BIG DADDY SINATRA 2: IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, Book 2 (7 page)

“He
had a tie on when they went upstairs,” Denise whispered to him.
 
“Now it’s missing.”

“You
need to quit,” Norm said with a smile.
 
“And look at her blouse,” he added his own observation.
 
“Wrinkled.”

Denise
smiled.
 
She knew she could depend on
Norm.

“I’ll
see you guys tomorrow,” Jenay said.
 
“Bright and early.”

“Goodnight,”
Charles added, and they were off.

As
soon as they walked out, Norm looked at Denise and they both laughed.

Then
Norm shook his head.
 
“She is so
lucky.
  
I’d give my right arm to have a
man like that.”

“I
have a man like that,” Denise said.
 
“He
just won’t come to his senses.”

“I
know you’re not talking about Mark.
 
I
know that man you called a dirty dog yourself is not who you mean.”

Denise
smiled.
 
“That’s my business,” she
said.
 
“Not yours.”

And
then she headed for the elevators, like a woman with a secret.
 

When
she got into her room, she cried.

CHAPTER SIX

Brent
and Tony met for lunch at the Hot Spot the next day.
 
But instead of small talking with Tony, Brent
found himself looking for Denise.
 
When
he finally found her, serving her customers, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of
her.
 
Even as Kerstin, his ex-girlfriend,
came into the cafe and gave him one of her cold looks, his attention kept
floating back to Denise.
 
Especially when
she came to their table to take and then to bring their food order.
 
But she kept it purely professional both
times.
 
No small talk like before.
 
No joking around with either one of
them.
 
All business.
 
She gave them their orders and took off, to
serve her other customers.
 
Brent figured
it was because of Tony’s unartful comment about Brent’s desire to have his way
with her the first time he saw her, although Tony was certain that wasn’t
it.
 
But whatever the reason, Brent still
couldn’t stop watching her.
 

He
was watching her so hard that Tony noticed it.
 
“Gosh, bro,” he said, “you’re getting kind of obvious there, don’t you
think?”

Brent
didn’t care.
 
“What do you think?” he
asked as he continued to watch Denise.
 
The more he watched, the more his interest in her grew.
 
And he wasn’t kidding himself.
 
It was purely physical.
 
He didn’t know her from Adam yet, what else
could it be?
 
He liked the way she
looked.
 
Especially her face.
 
Her face made her body pop.
 
Her gorgeous, dark-skinned face made her move
to the head of the line as far as he was concerned.
 
Other girls around there had it going on too,
but her combination seemed more lethal.
 
As she bent, as she moved, he could only imagine just how tight she
was.
 
He couldn’t stop thinking how she
would feel beneath him, and how she would taste when he opened up all of that
tightness.
 

As
Tony talked, and as other girls stopped by their table to see if they could
make some inroads with either brother, Brent’s attention kept going back to
Denise.
 

Even
Kerstin noticed it.
 
She stared daggers
at Denise.
 
But Denise also noticed how
it was the flunkies at her table who did her dirty work for her.
 
Whenever Denise went to their table to take
or deliver their orders, she was met with derisive comments by the
flunkies.
 
Kerstin never said a thing,
but Denise knew the mean girl game better than most.
 
The so-called popular girls tried to recruit
her all through high school, but she kept turning them down.
 
So they turned on her too.

But
Kerstin’s displeasure only further confirmed for Denise what she’d been
wondering all along.
 
Her interest in
Brent was reciprocated.
 
He was attracted
to her maybe as much as she was to him.
 
So despite the cool reception of the so-called
it
girls, Denise was pleased.
 
Why was she so pleased, considering the fact that she was still pining
over Mark, was the question.

And
then, after lunch, when she was handing Brent the bill and turning to head back
toward the kitchen, he reached out and grabbed her by the arm.
 
She looked at his big, smooth hand on her
small arm, and then she looked into those seductive, piercing eyes.
 
Her heartbeat quickened.

“What
time do you get off?” he asked her.

She
had a sudden feeling that she should tell him to get lost.
 
“Six,” she said instead.
 
“I don’t have to close tonight.”

“How
about I swing back, pick you up, and we go for a drive?
 
Or out to dinner if you prefer?”

Denise
knew Norm and Jenay wouldn’t prefer it at all, and Stephie wouldn’t like it
either since she had a thing for Brent too.
 
But Denise was developing an itch lately that was screaming to be
scratched.
 
And here was a gorgeous hunk
ready, willing, and undoubtedly able to scratch the hell out of it.
 
And those damn sexy eyes of his!
 
What was a girl to do?

But
she wasn’t in Maine to pick up some man and get her heart broken again.
 
Especially if that man was her best friend’s
stepson and a player to boot given the attention these girls around town gave
to him.
 
But even with all of that, it
was still a close call for Denise.
 
But
she decided against it.
 
For now.

“Thanks
for the offer,” she found herself saying, “but I’ll take a pass.
 
You guys have a nice evening.”

Tony
couldn’t believe it.
 
After she left
their table, he leaned forward and stared at his brother.
 
“She turned you down?” He had a look of
astonishment on his otherwise handsome face.

Brent
looked at the bill and pulled out his wallet.
 
It hurt, but he wasn’t telling Tony that.
 
“Whatever,” he said.

“But
. . . she turned you down, Brenton!
 
She
turns me down all the time, and every other guy around here, but she turned
you
down?
 
You
?”
 
Then Tony smiled.
 
“I love her!”

Brent
stood up and tossed two twenties onto the table.
 
“Then you pay the bill, lover boy,” he said.

Tony
laughed.
 
But then he looked at the bills
Brent had just tossed onto the table.
 
“Forty bucks?” He stood up.
 
“You’re leaving the girl who turned you down a forty dollar tip?”

“Just
pay the bill,” Brent said, and left the café.

He
went outside as the afternoon sun gave way to an overcast sky.
 
The Hot Spot restaurant was inside the
Jericho Inn but its entrance and exit backed up onto a busy Jericho thoroughfare.
 
And as soon as Brent walked out onto the
sidewalk, he was accosted by various residents who had issues with his father
or issues with the police department, or both, and they wanted to know what
Brent was going to do about it.
 
But
Brent had no answers to give them.
 
He
was just standing in front of the café waiting on his brother.
 
And even with the questions and all of the
activity around him, he still found himself thinking about Denise.

He
even turned and looked through the café’s window in search of her.
 
And when he found her, he couldn’t take his
eyes off of her.
 
Contrary to what Tony
believed, he’d been turned down by girls before, many times before.
 
It was no big deal to him.
 
And whenever it happened he would forget the
girl who turned him down, and pick up another one.

But
for some reason
that
turn down, by
that
girl, bothered him.
 
He didn’t want to forget
 
her.
 
He didn’t want somebody else. He wanted her.
 
And as he stared at her as she took more
orders and delivered more food to various tables, he wondered why did her
turndown bother him so, and why did he want her above anybody else.
 
She wasn’t the only fish in the sea.
 
Hell, there were more fish than he could ever
attempt to catch in Jericho.
 
But there
was something about her that made him want to keep at it.
 
She tugged at his heart.
 
It shouldn’t be possible.
 
He didn’t know that girl and the only reason
he wanted her was a sexual one.
 
But that
odd feeling was there too.

“Brent?
 
Brent?
 
Brenton!”

Brent
finally realized somebody was standing on the sidewalk attempting to get his
attention.
 
He turned to the sound.
 
To his surprise, it was Kerstin.
 
He didn’t realize she had come out of the
café.

“Didn’t
you hear me?” She had a disgusted look on her pretty face.

Brent’s
look toward her wasn’t loving either.
 
“If I would have heard you I would have said something.
 
What do you want?”

Tony
came out of the café too.
 
“Hey, Kerse,”
he said, as he began walking toward Brent.

But
Kerstin ignored Tony’s greeting.
 
She
only had eyes for Brent.
 
“What was that
about?” she asked him.

“What
was what about?”

“You
flirting with that waitress.”
 
She folded
her arms.
 
“What was that about?”

Brent
frowned.
 
“That’s none of your
business.
 
That’s what it was about.
 
None of your business.”

“Are
you fucking her?”

Tony
playfully placed his hand on his heart.
 
“The language!” he admonished.

But
Brent didn’t find it playful, nor serious.
  
He found it annoying.
 
“Go back
inside with your flunkies, Kerstin,” he said.

“You
can do way better than her,” Kerstin insisted.

“Yeah,
sure,” Brent said dismissively.
 
“Go back
inside.”

Kerstin
fumed as she looked at him.
 
But she went
back inside.

“Even
after you dump’em,” Tony said, “they still obey you.”
 
Tony shook his head.
 
“Must be nice, big brother.
 
Must be nice!”

But
Brent couldn’t bask in the niceness.
 
He
received a call from his partner.
 
They
had a tip, and it was all going down this afternoon.

The
drug dealing thugs scattered like roaches as soon as the patrol cars pulled in
behind the warehouse.
 
Sarge, as Brent’s
men colleagues called him, was the first to jump out of the lead car and, along
with his partner Marty Martin, ran for the two men they believed to be the
ringleaders.
 
The other cops jumped from
their cars too and ran down the remaining criminals as if they were running
down dogs.
 
They had gotten a tip from a
local informant and had the element of surprise on their side when they busted
up what was supposed to be a major drug ring by a dealer brand new to the
Jericho market.

Although
both of the supposed ringleaders cleared the high fence and got away, despite
warning shots from Brent and Marty, Brent managed to see two other thugs run
into two of the elongated sheds on the property.
 
Brent motioned to Marty to go and search the
first one, and he headed for the second one.

Brent
moved like a panther through the quiet, wet unit, moving around discarded old
clothes and furniture until he ended up at the back of the unit.
 
Around a nook was the only place the thug
could be hiding, and Brent was ready.
 
He
gun out and was already aiming when he waited two beats, and then hurried
around what was an old armoire.
 

“Police,
freeze!” he yelled as he aimed at the small figure huddled in the corner.
 
But when Brent saw that it wasn’t some drug
dealing thug, but was actually his brother Robert in that corner, he was so
dumbstruck that his weapon nearly fell from his hand.

“Bobby?”
he asked, unable to hide his shock.

Robert
was silently pleading with his brother as he looked his big blue eyes up at
him.
 
it was bad enough that he’d been
caught red-handed.
 
It was bad enough
that he knew Chief Joffee didn’t play when it came to dealing drugs in his
county, and he could face many years in prison if it went that far.
 
But what was even worse than that was his
father finding out.
 
Because he and Brent
both knew that their father would kill him if he ever found out.

“Hey,
Sarge!” Marty yelled.
 
“You got him? I
got mine!”

Brent
continued to stare at Robert.
 
Brent
continued to be amazed, and saddened, and angry at his younger brother.
 
Brent was a cop.
 
It was his job to get criminals like this off
the streets.
 
But this was his blood
brother, his father’s son.
 
This was
different.