Chapter THREE
NOTE TO SELF, Austin thought thirty minutes later: Improvising and winging it might not always be the best idea from now on.
But, shit! He’d made a mess out of the “chance” meeting. He’d almost given her his real name. And he was paying for that mess now. He glanced around to make sure no one was nearby.
Desperate times led to desperate measures. And this was pretty damn desperate. Not as risky as plan B, but a lot more embarrassing.
Confident no one was watching, he hurried down aisle six with his cart to the smaller boxed items, wishing a pack would just jump off the shelf and into his shopping basket.
Again looking to see if he was alone, he sifted through the bag of run-over items to check for the brand. He found it and then noticed… Who would have ever guessed these things came in sizes? He looked back up.
“Shit,” he muttered. This would teach him not to wing it.
It took a good three minutes to find the slim medium absorbent. Snatching up the twenty-four pack—just like she’d purchased—he studied the tampons one more time to make sure he had the right kind.
“Crazy what we’ll do to get into a woman’s pants, isn’t it?” A voice came at Austin’s right.
Flinching, he dropped the box in his cart and glanced at the man who looked about as uncomfortable as Austin felt. About his age, he stood puzzling over the tampon varieties, too.
“Is she worth it?” the man asked, losing his look of embarrassment, as if talking sex would make this easier.
A denial was on Austin’s lips. This wasn’t about getting into any woman’s pants; it was about getting the woman’s a*shole of a half brother. But then his mind re-created the vision of her pants, or rather the perfectly round ass inside those pants. Following that vision came one of her dimples. When she smiled, they literally winked at him. Hell, even the Victoria’s Secret model didn’t have dimples.
But Leah Reece wasn’t tall, he reminded himself again. Then he realized the man standing beside him, holding a package of sixty-four name-brand, medium extra-absorbent tampons, was staring at him.
Is she worth it? The man’s question repeated in his head.
“Yeah, she’s worth it,” he muttered, not completely lying because he imagined she would be. Not that he had any intention of getting into Leah Reece’s pants. Information. That’s what he was after.
“Gotta get the right kind, or she’ll send me back,” the man moaned. “It’s a damn piece of cotton in a tube; how the hell can they be so different?”
Austin looked into the bag one more time, assuring he hadn’t messed up, because frankly if he had to shove something up his body, he’d be picky, too. His face reddened just thinking about it.
“Later,” he said, not in the mood to discuss tampons with a stranger anymore, and pushed his cart toward the egg aisle.
He was careful to buy all the same items, and only reconsidered when he got to the wine section.
Seriously, how good could a ten-dollar wine be? He stared at the bottle of Napa, California, Cab, one of his favorites that he served when having company and making homemade pizza. Thoughts of pizza had his appetite stirring. Then he looked again at the other items in his cart.
Everything was the store brand and the cheapest on the market. Was Leah Reece cutting corners? The apartment she rented wasn’t in the slums, but with not-so-new carpet in the halls, walls that could use a paint job, and speeding demons running through the parking lot, it sure as hell left a lot to be desired. Didn’t vets make a decent living?
He considered her age. She might still be paying off school loans. It hit him then what this meant. Her dear ol’ brother must not be sharing any of his illegal gains from his drug-and gun-running business. Or maybe Leah didn’t want any part of his dirty money.
The sweet smile she’d offered him before walking away flashed in his mind. He liked the thought of her being better than her a*shole brother, or he did until he realized what that meant. If she didn’t want any part of his money, she might not want any part of her brother. And damn it, if that was the case, she wouldn’t know where he was.
Austin stood in the middle of the Cab section gnawing on that thought, when another one hit. Was she the proprietor of her vet clinic? If so, then someone, maybe DeLuna, had helped finance that.
Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he searched for Roberto’s number and hit dial.
“Yeah?” Roberto muttered.
“Good or bad time?” Austin asked.
“Give me a second,” Roberto answered with all sorts of construction noises going on in the background. It took thirty seconds before he spoke again. “What’s up?”
“You still on the job?”
“Leaving for the day.”
“About our subject. Is she hurting for funds?”
“In debt up to her cute ying yang,” he said.
So Roberto thought her ying yang was cute? “The clinic she works at, is it hers?”
“And Chase Bank’s. A whopping two thousand a month. Add her school loans and her brother’s college, and if there’s not enough sick kitties that month, she’s probably eating rice and beans and beans and rice.”
“How do you know this?” Frustration echoed in Austin’s voice.
Silence filled the line, and it felt intentional on Roberto’s part. Finally he muttered, “I told you guys when you hired me not to question my methods. You three might still worry about abiding by the rules, but me? Not so much.”
Austin gripped his phone tighter. “I don’t give jack shit how you got it. All I want to know is how accurate it is.”
Roberto still paused. “Accurate. Let’s just say every time I walked by her mailbox the lock kept falling open.”
“And you don’t think she’s getting any handouts from relatives?” Austin did a few more calculations in his head. “Is she making enough to pay all those bills?”
“You ever taken a pet to a vet?” Roberto asked. “It can run you a fortune. Not that it wouldn’t be tight. She doesn’t even stop by Starbucks for coffee, and she shops like a senior citizen on Social Security.”
Austin looked at the basket of low-cost goods. Roberto hit the mark on that one.
“Like I told you,” Roberto said, “I think you’re farting in the wind on this one.”
Austin ran a hand over his face. “If she’s taking care of her younger brother’s college, she’s into family. My gut says she knows more than we think.”
“You’ve met her, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” Austin admitted.
“Cute little thing, isn’t she?”
“Not my type,” he ground out.
Roberto chuckled. “You tried to pick her up, didn’t you? Don’t feel bad, she gave me the brush-off, too.”
Austin frowned. Half the problem was he had picked her up, and there was nothing cold about the experience. She’d been so warm, so easy to hold. The feel of her in his arms was… he couldn’t really describe it, but it felt… natural.
She’d even smelled natural, not perfumey, but like… cookies, no… like freshly baked waffle cones in an ice cream parlor.
“I like tall blondes,” he added, wishing his libido would remember that.
“Then wait until you get a peek at her vet assistant.” Roberto exhaled. “Not that… I mean, she’s probably not your type, either. She’s got a kid.”
Bet she doesn’t have dimples. Freaking hell, since when did he give a damn about dimples? He wiped a palm over his face again, as if to wipe away the thought. “I’m not here to pick up women!” he said.
“I wasn’t trying to pick her up, either, just attempting to get some info. I’m not interested in chasing tail.” Roberto sounded defensive.
His tone felt off. Truth was, something about Roberto had always felt off. At times, he came off as an upstanding citizen. Too upstanding, considering he made money doing dirty undercover work for anyone who’d pay him. He liked putting the bad guys away. Although, he didn’t seem to like cops any more than he did the jerks he turned in. Something Austin, Dallas, and Tyler respected.
But Roberto also didn’t seem to mind crossing a few lines to get a job done. From what Austin could tell, the lines the man crossed weren’t anything Austin wouldn’t step over himself. In spite of being slow to get a big payoff on DeLuna, Roberto was good at what he did.
“I’m only interested in finding DeLuna.” Not petite, dimple-faced women with cute ying yangs! “Her loyalty to her younger sibling is proof that family is important to her.”
“Yeah, but the younger one has never been in trouble. I think your girl is squeaky clean and doesn’t care to wallow in the mud, if you get my meaning.”
“All the more reason for her to want to save her brother,” Austin said.
“And I think she knows he’s low-life shit and can’t be saved.”
Low-life shit. It wasn’t so much what Roberto said, but how he said it. A tone so much like his and his two partners’ when they spoke of DeLuna. Austin recalled how, in the beginning, Tyler had surmised Roberto had his own agenda with DeLuna. They couldn’t prove it, but they decided they didn’t see a downside if it were true. As long as Roberto’s agenda led to the same place theirs did—with DeLuna either behind bars or six feet under—they didn’t give a damn.
“What is—” Austin heard the click of the line being disconnected.
Roberto hit the off button the second he heard the footsteps behind him, and spewed out a few lines. “Look, bitch, I’ve told you. It’s over. Pay your own rent.” He pretended to hang up.
“Problems?” A deep voice came from behind him.
Roberto recognized the voice. Brad, Roberto’s ticket into Cruz’s private club. Cruz was the owner of the construction company and Brad’s brother-in-law. While the company did fairly well, it was really more of a front. The real money came from the illegal dealings. And the orders came from the Big Boss in charge of all the illegal dealings.
The Big Boss being Rafael DeLuna.
“Just some chick who gave it up a couple of times and now thinks I’m her sugar daddy.”
“You seem to have a lot of those kinds of calls.” Brad crossed his arms over his meaty chest. And at six-five, there was a lot of meat.
Hell, had Roberto used that line already? He needed to be more careful. “I guess my dick gets me into trouble.”
“Let’s hope it’s just your dick.” Brad’s tone dropped to a serious range. The man had worked in construction all his life, and his build showed it. He reminded Roberto of one of those television wrestlers, three-hundred-plus pounds of muscle. Almost bald, the burly guy was downright scary looking. But, in reality, he was a wimp. He might do well in construction, but he wasn’t nearly bad enough to work for someone like Cruz or DeLuna. Not heartless enough.
“What’re you saying?” Roberto forced his tone down to the serious level.
“You know what I’m saying.”
“Are you f*cking accusing me of being the leak? Are you forgetting I took a knife for your ass? Remind me next time to let you die.” Taking the knife had been a stupid mistake. He’d thought he’d step in, take a few punches, and show his loyalty to Brad. Roberto hadn’t known the kid had a knife. It had hurt like hell, but the mistake had got him what he wanted. Closer to Brad. Closer to DeLuna’s operation. Closer to making that bastard pay.
“I’m not accusing you, but someone will if you keep this crap up.”
“What crap? Just because I work for you doesn’t mean I can’t have a private conversation. Next you’ll be saying I can’t take a shit alone. You’ll want someone to come in there and wipe my ass for me.”
“Look,” Brad snapped. “If this keeps up, if another delivery goes bad, heads are going to roll. And it might be yours if you don’t watch your step.”
“Did something else happen?” Roberto saw genuine fear in the big guy’s eyes. Of course Roberto knew what’d happened. And with this drug-deal-gone-bad situation, like the last four, he hadn’t collected for his services or let Austin and his partners help pull the final strings. DeLuna was bound to start looking at the Only in Texas bunch, and the last thing Roberto wanted was the guilt of someone else’s death on his conscience.
His conscience was friggin’ full already.
At first, the Only in Texas team was just another way to support his own mission. With them it was a true win/win. They wanted DeLuna and so did he. But after getting to know the detectives a little, he didn’t want to see them go down in the process.
Eventually, when you surrounded yourself with nothing but scum, it was easy to emotionally attach yourself to anyone decent with whom you had regular contact. The Only in Texas PIs were decent. They might have carried a shield at one time, but like him, they now knew how useless the cops could be.
And like him, they had an agenda. Theirs was justice. His wasn’t so politically correct. He wanted revenge. It didn’t have to be wrapped up pretty. He didn’t want it to be pretty. Not for DeLuna.
And if he got a few more creeps off the street while he was at it, great. He’d need some good karma when he arrived at the pearly gates.
“F*ck, yeah, something else happened.” Brad spoke with such emotion that spittle left his mouth. “Someone tipped off the cops in that Austin job.”
“No shit?” Roberto asked. “But wasn’t that just a small run?” Of course, he knew it was small. He’d borrowed the Only in Texas’s method of getting to DeLuna. Keep interfering with his business, and sooner or later the a*shole would surface to do something about it.
“Small, yes, but they are adding up. And Cruz and the Boss have lost their patience.” Guilt filled the man’s eyes and he leaned in. “Johnny… you know, the skinny kid, he did the delivery, and because he stopped and made a few calls, they think he tipped off the cops.” A frown marred the big man’s face. “They sent some guys to post his bail and… I’m told they made an example of him as a warning. When the news comes out about his body being found, they’re taping it, and I’m supposed to make sure all the guys here see it, as a warning.”
“They killed him?” Roberto didn’t want to believe it.
Brad nodded. “That’s shitty, isn’t it?”
“Damn.” Roberto’s stomach knotted when he remembered meeting Johnny, but then he also recalled the twenty-year-old bragging about taking part in a gang rape of a fifteen-year-old girl. Johnny belonged to part of Roberto’s karma plan. His conscience wouldn’t have to take a hit on this one. He still felt hit.
Realizing Brad was staring at him, Roberto asked, “So they think he was behind it, huh?”
“Somebody’s doing it. And Johnny seemed like the obvious one. At least that’s what they said. But, damn it! He was just a kid.”
Roberto drew in a sobering breath. “Maybe the cops have just gotten better at sniffing them out?”
“That would be too much of a coincidence. They don’t believe in coincidences. And if this shit doesn’t stop, someone here will be the next Johnny. I work with these guys. How am I supposed to just watch them take one of ’em out?”
“We just hope it stops.” But it wasn’t going to stop and Roberto knew it. The next job-gone-bad deal was tomorrow in San Antonio. He’d dropped that info on an undercover cop and already collected a cool two hundred.
Life was about to get interesting. And not in a good way.
An hour later, Leah ran her spoon around the bowl, watching what Campbell’s called stars swirl in the broth. Tiny cubes of chicken and occasional fragments of carrot swam around the bits of pasta.
Skitter, her gray and tan tabby, leaped onto the table and stared at the soup. He raised his paw as if to catch moving parts, but she caught his foot. “This is my dinner. I fed you, remember?”
He looked insulted. Sighing, she fished out a piece of chicken. “You know I shouldn’t do that. I jump on my clientele for doing that.” The cat collected his prize.
Staring back at her uneaten dinner, she gave her spoon another lap around the soup and inhaled the savory scent. She’d already had her taste buds set on pizza and half of the bottle of wine that had perished in the parking lot. Along with part of her sanity.
Pushing her soup and all the parking lot memories to the back burner, she stared at her phone, wishing Luis would call. She’d left three messages. Which was probably why he wasn’t calling.
He’d told her that whenever she was upset, her voice was a dead ringer for their late aunt Nita’s your-ass-is-grass tone. Considering their aunt had raised them since Leah was eight and her brother was two, it was no wonder she took after her aunt. And considering how many times her brother’s ass had been grass with his aunt, Luis was an expert on the tone. But like Aunt Nita, that tone stemmed from love.
Besides, how could Luis not expect her to be upset? He knew better than to contact Rafael. Every damn time her half brother popped in their life, shit popped up with him. Leah had her quota of shit for a lifetime.
A loud knock sounded at her door, and Leah’s heart knocked with it. She recalled Rafael’s words when she’d refused to give him Luis’s contact information. Don’t piss me off, Sis. Family loyalty has never been big in our kinfolk.
Old news, she’d thought. She’d discovered that as a kid, when she’d asked her mom how come her daddy didn’t live with her all the time like her friends’ dads. Mom told her that her daddy had an important job. Mom also told her… Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Even at six, she hadn’t believed it. A few years later she learned the truth. Daddy had another family. Obviously, he didn’t need absence to make his heart grow fonder for them.
She wasn’t sure if Rafael’s smart-ass remark had been a threat, but it felt like it. Already, talking to him had cost her a couple bags of groceries, her much needed wine, a blouse, a bra, and a lot of embarrassment.
The knock sounded again. Pressing her hand to the door, she lifted on her tiptoes and spied through the peephole.
“Crap!” She pulled back. Not Rafael. Her racing heart took on a different tune. Austin Brookshire. Why his name had stuck so easily in her memory bank, she didn’t know.
Oh, hell, she did know.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about him. His smile, the devilish twinkle in his blue eyes, the feel of his naked chest.
Sara! It was Sara’s fault for talking about missing a man’s touch. But blaming someone wasn’t going to answer the door, or fix her problem. Problem being it was getting harder to deny that part of herself that craved a little company. Male company.
“Damn! Damn! Damn,” she muttered.