Authors: Rachel Gibson
She took it and followed after him because what else was she going to do. He was acting like he had a right to be angry. “If I lag behind, are you going to hog-tie me?”
“It’s a possibility. Hog-tying is just part of my skill set when it comes to suppressing rebellion.”
She glanced about the terrain and the lightning bugs. She smiled at the flits of light that had virtually disappeared after Katrina. But they were back now. Like a lot of New Orleans. Her smile fell when her gaze landed on the outline of the big man in front of her. “Where are we going?”
“Right here.” He shined his flashlight on a tree. A live oak tree. “You first.”
Apprehension tightened her chest. “You want me to climb this tree? In the dark?” She hadn’t been at this spot in twenty-two years, but she knew this tree.
“I’ll catch you if you fall.”
“Kasper.”
“I spent all day putting new steps on the tree,” he said, sounding more tired than before. “Now get your ass up there.”
She had a feeling that if she didn’t climb, he’d throw her over his shoulder and go all Tarzan on her. With her rubber boots on her feet and the flashlight between her teeth, she climbed. Up she went, until she came to the platform that had once been Kasper’s childhood fort. In the middle of the floor sat a battery-powered lantern. Like twenty-two years before, she felt a big hand on her butt, pushing her up. Kasper followed and stood in front of her, staring down into her face. By the light of the lantern, she could see he was frowning. His brows pulled together in one dark line. “Are you drunk?”
“No.” She was buzzed.
He stared at her for several long moments, then said, “You didn’t ask why?”
“What?”
“Today, in your office, you didn’t ask me why I left early all those years ago.”
She thought the answer was obvious, but since it seemed important to him, she asked, “Why? Why did you leave Kasper?”
“Because I wanted to stay,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “And that scared the hell out of me. For most of my life, I’d wanted to be a scout sniper. I’d dreamed of it as I’d picked off squirrels as a kid. I worked hard to get into sniper school, and I worked hard to earn my Hog’s Tooth. The future I wanted for myself was set. I was on my way up; and then I met you.” He folded his arms across a clean white T-shirt and looked off into the darkness. “I’d just moved up in rank and was part of the elite forces that I’d always dreamed about. I joined when I was eighteen and planned to serve my whole twenty. Then I met you, and for the first time, I thought about getting out in four years. I was standing at the door of my future, and that scared the shit out of me.” He laughed without humor. “I mean, who finds the love of their life at a crawdad feed at the age of twenty-one? That’s just ridiculous.”
“Kasper.” She dropped her flashlight to the floor. It bounced and fell to the ground.
“Who looks through a bunch of steam boiling out of a pot and falls in love with a girl he’s never met?”
Tears stung the backs of her eyes as her heart totally melted. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. “Kasper.”
“I love you, Blue.” He buried his face in the top of her hair. “I’m sorry I was a coward all those years ago. If you give me the chance, I’ll show you that I’m not the man at forty- three that I was at twenty-one. Hell, I am not even the man I was a week ago.” He pulled back and cupped her face. “I look at you, and I see something I haven’t seen in a very long time. I see a woman I love. I look at you, and I see a future. When I look at you, I see something I’ve never seen before. I see forever.”
“With a Toussaint?”
“With you.”
She smiled. “I love you, Kasper.”
“Are you sure that’s not your Purple Jesus talking?”
She shook her head and laughed. “No. I love you, and I’m sure generations of Penningtons and Toussaints are rolling in their graves.”
He pointed his flashlight at a limb in the tree. “Not Abigail and Thomas.”
Beneath the old initials, someone had carved a new set. A set much lighter than the first. K. H. P loves B. D. L. B.
“Twenty-two years too late,” he said.
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s perfect.” Except he’d transposed two of her initials. But after twenty-two years, the fact that he’d recalled all her names, no matter what order, was impressive.
“When you see our future, what does it look like?” What was she going to tell Billy? Would he be okay? Maybe they should all go to Hawaii. She’d always wanted to go to Hawaii.
“Kids.”
“What?” Kids? She’d been thinking of vacation destinations. She looked down, and her hands covered her stomach over her white nightgown. “I’m forty.”
“Young enough to have a passel of kids.” He laughed at her shock.
“A passel? I already have a teenager!”
“Well, we’ll have to talk to him about that. But I think we need some Toussaint-Pennington babies running around.”
She was forty. “What if it isn’t possible?”
He pushed her hair from her face and looked at her for several heartbeats. “You love me. I didn’t think that was possible. Now, anything is possible. I want to spend my life loving you and you loving me. You’re it for me, Blue. You’re all I need. Anything else is lagniappe.”
A nice surprise, like finding love again after twenty-two years. A gift, like finding love with a man who loved like Kasper Pennington.
New York Times
bestselling author
RACHEL GIBSON
returns with another deliciously sexy Marine in her latest novel
Available September 24 from Avon Books!
Read on for an excerpt . . .
“Her name is
Estella Immaculata Leon-Hollowell and she lives in Miami.”
Vince Haven handed his good buddy, Blake Junger, a cold Lone Star, then took a seat behind his battered desk at the Gas and Go. “That’s some name.”
Blake took a drink and sat across from Vince. “According to Beau, she goes by Stella Leon.”
Vince and Blake went back a long way. Blake had graduated BUD/S a year before Vince and they’d been deployed at the same time in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Vince had been forced to retire for medical reasons, Blake had served his full twenty.
Vince opened the folder on his desk and scanned the information that Blake’s twin brother, Beau, had compiled for him. Beau had his own personal security business and had his fingers in a lot of different pies. He was one stealth dude and knew how to gather information that your average Joe couldn’t access. He could also be trusted to keep all information strictly confidential.
Vince looked at a copy of a birth certificate, and there it was in black and white. His fiancée, Sadie Hollowell, had a sister she hadn’t even known about until her father’s death, two months ago. A twenty-eight-year-old sister born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The mother and father listed: Marisol Jacinta Leon and Clive J. Hollowell.
“So, we think she knows Clive is dead.” He moved the birth certificate aside to look over a color copy of a Florida driver’s license.
“Yeah. She’s been told. Told and didn’t care.”
That was cold but understandable. According to her license, Stella Leon was five feet, one inch and weighted one-fifteen. Which, knowing women as he did, Vince figured meant she was probably closer to one-twenty. She had black hair and blue eyes. He stared at the photo on the license, at the startling blue of her eyes set beneath dark brows. She was an exotic mix of dark and light. Hot and cool. Except for the color of her eyes, she looked nothing like Sadie, who resembled her blond beauty queen mother.
“She works as a . . .” He squinted and put his face closer to the paper to read Beau’s handwritten scribbles. “. . . bartender at someplace called Ricky’s. Her former careers include lead singer in a band, waitress, cashier, sales, and selling photographs to tourists.” He sat back. “Busy girl.” Especially since she didn’t have to be. She had a big trust fund she drew money out of every month. He read further. Stella Leon had a police record for minor offenses and had lost a small claims lawsuit filed against her by a former landlord.
Vince closed the folder and reached for his beer. He’d give the file to Sadie and let her make the next move. Get in touch with her long-lost sister or just let it go. Sometimes it was best not to tear off a scab. “What’s your brother up to these days?” He took a drink, then added, “Besides ferreting out information.”
“Usual shit.” Blake and Beau were the sons of a former Navy SEAL, William T. Junger. Beau was the older of the two by five minutes, and while Blake had followed in his father’s footsteps, Beau had chosen the Marine Corps. “Running his businesses and trying to stay out of trouble.”
“Remember when we met up with Beau in Rome?” Whenever the twins drank too much, they always argued over who had the tougher training program, the Navy SEALs or the RECON Marines. Being a former Navy SEAL himself, Vince had his opinion, but he wouldn’t want to have to prove it to Beau Junger.
“Barely. We were piss drunk.”
“And got into a fistfight on the train.” The brothers’ arguments were notorious for being loud, relentless, and sometimes physical. If that happened, it was best just to get out of the way because as Vince had learned, if a guy tried to break up the fight, the Junger boys turned on the peacekeeper. They were two contentious peas from the same pod. Almost identical in every way. Two blond-haired all-American warriors. Iron-souled patriots who’d seen and done a lot and didn’t know the word “quit.” Vince took another drink. The kind of men a guy wanted at his side in a battle.
Blake laughed and leaned forward. “But get this, he says he’s saving himself for marriage.”
Vince choked on his beer. “What?” He wiped drops of beer from his chin. “You mean no sex?”
Blake shrugged one of his big shoulders. “Yeah.”
“He’s not a virgin.” There were those who said that Vince had had a thing for easy women. Before he met Sadie, those people would have been right, but no one enjoyed down-with-it girls more than the Junger boys. There was even a wild rumor that the boys had hooked up with a pair of twins they’d met in Taiwan.
“Yeah, I pointed out to him that that particular horse had already left the barn, but he says he’s going to remain celibate until he gets married.”
“Does he have a woman in mind?”
“No.”
“Had some sort of religious conversion?”
“No. He just said the last time he woke up with a woman he didn’t know was the last time.”
Vince understood that now. Since he’d fallen in love and all that good shit, he understood the difference between sex and sex with a woman he loved. Knew that with the one, the other was better. Knew that it became more than just an act. A need. More than just a physical release, but celibate? “He won’t last,” Vince predicted.
Blake raised the bottle to his lips. “He seems serious, and the good Lord knows once Beau gets something in his head, he’s immovable.”
Both the Junger boys were immovable. Loyal and stubborn to the core. Which made them good soldiers.
“He says it’s been eight months.”
“Eight
months
? And he hasn’t gone bat-shit sideways?”
Blake set the empty bottle on the desk. “Some people think he was born bat-shit sideways.” He chuckled and flashed the megawatt Junger grin that reached the corners of his eyes. “Me too.” He pointed to the folder. “What are you going to do with that information?”
Vince didn’t know. He’d have to talk it over with Sadie. Ultimately, it was her call on whether she wanted to contact her long-lost half sister. “Is this Beau’s cell number?” He flipped open the file and pointed to the numbers scratched at the bottom of one of the pages.
“Yeah. He has several. Several cell numbers. Several business addresses and a secret lair near Vegas.” Blake leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. His brows lowered as if an unpleasant memory slid behind his gray eyes. There were guys who thought the Junger brother had spooky eyes. Vince would say they were more hard, like steel, rather than spooky. The good Lord knew they all had hard memories, but just as quickly Blake’s expression changed. He flashed his notorious grin, but this time it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So, when are you marrying that hot blonde of yours?”
Back Door Betty
Night at Ricky’s Rock ’N’ Roll Saloon was always the second Thursday of the month. Back Door Betty Night was all about freedom of expression. A pageant of diversity that lured drag queens in from Key West to Biloxi. Lady Gay Gay and Him Kardashian competed for the Back Door crown with the likes of Devine Boxx and Anita Mann. The Back Door crown was one of the more prestigious crowns on the pageant circuit and the competition was always
fierce
.
Back Door Betty Night also meant the bartenders and cocktail waitresses had to dress accordingly and show more skin than usual. In Miami, where short and tight ruled the night, that meant practically naked.
“Lemon!” Stella Leon hollered over Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger” yowling from the bar’s speakers. On stage, Kreme Delight did her best impersonation of a shimmering, leather-clad dominatrix. That was the thing about drag queens. They loved sparkles and glitter and girl-power songs. They were more girl than most girls, and loved girl drinks like appletinis and White Russians, but at the same time, they were men. Men didn’t tend to order blender drinks. Stella, like most bartenders, hated making blender drinks. They took time and time was money.
“Lemon,” a male bartender dressed in tiny white shorts and shimmer hollered back.
The Amy Winehouse bouffant pinned on the top of Stella’s head stayed securely anchored as she raised a hand and caught the yellow fruit hurled at her. Around the base of the bouffant fastened to her head, she’d tied a red scarf to cover the many bobby pins holding it in place. On a normal night, her long hair was pulled up off her neck, but tonight she’d left it down and was hot as hell.
She sliced and squeezed and shook cocktail shakers two at a time. Her breasts jiggled inside her leopard-print bustier, but she wasn’t worried about a wardrobe malfunction. The bustier was tight and she wasn’t a very busty girl. If anything, she feared the bottom curves of her butt might show beneath her black leather booty shorts and invite comment. Or worse, a slap. Not that that was a huge fear tonight. Tonight the males in the bar weren’t interested in
her
ass cheeks. The only person she had to worry about touching her butt was the owner himself. Everyone said Ricky was just “friendly.” Yeah, a friendly pervert with fast hands. They also said he had mafia connections. She didn’t know if that was true, but he did have “associates” with names like Lefty Lou, Fat Fabian, and Cockeyed Phil. She definitely remained on high alert when Ricky was around. Lucky for her, he didn’t usually show up until a few hours before closing, and Stella was usually long gone by three
A.M.
She wasn’t the kind of person to hang out after her shift ended. She wasn’t a big drinker, and if she had to be around drunks, she wanted to get paid.
“Stella!”
Stella glanced up from the martinis she set on a tray and smiled. “Anna!” Anna Conda was six feet of statuesque queen all wrapped up in reptilian pleather. Over the past few years, Stella had gotten to know several of the queens fairly well. As with everything in life, some of them she liked. Others, not so much. She genuinely liked Anna, but Anna was moody as hell. Her moods usually depended on her latest boyfriend. “What can I get you?”
“Snake Nuts, of course.” The tips of her shiny green lips lilted upward. If it wasn’t for Anna’s deep voice and big Adam’s apple, she might have been pretty enough to pass for a woman. “Put an umbrella in it, honey.” Applause broke out as Kreme exited the stage, and Anna turned toward the crowd. “Have you seen Jimmy?”
Jimmy was Anna’s leather daddy, although neither was exclusive. Stella grabbed a bottle of vodka, amaretto, and triple sec. “Not yet.” She scooped ice into a shaker and added the alcohol and an ounce of lime juice. “He’ll probably wander in.” Stella glanced at the clock. It was after midnight. One more hour of competition before this month’s Back Door Betty was crowned. While the stage was set for the next contestant, a mixed murmur of male voices filled the void left by the music. Besides the employees, few true females filled the bar. Although Back Door Betty Night tended to get loud, it never rose to the same level as a bar packed with real women.
Anna turned back toward Stella. “Your Amy eyeliner looks good.”
Stella shook the cocktail, then poured it into a lowball glass. “Thanks. Ivana Cox did it for me.” Stella was fairly competent when it came to makeup, but Amy Winehouse eyeliner was beyond her capabilities.
“Ivana’s here? I hate that bitch,” Anna said without rancor.
Last month she’d loved Ivana. Of course, that had been after more than a few Snake Nuts. “She did my eyebrows, too. With a thread.” Stella grabbed a straw and a little pink umbrella and stuck them into the drink.
“Hallelujah. Thank God someone finally got rid of that unibrow.” Anna pointed one green fingernail between Stella’s eyes.
“It was painful.”
Anna’s hand fell to the bar and she said in her deep baritone voice, “Honey, until you tuck your banana in your ass crack, don’t talk to me about pain.”
Stella grimaced and handed Anna her drink. She didn’t have a banana, but she did have an ass crack and she was positive she’d never purposely tuck anything in it. “Do you have an open tab?” She did wear thong underwear, but the string of a thong was nowhere near the size of a banana.
“Yeah.”
Stella added the drink to Anna’s already impressive bill. “Are you performing tonight?”
“Later. Are you?”
Stella shook her head then looked at the next drink order. House wine and a bottle of Bud. Easy. Sometimes, on a slow night, she took the stage and belted out a few songs. She used to sing in an all-girl band, Random Muse, but the band broke up when the drummer slept with the bass guitarist’s boyfriend and the two girls duked it out on stage at the Kandy Kane Lounge in Orlando. Stranding her in Florida several years ago. She liked Florida and ended up staying.
She grabbed a bottle of white wine and poured it into a glass. Stella had never understood why women fought over a man. Or hit each other at all. High on her list of things never to do, right above tucking anything the size of a banana in her ass crack, was getting punched in the head. Call her a baby, but she didn’t like pain.
“Break me off a piece of that.”
Without looking up and with little interest, Stella asked, “Of what?”
“Of that guy who just came in. Standing next to the Elvis jumpsuit.”
Stella glanced through the dimly lit bar to the white suit behind Plexiglas bolted to the wall across from her. Ricky claimed the suit had once belonged to Elvis, but Stella wouldn’t be surprised to discover it was as big a fake as the signed Stevie Ray Vaughn Stratocaster above the bar. “The guy in the baseball cap?”
“Yeah. He reminds me of that G.I. Joe guy.”
Stella reached into the refrigerator beneath the bar and grabbed a bottle of Bud Light. “What G.I. Joe guy?”
Anna turned back to Stella, and the light above the bar caught in the green glitter in her lashes. “The one in the movie. What’s his name . . . ?” Anna raised a hand and snapped her fingers, careful not to snap off her green snakeskin nails. “Tatum . . . something.”
“O’Neal?”
“That’s a female.” She sighed as if Stella was hopeless. “He was also in my all-time favorite movie,
Magic Mike
.”
Stella frowned and grabbed a chilled glass. Of course Anna loved
Magic Mike
.
“I wanna bite him. He’s yummy.”
Stella glanced at the orders on the screen in front of her. She liked Anna, but the queen was a distraction. Distraction slowed her down. The bar was hopping, and slowing down cost money. “Magic Mike?”
“The guy next to the Elvis suit.” A frown tugged at the corners of Anna’s shiny green lips. “Military. I can tell just by the way he’s leaning against the wall.”
Stella removed the bottle cap and set it and the glass next to the wine on a tray. A waitress dressed as a zombie Hello Kitty whisked the tray away. Out of all the men in the bar, Stella wondered how Anna noticed the guy standing across the bar. He was dressed in black and blended into the shadows.
“He’s straight. A real hard-ass,” Anna answered as if she’d read Stella’s mind. “And so on edge he’s about to explode.”
“You can tell all that from here?” Stella could hardly make out his outline as he leaned one shoulder into the lighter wood of the wall. She wouldn’t have noticed him at all if Anna hadn’t pointed him out. Just one more unsuspecting tourist who’d wandered in off the street. They didn’t usually stay long once they figured out they were surrounded by queens and every other flavor of the rainbow.
Anna raised a hand and made a circle with her big palm. “It’s in his aura. Straight. Hard-ass. Hot sexual repression.” Her lips pursed around the straw and she took a sip of her drink. “Mmm.”
Stella didn’t believe in auras or any of the woo-woo psychic stuff. Her mother believed enough for both of them and her grandmother was a staunch woo-woo follower. Abuela was into miracles and Marian apparitions and claimed to have once seen the Virgin Mary on a taco chip. Unfortunately, Tio Jorge ate it before she could put it in a shrine.
“I think I’ll go say hey. You’d be surprised how many straight men troll for queens.”
Actually, she wouldn’t. She’d worked at Ricky’s too long to be surprised by much. Although that didn’t mean she understood men. Gay or straight or anywhere in between. “Could be he is a tourist and just wandered in.”
“Maybe, but if there’s one bitch to turn a straight man, it’s Anna Conda.” Anna lowered her drink. “G.I. Joe needs to be thanked for his service, and I’m suddenly feeling patriotic.”
Stella rolled her eyes and took an order from a heavyset man with a thick red beard. She poured the Guinness with a perfect head and was rewarded with a five-dollar tip. “Thank you,” she said through a smile, and stuffed the bill into the small leather pouch tied around her hips. She had a tip jar, too, but she liked to empty it regularly. There had been too many times when drunks had helped themselves.
She glanced at Anna heading across the bar, blue and green lights blinking in her size thirteen acrylic heels with each step she took.
Roy Orbison’s iconic “Pretty Woman” rocked the bar’s speakers as Penny Ho strutted the short stage in thigh-high boots and blue-and-white hooker dress, looking remarkably like Julia Roberts. Apparently, “Pretty Woman” was popular among drag queens and tiara tots.
Over the next hour, Stella poured shots, pulled drafts, and gave the martini shakers a workout. By one-thirty, she’d changed out of her four-inch pumps and into her Doc Martens. Even with the thick cushion of the floor matting, her feet had not been able to hold out for more than six hours. Her old Doc boots were scuffed, but they were worn in, comfortable, and supported her feet.
After Penny Ho, Edith Moorehead took the stage and shimmied in a meat gown to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” It just went without saying that the dress was an unfortunate choice for a big girl like Edith. Unfortunate and dangerous for the people who got hit with flying flank steak.
Stella fanned her face with a cardboard coaster as she poured a glass of merlot. She was off in half an hour and wanted to get her side work done before the next bartender took her place. In the entertainment district of Miami, bars were open 24/7. Ricky chose to close his between five and ten
A.M.
because business slowed during those hours, and due to operating costs, he lost money by staying open. And more than groping an unsuspecting female employee, Ricky loved money.
Stella lifted her long hair from the back of her neck and gazed across the bar. Her attention stopped on a couple in fairy wings going at it a few feet from the white Elvis suit. They’d better take it down a notch or one of the bouncers would bounce them. Ricky didn’t tolerate excessive PDA or sex in his bar. Not because the man had even a passing acquaintance with anything resembling a moral compass, but because, gay or straight, it was bad for business.
Wedged between the fairy couple and the Elvis suit, Anna’s G.I. Joe sat back farther in the shadows. A slash of light cut across his shoulder, wide neck, and chin. The strobe at the end of the stage flashed on his face, his cheeks, and the brim of his hat. By the set of his jaw, he didn’t appear happy. A smile twisted a corner of Stella’s lips and she shook her head. If the man didn’t like queens and in-betweens, he could always leave. The fact that he still sat there, soaking in all the homosexual testosterone surrounding him, likely meant he had a case of “closet gay.” Anger was a classic sign, at least that’s what she’d heard from homosexual men who were free to be themselves.
After Edith, Anna hit the stage to Robyn’s “Do You Know.” Her lip-synching was spot-on. Her stage presence was good, but in the end, Kreme Delight won the night and the Back Door Betty crown. Anna stormed off the stage and out the front door. Stella glanced across the room toward the white Elvis suit. G.I. Joe was gone, too. Coincidence?
At one forty-five, she was caught up on most of her side work. She sliced fruit and restocked olives and cherries. She washed down the bar and unloaded the industrial-size dishwasher. At two, she closed out, transferred tabs, and stayed around long enough to get tipped out. She untied her leather tip purse from around her hips and stuffed it into a backpack along with her heels and hairbrush. Out of habit, she took out her Russian Red lipstick. Without a mirror, she applied a perfect swipe across her mouth. Some women liked mascara. Others rouge. Stella was a lipstick girl. Always red, and even though she’d been raised to believe only fast girls wore red, she never went anywhere without ruby-colored lips.
She fished the keys to her maroon PT Cruiser from the backpack. The car had more than one hundred thousand miles on it and needed new shocks and struts. Riding in it jarred the fillings from your teeth, but the air-conditioning worked and that was all Stella cared about.
She said good-bye to the other employees and headed out the back door. June, warm and slushy, pressed into her skin despite the early morning hour. Stella had been born and raised in Las Cruces and was used to some humidity, but summers in Miami were like living in a steam bath, and she’d never quite gotten used to how it lay on her skin and weighted her lungs. Occasionally, she thought about returning home. Then she’d remember why she left, and how much better she liked her life now.