Beauty and the Brit (2 page)

Rio nodded.

“That’s it. I have to have a talk with your brother.”

David listened to the exchange, amazed. He already knew how effective Chase’s people skills were from his reputation back in Kennison Falls. He’d heard the stories about his work with inner city kids two days a week, but he’d never seen the calm, serious community leader in action.

A crash, like a chair clattering across the floor, made all four of them jump. It reverberated from the lobby, followed by a foul expletive and the quick beat of running feet. Seconds later a handsome Latino man hurtled around the corner, eyes half-crazed.

“Rio, where the hell are you?” He caught sight of them and slowed to a walk, jabbing his finger through the air as he approached. “Damn it,
Manita
, I could kill you. Do you know what kind of a mess you caused out there?” He spoke with a slightly exaggerated Mexican accent.

“Don’t you ‘little sister’ me in your fake Spanish. This is a mess you started, assh—” Rio cut herself off. “At least your real little sister is safe. No thanks to you.”

“I was handling it.”

“Handling it? Bonnie was in the car with him. Do you have some
special
kind of shit for brains? Get lost,
Inigo
. I’m starting to think
Paul
is dead to us.”

Rage twisted his features, and he lunged forward. David tensed instinctively, recognizing the look of a man momentarily unhinged. Paul made it two steps, and David slid sideways into his path, throwing one arm straight out, clotheslining the young man midleap. Paul’s feet shot out from under him, and he landed on his back, but not before hooking David behind the knees. David slammed the deck flat-backed, and the air left his lungs in one sharp exhale. Paul flailed around, attempting to right himself.

David forced himself upright, coughing as his lungs reinflated. Rio reached out a hand to her brother. Paul slapped it away and scrambled to his feet. To David’s shock, she offered her hand to him next. With only the slightest hesitation, he took it.

If he’d expected her grasp to be light and feminine, he’d been quite mistaken. She clasped his hand firmly, planted her feet, and pulled him up, keeping her eyes on his as he rose. Her head reached the bottom of his lip.

“Thanks.”

To his further shock she smiled. “Nice tackle. Are you all right?”

Behind her, Chase held the wriggling, still cursing brother by both shoulders.

“Brilliant,” David said. “Dusted the floor, but none the worse.”

Her mouth gaped. The accent caused that all too frequently, something he found slightly ridiculous.

Paul pulled toward Bonnie, and Chase spun him away. “That’s enough, Mr. Montoya. Lead the way to my office. Ladies, let’s get this straightened out.”

Rio ignored the directive. “You’re Br—”

“Bruised up?” David cut her off with a teasing wink. “I’m not, though. Honestly. Please don’t worry.”

“Worry?” She scoffed although her eyes remained wide. “I’m trying to figure out what the Duke of Edinburgh is doing in a place like this.”

“I see. Well, since the Duke of Edinburgh is Philip, husband to Queen Elizabeth, I’d say you don’t need to worry about that either. But I appreciate the mistaken identity.”

She wanted to laugh. He could see it in the quiver of her lower lip and the sparkle trying to overtake the anger in her eyes. Even the weak little smile she’d offered seconds ago had transformed her face; he’d have loved seeing the full-blown version. Instead she battled back the forces of mirth and tightened her lips.

“You Not-Duke-of-Edinburghs all look the same to me.” She shrugged. The joke in the middle of her crisis touched him. That took strength. “Thank you, whoever you are, for stopping Paul. He wouldn’t have hurt us on purpose, but he’d have knocked me down.”

“Glad I could be of service.”

She slapped one hand over her mouth—to hold in the laughter, as evidenced from the return of the sparkle to her eyes. When she got control she shook her head.

“I don’t believe for one minute you aren’t a duke. Nobody talks like that.”

“Evidently I do.” He stuck out his hand in a proper greeting. “David,” he said. “Not to be confused with Philip.”

“Rio, short for Arionna,” she replied. This time her fingers slipped like satin into his handshake, trailing tiny jolts of pleasure across his palm. “And now I need to go see what the doc thinks I have to do.”

He had a suggestion. Stay away from her brother, stand there, and keep talking to him.

R
IO SLIPPED INTO
Chase’s spartan, yellow-painted office, mostly unadorned except for a bookcase full of books—Crossroads’ bare bones lending library. Although not many books found their ways back once lent. Chairs had been pilfered from other rooms, and everyone had a seat except Doc Preston, who perched on the edge of an old, black metal desk. Bonnie sat several feet away from Paul, who slouched sullenly on a metal folding chair. Rio sat beside Bonnie, far too aware of David-Not-Philip taking up a post by the door.

“First of all,” Chase said. “The extra person back there is David Pitts-Matherson, a good friend from Kennison Falls.”

The small town in southern Minnesota where Doc lived. Rio spun to look again at the duke. The stuffy, hyphenated name fit the first image Rio had had of him—a little stiff, a lot extremely hot man. But now that she’d glimpsed his inner laughing-eyed joker, she couldn’t reconcile anything hoity-toity with him.

“I think you need a better class of friends, Doc.” Paul practically spat the words.

Rio glared at him. He’d dropped the fake accent he used on the street, something that drove her insane.

“I’m sorry to have met on such violent terms,” David said.

Rio wasn’t sorry. Few people took Paul Montoya down anymore because he was the gang leader’s right-hand man. David had done it as easily as stepping off a curb.

And his voice made her see, a little bit, why women dragged their drooling tongues on the ground over British accents. They wreaked havoc on a person’s nervous system.

On the other hand, she’d lost her self-control a couple of times now over the accent, and losing control annoyed her. She took in her brother and sister, the former tight as a time bomb, the latter slumped into her folding chair. She had no time to slobber over men from a different league and class.

“Tell me where you were going tonight, Bonnie.” Doc’s perpetually kind voice eased some of the rigidity from Bonnie’s posture.

“Hector said we were going to meet a friend of his. Said the guy was totally cool and had a sick collection of albums. He knows I love new music. But we didn’t go to Heco’s place. We met his friend in the school parking lot. We were just starting to talk about favorite groups and stuff, and we were sitting in the back of his friend’s car because he had an expensive new sound system in it. That’s when Rio showed up.”

“That’s when Rio saved your little ass,” Rio replied.

“Whatever.”

“Paul.” Chase turned to him. “Were you part of this?”

“No, man. I just found out Hector was dealing with Boyfriend. I went to tell him to leave Bonnie alone. But my stupid idiot of a sister had to bust in and humiliate everyone. Now we’re all in trouble.”

“How’s that?”

“Aside from getting a fist in my face after she left?”

“What?” Rio stared more closely at her brother. Sure enough, she could see the faint outline of a lump blossoming beneath his right eye.

He sneered. “They punched me out when they thought I’d narked to my sister. But that’s the least of it. You had to get into a damn physical fight with Hector, and now he’s vowed to pay you back.”

“Oh, what’s he going to do, Inigo?” She used his street name derisively. “Come and scratch my face, too?”

“You underestimate him. He’s real mad.”

“I’ve lived here for twenty-six years. I know how to handle a threat from Hector Black.”

“Not this time.”

Paul bore the same olive-skinned Mexican beauty Bonnie did. Both had inherited the dark hair, eyes, and classic bone structure from their mother, her papa’s second wife. Rio had missed out on that beautiful mix of chromosomes and gotten instead a set of spliced genes from her Irish mother’s family. She literally
was
the redheaded stepchild.

But Irish or Mexican, stubbornness ran rampant through the Montoyas’ bloodstreams. If Paul, obstinate since birth, thought this mess was her fault, it would take lightning and a voice from the Almighty Himself to change his mind. Losing his mother seven years before hadn’t helped, but age had done nothing to soften him. She turned to Chase.

“When I realized Bonnie had defied the rules and gone out, I had to follow. In all honesty, that’s something she doesn’t normally do. Then, when I saw her actually get into that car, I don’t know whether I was more angry or panicked. Hector, who isn’t the freshest tortilla in the pack, is the one who let slip who was in the car, and I know girls who go off with Boyfriend don’t come back.”

Chase turned stern eyes on Bonnie. “What do you think?”

“I think I could have taken care of myself.” Bonnie’s defensiveness was trying to turn to defiance. She crossed one leg over the other and shook her foot in frustration, slapping her rhinestoned flip-flop against her sole like a castanet.

“Bonnie, I’m not sure
I
would want to try and take care of myself in a locked car with a guy like that.” Chase raised his brows.

“She didn’t have to attack Heco. I would have gotten out.”

“But you wouldn’t have.” Rio kept her voice calm with effort. She needed to be the parent right now, not get drawn into a pissing contest. “Hector was physically blocking me from getting to you and blocking you from getting out so, yes, I absolutely fought him. If he’s mad as hell, so be it. I’d do it again.”

She turned finally to her brother. “And you can protest all you want, but you were not going to stand up to Hector.”

“You’ll never know that, will you?”

She held her tongue with difficulty.

“Are you positive you three don’t want a place to stay tonight?” Chase looked from Paul to Rio.

“I’m positive.” She had faith in her locks, one of the few things she’d splurged on in the old house she’d inherited from her mother’s meager estate. She also had faith—she had to—that Paul carried enough street cred to get them through this. She sighed, burying her pride with effort to ask for one more thing. “If I could just be sure she gets home safely,” she said, inclining her head toward Bonnie, “we’ll be fine after that.”

“Is your car nearby?” Chase asked.

“No, it’s at the house. It was faster to run the three blocks.”

“Will Hector retaliate?” Chase turned to Paul.

“He could. Send his boys to threaten her.”

“Aren’t
you
one of his boys?” Bonnie leveled her gaze at Paul, showing anger with her brother for the first time. “If Heco loves me like he says he does, he won’t hurt you or Rio.”

Paul sank even more deeply into his chair, his features swimming in sour annoyance. “I’ll handle it.”

“I can get you home,” Chase said. “I’m still not convinced I should leave you there.”

“It’ll be fine.” Rio sat on the edge of her chair. “I’ll take Bonnie to school tomorrow before work.
You,
Inigo, will make sure she gets home afterward. Safely. Do you hear me?”

“I don’t know. I doubt I can be trusted.” He glowered.

“You might be an idiot.” She glowered back. “But I know you love your sister. Just keep her away from that scumbag Hector for one hour tomorrow. Can you do that?”

“I’m right here, dumbasses.” Bonnie straightened in her chair. “Quit making plans for me like I’m a kindergartner or I’ll leave and take care of myself.”

Weariness fell on Rio like a thick, suffocating blanket. Her lungs wanted one minute of simple, stress-free breathing, but she couldn’t get one
breath
that didn’t contain the stifling, gang-ridden, fear-scented air of Minneapolis.

“Fine.” She threw up her hands. “You’re right. We can’t do this without your cooperation, so if you want to go trust your future to Hector, we’ll back off. I don’t want to pull you out of any more cars, rooms, or God forbid, a drawer in a morgue, so let me know as soon as possible and I’ll get on with my life, too.”

Bonnie snapped her mouth shut.

“That’s enough.” Chase stood from his seat on the desk. “Paul, take Bonnie and get something to drink from the kitchen. Rio, hang on a second.”

When the two had shuffled from the room, Chase knelt in front of her chair.

“I’m sorry.” Exhaustion sent her head into her palms.

“No apologizing. We’ve focused completely on Bonnie and Paul, but it’s you I worry about. This is not a small gang scuffle, honey, this is serious. Maybe it’s time for you to get some help.”

She popped her head up, adrenaline surging. She’d worked her butt off the past seven years at every restaurant or dive that would hire her, and she’d never had to ask for assistance, steal to get by, or sell herself.

Over Chase’s head, she caught the eyes of David-Not-Philip. The warm-cocoa gaze shone with sympathy, and her face flamed, knowing how he was seeing her and her family. Despite his kind eyes and her schoolgirl attraction, his cool, quiet demeanor aggravated her. She was holding her world together with sheer will and sarcasm, and he was observing from the corner like a visitor at the zoo.

She forced her attention back to Chase. “I appreciate your concern, but I can handle things.”

“Don’t stretch yourself too thin.” He placed one hand on her knee. “You’ve been mom, sister, truant officer, and rescuer for a lot of years. You’re too special around here to lose to burnout—or something worse.”

“Thank you.” His words warmed a cold spot in her heart. “I’ve dealt with Paul’s friends a long time.”

“I know better than to argue with you.” He stood. “I have to be here another forty-five minutes. Can you hang tight? I’ll take you home then.”

“Whatever we need to do.”

David moved from the corner for the first time. “I have my car out back,” he said. “Why don’t I just run you home?”

Rio turned back to him, her pulse rising one tiny, excited half beat. The man shocked her every time he opened his mouth. “I couldn’t make you do that.”