Authors: Jennifer Bernard
“Well, make up your mind. But I’ll expect some kind of payment either way.”
And he was gone. Katie buried her head in the pillows. What had she gotten herself into? He didn’t sound like her lollipop-bearing pediatrician anymore. What the hell should she do now? And why was Ryan at the bar this late at night?
Most of all, thank God he hadn’t gotten hurt.
R
yan was tossing his fishing rod and cooler in the back of his truck when Katie pulled up in her deathtrap of a Datsun. If possible, she looked even more tense than she had yesterday.
She hopped out of the car and came toward him. He blinked, then blinked again. Katie, in a short, yellow skirt with bright flowers on it? Katie, in a tank top that showed off her slim physique? He lifted his eyes to her face. No, no mistake, it was Katie, and despite her colorful outfit, she looked like hell. Sexy. But tired.
“What are you doing here? It’s our day off. And not to be rude, but you could use your beauty sleep.”
His jab brought a little of her usual flair back to life.
“Beauty sleep, is that what you do all night with the lucky ladies?”
He gave her an A for effort, F for execution. Something was bothering her if she couldn’t come up with a better line than that.
“It’s too early, and I’m too excited about my day off to get into a verbal melee.”
Now she did smile, a genuine grin that brightened her face and snagged at his gut. “I love it when you use those big fancy words.”
“Melee? It’s two syllables. About my usual length.”
“French counts for at least four.”
“Touché.”
They grinned at each other. Then Ryan, feeling oddly nervous, turned away and strung a bungee cord over his cooler to strap it in. “What are you doing here, for real? I’ve got something to do today, so if the bar needs me, it’s going to have to wait.”
“Really? Where are you going?”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Why are you interested?”
“No real reason. We’re friends, right? Can’t a friend ask a friendly question?”
“Friends, huh?” He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. “Is that a promotion? Last I heard, I was the employee and you were the boss.”
She smiled at him with an innocence he didn’t buy for a second. “Yeah, but I’m a friendly boss. And you’re a very friendly employee. After all, I’ve seen your butt.” Something flashed behind her long lashes—something teasing and hot.
He liked that. But still he had to tease her back. “Didn’t realize you were paying attention.”
“Well, I was dividing my attention between five outstanding rear ends. But yours was on the list. So where are you going, really?”
“Couple hours out of town.”
Really, that was all she had to know. This was his personal, off-hours business. But when she kept looking at him with those big dark eyes, he caved in. “I’m going to visit my dad.”
“Oh.” She looked away, as if trying to figure something out. She looked back, hesitated, started to say something, then stopped.
“Spit it out. Something’s bugging that overactive mind of yours.”
“Well . . .” She bit her lip. He hated when she did that. His hands itched to stop her. “Can I come along? I need to get out of this town. Seriously. I need a break.”
He looked at her in utter disbelief, as if she’d said she wanted to go to Timbuktu with him.
“You want to visit my father?”
“I’ll be nice to your dad, I promise. I won’t be, you know, myself.” She gave him a self-mocking half smile.
He let out a snort of laughter. Katie in her wildest dreams couldn’t come close to the nastiness his father dished out on a daily basis. “I’m not worried about that.”
“Then . . .” She cocked her head wistfully, pushing her lips into a delicious pout.
Ryan considered. His purpose in visiting his father was to get to the bottom of the “Carson Smith” mystery. Maybe it would help for Katie to come with him. Hear the truth from the horse’s mouth. Or the horse’s ass, in this case.
“Hop in,” he told her. “No backseat driving, no complaining about the tunes, no bathroom stops.”
“No
bathroom stops
?”
He laughed, suddenly looking forward to the trip. Hours of nonstop teasing of Katie Dane lay ahead. And man, did she look good in that little skirt.
K
atie strapped herself into the passenger seat of Ryan’s big black pickup. His truck was an old model with a deep front seat that didn’t even have an armrest in the middle. That meant only the gearshift separated her and Ryan. At least she was following instructions and staying close to him.
Carson Smith had told her he’d go ahead with the job if the opportunity arose. So by the time they got back from the Fresno area, the Hair of the Dog would most likely be burned to a crisp.
She shoved aside the horrible feeling that thought gave her, and repeated Carson’s words to herself.
Blaze of glory. Viking funeral
.
Noble passing
. In many ways, the Hair of the Dog was already dead. Dead bar walking. Now it was time for the cremation.
Ryan punched buttons on the radio. The little hairs on his arm glinted in the morning sunshine. The muscles of his forearm moved smoothly under his browned skin. She noticed a still-healing scar on his knuckle and had the urge to run her fingers across it.
“Don’t you have an iPod or something?”
“Nope. I’m old school. I like to see what the radio gods pick out for me.”
“The radio gods?” She cocked a raised-eyebrow look at him, which had the unintended consequence of flooding her senses with his blue-eyed gorgeousness. His profile was perfect, except for the slight bend in his nose. His lips dented at the corner in a half smile. The breeze from the open window tousled his hair around his ears and the back of his neck. She wanted to lick that place just under his ear, run her tongue across the vulnerable skin of his neck.
“Sure. Don’t you like to turn the radio on and see what song’s playing? If you stick with the songs you already have on your iPod, you never hear anything new.”
“Hm.” She considered that, grateful for something to focus on besides her lust for him. “What if it’s something you’d rather not hear?”
“Don’t tell me you’re a music snob.”
“No. But I was in a band for a while.”
“Seriously?” He turned to look her full in the face. “Please tell me you were a backup singer wearing one of those sexy little dresses.”
“I was a drummer. I wore all black and moussed my hair into a big pouf ball.”
He let out a burst of laughter that sounded like sunshine might. “Damn, I wish I knew you then. I can just picture you, like a big-haired Wednesday.
Addams Family
.”
“Yes, I know,” Katie answered gloomily. It wasn’t the first time someone had compared her to Wednesday.
“I always had a crush on her, you know. Christina Ricci is hot. But you know . . .” He shot her a speculative, full-body glance that took her breath away. “You’re cuter.”
Katie felt her heart melt like a marshmallow at a campfire. She should have known a road trip with Ryan would be trouble. “It’s better than Gidget, I guess.”
“Gidget? Big brown eyes? Cute as a button?”
She made a face. “My sister wanted us to be Bridget and Gidget. She wanted me to be her mini-me and follow her around everywhere. I did it too, until she turned into a teenager and didn’t want me to catch her making out with anyone.”
“You’re pretty close to your family,” he said in a neutral manner, his attention back on the road.
She shrugged. She’d hired an arsonist for her family’s sake. Did that qualify as close?
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” he continued. “Now that I have you trapped here in my truck, I’m going for it. I already figured out that running the Hair of the Dog isn’t your top choice of activities.”
“I’m only doing it for my father.”
His jaw muscle twitched at the word “father.” “So what do you really want to do? French literature professor? Drummer? Drill sergeant? Dominatrix?”
She shot him a glare.
He shrugged. “Make that scowl work for you. Might be a turn-on for some.”
“Really. Not you, though?”
“Didn’t say that.”
Okay, dangerous territory. Time to change the subject. “I don’t know what I’ll do next. I like school. I love school. But . . .”
“But what?” He seemed genuinely interested, his head cocked her direction, the wind ruffling his hair.
“I’m not even sure why I picked French literature. It seemed glamorous and exotic and different from everything else my family does. Mostly I wanted to get away. But I don’t know about being a professor. Don’t tell my family, but . . .”
“What?”
She couldn’t believe she was telling him something she hadn’t confessed to anyone. “I didn’t like graduate school. It’s a lot of debating. This theory versus that theory. It’s like you’re supposed to pick a team. Freudian or Jungian? And why? There’s a lot of politics too, like who’s going to be chair of the department next. Two of my professors hadn’t spoken to each other in fifteen years and they were always plotting against each other. I don’t know what I was expecting, but not that. I just like to read.”
“I do too,” he said, surprising her. “Maybe you could give me a reading list sometime so I know what you’re talking about.”
She gave him a doubtful glance. “You want to learn about French literature?”
“Sure, why not? Don’t want to debate it, but I wouldn’t mind reading it. Hey, isn’t
The Little Prince
a French book?”
“Yes. Saint-Exupéry.”
“I read that book about a hundred times when I was a kid. In English, obviously.”
“You did?” Katie blinked in astonishment.
“Yeah. I always felt like I lived on my own personal planet. And the fox. ‘You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.’ I loved that fox.”
Katie was struck speechless.
“You’re surprised?” He glanced at her, a challenging glint in his eyes. “Do I seem that dumb?”
“That’s so unfair,” she said hotly. “I’ve never thought that.”
“Well, I used to think I was dumb, but it turned out I was dyslexic.” He turned back to the road to focus on passing a slow-moving van. She had the feeling the topic made him uncomfortable. “
The Little Prince
had easy words. But every time I read it I picked up something new.”
Would Ryan never cease to surprise her? She gazed out the window at the brown hills sliding past, the telephone poles flickering in a regular pulse. Grad school sure hadn’t helped her when it came to judging people. Or misjudging them, in this case.
She looked at his strong hands, one steering, one resting on his thigh, and imagined a little boy poring over
The Little Prince
. She hadn’t thought Ryan could get more attractive, but he’d pulled it off. She swallowed hard.
“As long as we’re confessing stuff, why’d you become a firefighter?”
“Long story. Short version, I set a fire on purpose. Got arrested. I was underage, first offense, so I got sentenced to community service at a firehouse. I got lucky. Captain Brody was filling in for the captain there, who was on paternity leave. Cap liked me, no clue why. I got a serious case of hero worship after that. He took a no-good kid and made him into a fireman.”
Katie got a chill from the tone of his voice, the deep respect and gratitude she heard there. “Sounds like an amazing person.”
“Best man I know. He’s the father I never had. That includes the one you’re about to meet.”
“What’s your father like?”
“Hard to explain.” Ryan shut down then. His jaw tightened, and he looked as stony as Mount Rushmore. Confession time had ended.
R
yan’s plan to tease Katie had taken a left turn along the way. He couldn’t recall telling any of his many girlfriends much about Captain Brody and how much he owed him. For sure, he’d never revealed his dyslexia. She now knew more about him than any woman ever had. Then again, Katie wasn’t a girlfriend. She was a . . . something different. He didn’t quite have a word for it. How did you define someone you really liked being with, had the hots for, and wanted to help, even if it meant shaking your ass on a bar or, a thousand times worse, visiting your father?
He puzzled over that as the sounds of “Redneck Girl” poured out of the radio. Katie started swinging her head up and down to the rhythm. Her hair, which looked somewhere between cinnamon and mahogany in the sun, came loose from her ponytail. She gave him a teasing smile as she yelled out the “hell yeah” the singer asked for. His black mood, brought on by talk of his father, lifted.
Katie was trying to cheer him up. The girl with so many worries and pressures, the girl famous for her scowl, was playing the fool to bring a smile to his face. He wanted to kiss her. Hug her. Lay her on the backseat and lick her up and down . . .
He snapped out of it. His father’s place was only a few turns away. Pretty soon Katie would see where he came from, the lunacy-infested gene pool that had created Ryan Blake. She’d probably call a cab to flee back to San Gabriel.
For now, he watched her rock out, and enjoyed every moment.
At the end of a long dirt road, he pulled up outside a ratty old trailer with a broken lawn chair out front. His father despised trailer parks, preferring to squat on a piece of land belonging to a drug dealer whose dirty secrets he knew.
“This is it. You can stay in the truck if you want.”
Ryan didn’t look at Katie, not wanting to see her disgust. He got out of the Chevy. When he knocked on the door of the trailer, he was almost surprised to find Katie right behind him.
Then again, he should have figured she wouldn’t be scared off by a trailer. The man inside, now . . .
“Get the hell off my property or I’ll shoot you right between the eyes,” came his father’s voice.
Ryan sighed. “Zeke, it’s me.”
A long pause. “I’m lowering the rifle.”
“I got a friend with me. Don’t shoot her either.”
“Not unless she pisses me off.”
“Got that?” He gave Katie a sidelong look. She nodded, looking somewhere between rattled and entertained. “He’s only shot a few of my friends, and they usually deserved it.”
She raised her straight eyebrows, her dark eyes clinging to his. “That’s good to know, but maybe you should go first.”
“Good call.” He stepped inside, into the familiar rank smell of propane, sewage from the toilet that always backed up, and his father’s favorite dinner—fried eggs in a cast-iron pan. A swamp of emotions assaulted him. Fear of his father’s fists, fear for his father’s sanity, rage, despair . . .
Zeke Blake lurked at the battered table like a white-haired spider.
“Zeke, this is Katie. She’s my boss.”
“Guess that means you have a job. Working for the man. Or the girl.” He took in Katie. “Little thing, aren’cha?”
“Five feet, two and a half inches.” Katie didn’t look cowed by his father at all. With her yellow skirt and bright eyes, she lit up the trailer like a firecracker.
“You don’t fool me. The corporate empire uses girls like you to disguise their money-grubbing greed.”
“Zeke is a little down on civilization,” explained Ryan. “He’s a fan of anarchy, except when it comes to getting his propane refilled.”
Zeke’s veiny cheeks turned redder. Ryan’s fists twitched, his reflexes kicking into gear.
Fight or flight.
From an early age, he’d picked
fight
.
Katie met his father scowl for scowl. “You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. A corporation tried to buy us out once. My father kicked the guy out. He said he’d rot in hell before letting the bar become a Foot Locker.”
Zeke’s jaw worked, then he threw back his head and let out a guffaw.
“So why are you here, Ryan?” Zeke asked. He got up and hulked over to the tiny, cluttered sink. At six foot five, he had to stoop inside his trailer, a habit that had transformed his posture over the years.
“Someone came into the . . . place where we work.” He felt Katie’s sharp, surprised glance. He hadn’t told her the purpose of this visit. “I thought I knew him. But I can’t put a name to the face. Or a rap sheet to the face, more like.”
Zeke cackled as he poured himself a glass of water from the tap. Ryan had set up the water system himself at the age of fourteen. “He must be a friend of mine, is that it?”
“I remember him coming here. About fifty, on the chunky side, wears aviator glasses, balding.”
“Not much of a description.”
“I think the glasses are the same. They rang a bell. He drinks Guinness.”
“And why should I rat him out to you?”
Zeke came back to the table, holding on to each piece of furniture he passed. Years ago, he’d gotten an infection in his leg, and had refused to get any medical help for it. Stubborn old man was paying the price now. Ryan reached a hand to help him.
Zeke swatted it away as if it were a fly.
The rage of a million such swats rushed through Ryan. His body clenched. Blood sang in his ears. Every nerve pulsed with the need to strike out. Fast. Hard. Now.
But something tugging at his arm wouldn’t let him. He turned on whatever was holding him back.
K
atie flinched from the blind fury in Ryan’s eyes but refused to let go of his arm. He couldn’t hit his father, he just couldn’t. The force of his rage felt like a hurricane in the rickety trailer. She screwed up her face, squeezed her eyes shut, and held on to his arm for dear life.
Nothing. When she opened her eyes to peer at Ryan, he looked appalled. Horrified. He grabbed her other hand and swung her toward the door.
“Call me if you remember,” he told his father through clenched teeth.
“Bye, Zeke,” Katie tossed over her shoulder. The man was scary, but she’d told Ryan she’d be nice. “I’ll watch out for those evil corporations.”
“Don’t talk to him,” hissed Ryan. “We’re outta here.”
Katie stopped talking while Ryan whisked her outside. He stalked to the truck, dragging her after him. She tried to pull her hand out of his grasp. “Let go, would you?”
Instantly, he dropped her hand. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll be in the truck. Take your time.”
She stood on the trash-strewn crabgrass while Ryan strode to the truck. She needed a minute. He probably needed a minute too. It was a lot to take in. How had someone like Ryan come from a place like this, from a father like that? She’d seen the demons surface when he wheeled on her, and it made her look at him in a whole new light.