At Peace (25 page)

“Won’t pay you fifty bucks but I’ll take you
to dinner tomorrow night, you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your
tongue,” he offered and I felt my body still. “Though, you should
know, you don’t, I’ll still take you to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” I asked
moronically.

“Yeah,” he answered quietly, not making me
feel like a moron.

I didn’t know what to do. I liked him but Joe
had been acting differently and, considering that Cheryl and I
hadn’t been there but for a drink that led into two when Mike
showed and she knew everyone in the bar and introduced me to all of
them so I hadn’t had the time to ask her about Joe, I didn’t know
what to think of Joe.

However Joe had been clear what I should
think of Joe and, seeing as Joe was pretty clear about most
everything, I figured Joe would be clear if I should think
differently about Joe.

And Mike was handsome, nice, funny, he had a
great smile and a devilish grin and he thought I was beautiful.

Therefore I said, “Okay.”

“Remind me,” he said and I blinked.

“Remind you?”

“Remind me, tomorrow night, you let me kiss
you when I take you home, to thank Colt for takin’ that case that
hit my desk so he’s workin’ tonight and I’m here with you.”

I was wrong. Mike was handsome, funny, he
thought I was beautiful and he was really, freaking nice.

“Are your kids hooligans?” I asked and he
smiled.

“Yeah, terrors. It’s good they’re growin’ up
and out of the house with their friends most of the time, now they
can terrorize other people. Your girls?”

“Kate’s okay, except she’s wrapped up in a
boy so she pretty much doesn’t exist unless his essence is inserted
in the atmosphere. Keira’s a pain in the ass but at least she’s
funny while bein’ a pain in the ass.”

“Sounds like teenagers.”

“You should be warned, Keira also listens to
boy bands,” I watched him flinch and couldn’t help but laugh.

“
My son Jonas is
in
a band. Drums,” he informed me.

“Ouch.”

He nodded and added, “Loud.”

“Ouch again.”

I grabbed my glass and took another sip, his
eyes dropped to it and he asked, “Do you want another?”

I shook my head and said, “I drove here.”
Then I leaned into him and shared conspiratorially, “See, rumor has
it, cops hang in this bar. Wouldn’t be good for a girl to get tipsy
and then slide behind the wheel of a car.”

He leaned in closer too and grinned before
saying, “Yeah, I heard that rumor too and cops really don’t like
that shit. But, if I buy you a drink, you’ll promise to get you and
Cheryl a taxi?”

I nodded as I sucked on my straw, he watched
my mouth then shook his head, muttering, “Flirting lessons, fuck
me.”

“I’m not flirting,” I told him.

“Then sweetheart, you’re a natural.”

I didn’t respond because I watched as his
eyes went behind the bar, he gave a jerk of his chin then tipped
his head to me which I suspected was his nonverbal, man ordering of
another drink for me. His eyes came back to me but then they jerked
over my shoulder and he straightened a bit. He focused on something
then looked at me.

“Violet, there a reason Joe Callahan is
lookin’ at me like he wants to rip my head off?”

I felt my body tense, my chest expand and I
whispered, “What?”

His eyes went back over my shoulder and I
watched his frame relax as he muttered, “Must be seein’
things.”

I looked over my shoulder to see Colt’s stool
empty, so was the one next to it. A bunch of people I didn’t know
were huddled at the end of the bar. No Joe.

“I know Cal’s helpin’ out with your thing,
he’s your neighbor,” Mike said and I looked back to him. “Coulda
sworn he was just there, lookin’ pissed as all hell.”

“He wasn’t there?”

“He was there, now he’s gone. Man’s fast,
always was.”

At the thought of Joe being there, I licked
my lips then bit them and Mike’s gaze grew more intense. “There a
reason he might be lookin’ at me that way?”

I stared into his eyes and remembered he was
honest with me right off the bat. He deserved the same thing.

“Joe and I are complicated.”

“You call him Joe?”

“Yeah.”

“No one calls him Joe.”

I shrugged.

“How complicated?” he pressed.

“I don’t really know but I think, in the end,
not very.”

“What does that mean?”

“Honestly?” I asked and he nodded. “I wish I
knew. I don’t. All I know is, he’s being cool about the security
thing, he’s helping to keep my girls safe and he and I are not very
well defined.”

“Not very well defined?”

“Not at all.”

“Sounds like Cal,” he muttered and a chill
slid across my skin, so cold I shivered. “You cool with that?” Mike
went on.

“Not really.”

“You want defined?”

“I had clearly defined for seventeen years.
It wasn’t perfect but it was pretty damned good. So, yeah, I want
defined.”

“Not fuckin’ with you, Violet, swear to God,
but Cal’s not about defined.”

I knew that but it sucked having it
confirmed.

“He’s given me that impression,” I told
Mike.

Mike’s jaw got hard and he looked at the bar
as my drink was placed there by Darryl. He pulled out his wallet,
slid a bill on the bar, gave Darryl a curt nod and I took the final
sip of my last drink before I placed the empty by my new one.

“Mike?” I called and his eyes cut to me.

“Yeah?”

I took in a deep breath and asked, “How are
you with defined?”

“I liked defined. My wife liked designer
handbags that I couldn’t get her on a cop’s salary, our credit card
bills were out the roof, month after month, no matter how much I
talked to her about it. The house, not big enough. The car, not
sporty enough. She married a cop, don’t know what she thought she’d
get, ‘specially when she also didn’t think she needed to work. So
her definition of defined wasn’t mine. But yeah, in the end,
defined is a fuckuva lot better than not defined, as long as both
people get where they’re goin’.”

“I like designer handbags,” I told him.

“Great,” he muttered.

“I work though.”

He looked at me.

“And, well, obviously, I like my daughters to
eat and maybe, if I can swing it, my youngest to have the dog she’s
always wanted and that’s more important than a handbag.”

He kept looking at me then said softly,
“Yeah.”

“And, by the way, all women like designer
handbags,” I told him, grabbed my drink and took a sip then
finished, “Just to warn you. If you’re lookin’ for a woman who
doesn’t like them, well… you’re kinda screwed.”

He grinned and asked, “They all need one a
month?”

I choked on my drink again, luckily not to
the point I had to lean over and deep breathe then asked, “She
bought one a month?”

“I won’t get into the shoes.”

“Sure, I’d like one a month, if I was Ivana
Trump.”

“I ain’t Donald.”

“They’re divorced too.”

He burst out laughing and I laughed with him,
this laughing felt good, I hadn’t laughed like that in awhile nor
smiled that much. The laughing was especially good since his face
was even more handsome when he was laughing.

We talked awhile then Cheryl came back,
coming up empty on her cruise. She started to relay the information
about how all the men in the bar were losers and Mike wisely
decided it was time to move on. He got my address, my phone number
and told me he’d be at my house the next night to pick me up at
seven thirty.

He also leaned in, his hand curled around my
neck and he touched my mouth with his then his lips went to my ear
and he whispered, “It’ll be better tomorrow night, sweetheart,
promise.”

Then before I could say a word, which I
didn’t get it together to do since I was concentrating on a little
flutter in my stomach, he let me go and left.

“I’m livin’ in this town a year, I got
nothin’. You’re here a few months, you got two hot guys all over
you,” Cheryl bitched while sitting down then she shouted, “Dee, I’m
dry!”

“Cheryl, I’m screwed,” I told her. “Joe was
here.”

Her eyes came to me and she said, “Sure
thing, babe, saw him, why you think I tagged Mike? Mike comes in
all the time, totally knew you were his type. That works out I
should sell my services as a matchmaker.”

I was still letting the first part of what
she said sink in. “You saw Joe?”

“Yeah, he came in while you were in the
bathroom.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“And miss my chance at forcin’ the come to
Jesus? No way!”

Dee put Cheryl’s drink in front of her and
moved away. Cheryl put the straw to her lips and sucked up a huge
sip.

“A come to Jesus?” I asked through her
sip.

She put her drink on the bar and turned to
me. “Yeah, he sees you gettin’ flirted with by a hot guy, he either
moves to protect his property or he steps aside. Either way, you
know where you stand and you know what you gotta do. Come to
Jesus.”

“So, you orchestrated that?”

“Am I your friend?”

“I don’t know, it depends on if Joe’s head
explodes.”

“Don’t you want it to?”

“Cheryl, you haven’t been around him when
he’s pissed, he’s kinda scary.”

“He get physical?”

“Not really, unless you mean sexually
physical then the answer is yes, a lot, but that’s the good
part.”

She grinned. “I hope it does. If it doesn’t,
Mike’s cool, he’s also nice, he’s also hot and hopefully sex with
him is the good part too, so you win either way.”

She wasn’t wrong about that but somehow, it
felt like she was.

I sucked back more of my drink, looked where
Mike looked when he saw Joe and I saw someone I didn’t know sitting
on the stool next to Colt’s. I thought about Joe and going over in
his t-shirt that night and I thought about Mike and our date.

And I thought about how my life was a lot
less complicated before Daniel Hart blew it to pieces by ordering a
hit on the man I loved who was the father of my children.

Then I sighed and sucked back more drink.

* * * * *

Even though we were both only slightly tipsy,
being good citizens (and imbibing in a bar that did indeed get
frequented by cops) Cheryl and I took a taxi home. I got dropped
off first.

I pulled my remote out of my purse, disarmed
the alarm, went in the side door, locked it and armed the alarm
again. I checked on Keira who was sleeping then Kate who was also
sleeping.

As I was heading to my room, my cell in my
purse started ringing.

I walked to it on the kitchen counter, pulled
it out, saw the display said “Joe’s Cell” and my breath caught in
my throat.

Then I slid the phone open, put it to my ear
and forced out, “Hello.”

“Get your ass over here.”

“Joe –”

“Now, buddy.”

Then I heard nothing, he’d disconnected. I
stood frozen in the dark of my kitchen with a dead phone to my ear
and I was thinking maybe Cheryl’s come to Jesus idea wasn’t such a
good thing.

I was also thinking maybe I should hole
myself up in my bedroom but Joe not only knew where I lived, he
lived next door and he’d installed my alarm system and most likely
had the knowledge of how to bypass it so I was pretty much
screwed.

And what was I worried about anyway? These
were
his
rules. I’d
asked him to dinner, he’d told me he was done with me. What? I
couldn’t go to dinner when someone asked me because Joe,
apparently, wasn’t done with me?

I hit the buttons on the remote to disarm the
alarm, grabbed my keys, unlocked the door, exited my house, locked
the door and armed the alarm. I walked between my house and my
garage and turned right toward Joe’s deck.

I got into his yard and nearly tripped.

He was standing in the dark on his deck,
his hip against the railing, his foot crossed at the ankle, his
arms crossed on his huge chest, waiting for me. He was wearing what
appeared to be a black t-shirt (he didn’t seem to have anything
else), jeans (he also didn’t seem to have anything other than jeans
either) and boots (probably his motorcycle boots, which was all I’d
ever seen him wear).

I walked up two of the four steps before he
moved, leaning down to grab my hand then he dragged me up the two
remaining steps so fast I almost tripped again. Then he swung me
into his house and let me go, turning to slide the glass door shut
then turning back to me.

“Joe –”

“You play that game often, buddy?”

“What?”

“On your stool, drunk and cute, suckin’ on
your straw?”

“You have the wrong idea.”

“Yeah? You played me the same, exact, fuckin’
way.”

I felt some of my fear sliding away as anger
replaced it.

“
I
played
you?
”

“Felt like I was watchin’ a movie after a
rewind.”

I leaned forward and hissed, “You
dick!
”

He moved and Mike was right, he was fast. I
was backed up against a wall before I knew what was happening.

My anger died an early death and I was back
to scared.

“Joe –”

His hands were sliding around my back and
down to my ass as he said, “I play you tonight.”

“No!” I cried. “Joe, listen to me, I’ve never
flirted.”

“Baby, you’re the best fuckin’ flirt I’ve
ever met.”

“Yeah, I know, I found out tonight,” I told
him, putting my hands to his chest and getting up on my toes.
“Listen, Mike told me about the cherry thing and the straw thing.
With you, I was just drunk. With him, I was just sipping my
drink.”