Faith was running late. It hadn’t been as easy as she hoped to fall asleep last night. Even with her eyes closed, images flickered across her eyelids of Serena with the hard-bodied, faceless North Callaghan.
Not at all how she imagined spending her first night in her new house.
She winced as she stubbed her toe on a box coming out of her closet. Tonight’s order of business? Finish unpacking.
Of course, she could chalk it all up to the fact that it was Monday. It was cliché, but true. She was never very good the first day of the workweek. She barely had time to apply a quick coat of mascara and lipstick and cover up the pimple on her chin before getting dressed and shoveling a Pop-Tart into her bag to eat on the drive to work.
She swung her satchel over her shoulder and then secured the lid on her coffee mug before she scalded herself with hot coffee. That would be the perfect way to round out her morning. Snatching her keys off the table, she opened the front door and stepped outside into the already muggy morning.
Crack.
She glanced down.
“What on earth . . .” Crumbled bits of chocolate chip scones littered the ground alongside the cracked remnants of her plate. Aside from the scone Serena had eaten, it appeared as though all three were accounted for.
And her plate was broken!
She snapped her gaze to glare at his door. What kind of neighbor returned a plateful of scones?
“Jerk,” she muttered.
After stepping back inside her house, she dropped her stuff onto a kitchen chair and snatched up a roll of paper towels to gather the mess.
Squatting, and now certain she would be late for work, she started picking up pieces of plate and scone, noticing the ants swarming her mat. At least someone enjoyed the fruits of her labor.
As far as she was concerned, this said it all. She and North Callaghan were never going to be all warm and fuzzy borrow-a-cup-of-sugar neighbors. The most she could hope for at this point was that they could stay out of each other’s way. She ripped off more paper towels with a vengeance.
When they did cross paths, hopefully they could act civil. She was accustomed to coping with difficult personalities at work, after all. This would be no different than that. And really, how often would she have to see the guy anyway?
North swung by Joe’s Cabaret on his way home from work. Not because he was especially into hanging out at strip clubs, but because he’d made a promise.
Joe was a middle-aged man with a gland problem. That could be the only explanation for his perpetual sweating.
North had spent twelve years at Devil’s Rock, smack in the middle of West Texas. The summers were brutal and inmates spent a good amount of time out in the yard. That said, North had never seen anyone sweat like this poor bastard.
Joe reigned over his establishment like a cock ruling the roost, and despite the blast of air-conditioning, sweat stains bled through the cotton fabric of his polo. His office was located near the back door, a large glass window allowing him to look out over the seedy business of his club. Calling it a cabaret, as though it were some classy establishment with highly choreographed music and dance routines, was wishful thinking on his part. He would stand at his glass window, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. According to Serena, he was an adequate boss. Fair. He never made the girls do anything they didn’t want to do. That was important. He needed to know that. For Piper’s sake.
He inhaled and then regretted it as the stink of the place assailed him. Stale body odor and the sickly sweet smell of the fog machine.
North was most assuredly flawed, but he’d made a promise, and his word was all he’d had for so long. When he was without a home, family—freedom—he’d just had his word. His fists. And the allies he had formed in prison.
Cruz Walsh had been one of the few he could call friend after Knox and Reid left him. He’d stood with North when others circled him, sniffing out his sudden vulnerability. North owed him, and he wouldn’t break his vow to him even though two years had passed.
He stepped deeper into the dim confines of Joe’s. Only two areas were lit—the bar and stage. It was purely for purposes of profit. You had to see the booze and the girls. More conducive for customers to give up their hard-earned cash that way.
A few of the waitresses greeted him, recognizing him from previous visits. He might even have slept with a few. He couldn’t be sure. When he first got out, those days were a blur.