But Kate never asked for help. And to do so now, with a friend, felt not cool. With a possible wedding on the horizon for Billie, ten thousand would be hard to spare. Besides, if she were going to borrow money, it would be from her absolute best friend who lived in Texas and was loaded to the gills with old oil money. But Kate had never asked Nellie to help her before, not even when Kate had dropped out of college her freshman year to go to beauty school and spent three months eating bologna and ramen noodles.
She couldn’t bring herself to do it. Kate had always relied on herself to make it through whatever problem arose, and this was no different.
But what
would
she do? There was no way the salon could generate extra income in the coming months. It was post-Christmas and debt squashed unnecessary services for regular customers. Many spas had closed their doors and many friends had gone from esthetician to cocktail waitress in the past few months.
The bartender finally moseyed toward her. He eyed her a moment before asking, “You want another?”
Kate waved her hand over the empty tumbler. “No thanks. If I have any more, I might go home with Pushy over there.”
“In that case, I’d like to buy her another drink,” the bed-rumpled hunk deadpanned.
Kate laughed. What else could she do? Her life was falling apart and someone wanted to pick her up. Just not in the way she needed.
She turned to the guy. He stared back, amusement in his brown eyes. She almost rethought her position on taking him up on his not stated, but obviously intended offer. “Listen, you don’t want to deal with me tonight. It’s been a hell of a day, and I just lost eight hundred dollars at the blackjack table. Unless you’ve got ten thousand dollars in your pocket, there isn’t much else I want out of those pants.”
The bartender laughed. “She’s got you there, partner.”
The hunk joined in on the laughter. “Not only sexy, but a smart-ass mouth. Damn, if I don’t want to take you home right now.”
“How much are you worth?” Kate asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Not nearly enough.” He slid his own empty glass toward the bartender. “But I figure I can at least afford to buy you another drink.”
Kate smiled. “Well, I’m gonna pass. It’s almost midnight and that’s when my car turns into a pumpkin.”
She rummaged through her bag, found her matching Prada wallet, flipped it open and tossed her credit card onto the counter. As she snapped her wallet closed a small, yellowed piece of paper caught her eye. She’d carried it with her for years and years.
She pulled it from the pocket in which it had been nestled. Written in her grandmother’s shaky handwriting before she’d died was a name. It hadn’t mattered that Kate already knew the truth about him. That nearly everybody in her hometown had known the truth about the man. Her grandmother insisted on putting it in writing. Like that mattered. Justus Mitchell.
The name of her biological father.
The man who refused to claim her.
The man she hated.
She fingered the timeworn edges of the paper. Justus Mitchell had once been the richest man in East Texas. His lands had stretched as far as the eye could see and his oil money went as deep as the earth that sheltered the precious commodity. The man was rich, powerful and politically connected. In his heyday, he’d owned everyone from cocktail waitresses to governors. He still held influence, or had the last time she’d checked. But even the powerful were vulnerable to hidden truths. Look what illegitimate children and mistresses had done to politicians.
Kate had morals. She had character. But she wasn’t beyond blackmail in order to save her salon. And a low-down snake like Justus had mounds of money sitting in the bank.
So…if she needed money, he might as well provide what he’d refused to give her so many years ago. Child support.
He owed her. She’d feel no guilt because Justus wasn’t a victim.
And neither was she.
“So how are things progressing, Enrique?”
Rick set the bill for the sprinkler system on the Ping-Pong table and moved toward the older man. Only Justus called him Enrique. “No problems yet.”
“You know, I’ve launched many ventures over the years, but none of them have been as important as this one. This one is for Ryan.” His chin jutted forward emphatically, as if Rick could forget how intricately involved Justus’s son had been in the initial idea of Phoenix, the Hispanic gang rehabilitation center. Ryan had given it the name, believing that, like Rick, others could rise from the ashes and become new again.
Rick looked at the old white man staring at him with violet-blue eyes. They were Ryan’s eyes…yet different. At that moment, Rick missed Ryan as keenly as he ever had.
“I haven’t forgotten, but I’m not doing this because of Ryan. This center isn’t a memorial. It’s vital. And working with gang members isn’t going to be easy. Theirs is a different world.” Rick unconsciously rubbed a hand across the tattoos on his chest before catching himself. “There will be resistance in the gang community, resistance that might not be pleasant.”
“We can deal with thugs. You of all people should know that.”
Rick raised an eyebrow. Justus shifted his gaze away, a small measure of retreat. Old Man Mitchell knew better than to remind him of who he’d been. “You’ll have to trust me. I can do this.”
“I want to be involved.”
Rick tamped down his anger. “You are involved.”
Justus snorted. “I’m only the bank.”
“Si,”
he said, just to remind Justus of how different they still were. “That has been your role since the beginning, and it is a most worthy role. You can’t relate to the men who will come here. I can. I know the path they’ve walked. I know the pain and regret.”
Justus didn’t flinch. “I know regret, too.”
Rick nodded. “I know, but that doesn’t change the fact that the men who come here will have almost nothing in common with you. Other than wanting to shake free from the life they now lead.”
“Fine. I didn’t come here to oversee you.”
Rick felt a moment’s relief, then a prickling arose on his neck. Justus wanted something.
“I have a request. It’s quite, ahem, delicate.”
Rick crossed his arms. He didn’t need this now. Justus had employed Rick when he’d first come to live at Cottonwood and since then he’d done many things for the man before him. Nothing illegal, but some of those tasks made him feel uncomfortable in his skin. Of course that had been before Ryan died. Before Justus’s stroke. Before he had changed. Before Rick had tired of being Justus Mitchell’s lackey. Yet, Rick owed Justus more than he liked to admit.
And he owed the man’s late son.
If it hadn’t been for Ryan, Rick would not be the man he was today. Ryan’s death had bound him to the Mitchells with invisible ties that would never be severed.
“What?”
Justus’s eyes closed for a moment, before opening and piercing him with their intensity. “I have a daughter.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Si,”
he said to be annoying. Satisfaction flashed across his face before he continued, “No one knows about her. Well, rather, they don’t talk about her.”
“Why?”
The old man rolled a bit closer, banging into the foos-ball table and causing the little soccer men to spin. The low pendant light cast a gray pall on his pasty skin. “Her mother was a waitress over in Oak Stand. I’d been with her five or six times, but there could have been others. She didn’t seem the choosy type. The child could have been mine, or not. I never bothered to find out.”
“Then why worry about her now?” Rick eased himself onto the corner of the new pool table. The green felt was stiff beneath his fingers—very different from the one at the deli in the barrio where he’d won money off leathery broken men. He’d been a ten-year-old hustler with the instincts of a shark.
“Because of this.” Justus’s eyes shifted to the tray on the motorized wheelchair. The debilitating stroke had caused him to lose mobility in his right arm. His left arm was weak, but he could use it.
Rick picked up the folded paper. The heaviness of the paper spoke much about the sender of the letter. This woman meant business.
He unfolded it and read silently while the old man watched him. The note was brief and to the point. The woman wanted money to keep quiet.
“Well?” Rick said, refolding the paper. “You want me to kill her?”
Justus laughed at his jest. It was a running joke between them. Justus didn’t need a Hispanic jack-of-all-trades to take out his competition. The old man could crush whomever got in his way. Money was his weapon, always had been, and Rick knew the power of that particular sword.
“No, I want you to bring her to me.”
Rick stiffened. He didn’t have time to play nursemaid to some upstart claim to the Mitchell fortune. He had a center to open. The rehabilitation center was the promise Justus had made him the year after Ryan died, and starting next week, Rick would be attempting the near impossible—bringing gang members from the streets of Dallas to the countryside of East Texas for a chance to change their live’s direction. It was a bold undertaking, but Rick wanted to give others what had been given to him. A second chance.
“I can’t. I’m no longer employed by you. My focus is on the center.”
“I can’t trust anyone else.” The old man rolled even closer. So close Rick could smell his Aramis cologne, see the deep grooves around his shocking blue eyes. “Please.”
“I have to focus on Phoenix.”
“You must do this for me, Enrique. This is all I shall ask. One last favor and I will sign the land over to the foundation. Think about it. The center would be secure.”
Rick felt his heart pound. Mitchell did not part with much in life. The center was funded through Ryan’s foundation. They’d received some federal money, but much of it came through the foundation. Justus was now offering something more. “All for finding this woman and bringing her to you?”
The old man smiled. White veneers flashed, a gold crown winked. “Finding the girl won’t be hard. She used a post office box. Probably thought I hadn’t kept tabs on her, but, of course, I always have.”
Rick glanced at the folded note in his hand. It had not been signed. Just a post office box number given. The girl lived in Las Vegas. “Of course you would. You always know your enemies.”
Something flashed again in Justus’s eyes. It was an emotion Rick had seen before in those blue depths, and he knew it well. Regret stared at him in his mirror each and every morning.
“She’s not an enemy. There is much of me in this girl. She’s determined.”
“And underhanded,” Rick said. “How can you admire a girl who would threaten to ruin you unless you give her money?”
“It’s not so different than what I would have done once. She’s got her back against a wall. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard from her. Besides, there’s not much left to ruin, is there? Other than the money, of course.” The smile Justus gave reminded Rick of a clown in a fun house. He supposed the atrophy on the man’s right side was to blame, but still, he couldn’t help the prickles that crept along his skin.
The only sound in the room was the hum of the restored soda machine in the corner. Rick wasn’t sure he wanted to tangle with this woman, but the allure of owning the hilly land surrounding the center won over the doubt embedded in his gut.
He’d started trusting Justus Mitchell long ago and hadn’t regretted it yet. The man had been ruthless, conniving and dangerous, but the day Ryan died had changed everything about Justus.
Nothing defeated a man like the death of his son. And nothing gave a man purpose like finishing the job his dead son had started. Justus had lost Ryan but found Jesus, and he’d declared himself transformed. From that day on, he had tried to perpetuate Ryan’s legacy of seeing value in helping others.
“Fine. I’ll go to Vegas, but it has to be tomorrow. The center opens next week and I’ve got five guys coming. That’s more important than this girl.”
Justus frowned but didn’t disagree. “Good. I’ll arrange for the flight. She’s expecting me to send the money with no questions, but she’ll have to give me more than some contrived claim. When you show up, we’ll see how serious she is about this venture. The girl will dance to my tune if she wants something from me.”
“Don’t we all?” Rick said.
A laugh blasted past Justus’s lips. “You learned long ago, didn’t you? I’m a hard man, there’s little doubt of that, Enrique, but I have a heart somewhere in here. I think.” The old man moved his left hand jerkily toward his shrunken chest.
Rick nodded. “What’s her name?”
“Kate Newman.”
“She’s gonna be trouble,” Rick said, slipping off the pool table.
“All women are.”