The Reasons to Stay (Harlequin Superromance) (10 page)

“Nah. We’re making like Clapton and going unplugged.”

It took him a few seconds to detach his focus from the TV and shift his eyes to her. “You’re a Clapton fan?” He said it like a kid would say Disneyland.

“Best guitar player ever. With a nod to Jimi.” She bent and grasped the corners of the massive monstrosity of a TV. “Where do you want me to put it?”

His hand settled on her arm, a warm, solid presence. “Just leave it there. I’ll have the recyclers pick it up.”

When she straightened, his hand slid away, along with the warmth. “You’re going to throw it out?”

“That thing has got to be one of the first models adapted to cable.”

Barney.
A smile unfurled in her chest and found its way to her mouth. “Mind if I give it away?”

“It’d save me a phone call.”

“Great, I’ll just—” She bent.

Both his hands settled on her arms. “Will you stop? There’s no way you can lift that thing.”

She knew he had brown eyes. But she’d never noticed they were a rich, dark-chocolate brown. Nor had she noticed the pale lines that radiated from their edges, probably earned on a ball field, squinting into the sun.

He dropped his hands. “Where do you want it?”

“In Mona’s trunk?”

“I take it you mean your car. Unless you have an elephant outside.” He bent at the knees, and lifted the TV as if it didn’t weigh over a hundred pounds. “Open the door for me?”

She hustled to the door and once he was through, Priss trotted to the car where Nacho sat, face forward in the passenger seat. She opened the trunk. “Thanks for doing this.” She scanned his biceps, displayed by the pulled-tight lab coat. “It’s going to a good cause, I promise. I know a guy who—” Realizing she was babbling as well as about to betray a confidence, she shut up.

Adam grunted lowering his burden, then walked over and pulled a hank of twine off a wooden pallet beside the large garbage bin to secure the trunk lid. “Even together, the two of you cannot lift that thing out of this car. Don’t even try.”

“We won’t.” She took a step toward the car door, but then turned back. “Adam? Thanks. For this.” She glanced at Nacho, then lowered her voice. “And for yesterday.”

His Superman smile dazzled. “I’ll see you at coffee tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good. I want to talk about you playing for our team.”

She glanced to the back of Nacho’s head. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

She drove Nacho to school in silence. When she pulled up, he jumped out fast.

“Hey.”

He slammed the door. “What?” His eyes scanned the knots of kids on the sidewalk.

She waited until he looked at her. “I’ll call you at three-thirty. Get your homework done. I’ll be home by four-fifteen or so, and we’ll go on the ‘apology tour.’”

“Okay.”

The resignation in that word gave her hope. “You have a good day.”

He turned away with a snort.

It did suck to be him—but he’d earned every bit of it.

A horn blatted. She shot a death-ray stare at the Range Rover soccer mom in the rearview mirror and eased Mona forward two feet in line.

* * *

P
RISS
STOOD
LOOKOUT
, scanning the alley behind the bar.

Ian lifted one end of the television. “God, this thing weighs a ton!”

“Shhh.” Priss said, holding the trunk lid. “He’s just on the other side of that door.”

Porter lowered the gate of his idling truck, then walked over to help. “Barney’s going to be so excited. This is a good thing you’re doing, Priss.” Together the two guys lifted the TV and carried it to the truck.

“I didn’t do anything. My landlord donated it
and
loaded it.” She slammed the trunk.

They slid the TV into the truck bed and Porter closed the tailgate. “You got the key to his room?” she asked.

“Right here.” Ian tapped the pocket of his slacks. “See you tomorrow, Priss.”

She waved as they pulled out. Walking to Mona, she realized that she’d left her apron inside. Not that it mattered so much, but she’d hate to lose it.

She trotted in, snatched the apron from the end of the bar, then turned to head back out to her car.

Gaby, arms full of fish and chips, pushed out of the swinging kitchen door. She sucked a breath through her teeth that sounded like a snake’s warning. “Watch where you’re going.”

Priss raised her hands.

Gaby squinted at her. “You think you’re all high and mighty, giving an old drunk a cast-off from your Big Life. Well, just remember, Miss Priss. I know your true stripes.”

Priss didn’t have time for a fight. “Yeah, I know. You’ve got your eye on me.”

“That’s right. Don’t you forget it.” The old vulture shuffled off, her gray hair barely visible over her dowager’s hump.

Someday I’m going to figure out why she hates me so.
But not today—Nacho was waiting.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“L
AST
APOLOGY
COMING
UP
. I’m sure it’ll be easier than this one.” Priss hit the gas and Mona fishtailed out of the warehouse’s gravel lot and onto the blacktop.

Nacho rested his arm on the car door and his chin on his arm. He looked like one whipped puppy.

She stomped on the niggle of sympathy in her chest before it could grow. He’d earned every bit of the dressing-down he’d gotten from the warehouse owner. But she had to give it to the kid—he had stood tall as he apologized.

Hopefully Nacho had taken the angry man’s lecture on morality, free will and good citizenship to heart. Even if it had been applied with a bulldozer.

“I just have one question.” She raised her voice to be heard over the wind. “What was the ‘B’ for?” He’d gotten as far as “Bekins B—” when the cops interrupted.

“Blows.”

She bit her lips to keep from smiling.
Bad cops
weren’t supposed to be amused by poor behavior, no matter how funny. Checking the directions she’d scrawled on the back of an envelope, she took a left at Foxen Canyon Road.

Wow.
She’d never been on this side of town before. The road slipped between rolling hills the color of ripe wheat, with live oaks adding a dusty green accent. The warm sun on her shoulders lifted her spirits. “Isn’t this pretty?”

Nacho just grunted, but he did sit up and look around.

A few cotton-ball clouds broke the eye popping blue of the sky, and the smell of hot, growing things swirled in her head.

Less than a mile from the turnoff, the road narrowed as the hills crowded it. Trees closed in, looming overhead. Slowing, she turned into a dirt drive marked by a rusted mailbox on a leaning post and a hand-lettered sign.

The Gaudy Widow

Custom Paint Jobs

Beside the dirt drive, a sagging barbed-wire fence had fallen into the waist-high weeds in places. She shivered in the chill of the deep shade. After a few hundred feet the drive opened into a dooryard.

She braked and let the car idle. “I don’t think anyone lives here.”

It looked like a strong wind could easily level the dilapidated farmhouse on the right, with its boards sagging and silvered with age. Strategically placed car jacks looked to be the only thing holding up the porch while dark windows seemed to watch the trespassers. A huge barn to the left was in worse shape than the house. She could see through the gaps in the flaked red boards to the blackness within. The big doors stood open.

Nacho pulled the car door handle. “I just want to get this over with.” He stepped out, and walked to the barn.

She turned off the engine, left Mona to her death throes and hurried after Nacho. “Wait. That thing could fall on you.”

A rusted metal sign on the door read This Property Protected by Smith & Wesson.

Priss peered into the gloom that had swallowed Nacho, her unease ticking like a crazed Geiger counter in her head. When she stepped in, the smell of ancient motor oil and fresh paint assaulted her. Standing in the damp dirt just inside the doors, she waited for her eyes to adjust.

“Oh, wow.” Nacho’s awestruck voice came from somewhere ahead.

She walked toward it, winding her way through a path lined with damp cardboard boxes and tangled rusted metal as high as her head. The rat maze turned, ending in a huge open area, lit and warmed by large lamps on poles.

In the center, Nacho was on his knees in front of an old Harley-Davidson. With really tall handlebars and a long, deep seat, it seemed to squat on its broad back tire. The chrome flashed in the lamp’s light, but it was the gas tank that drew Priss’s eye. Orange-tipped gold flames rose through the black paint, so realistic that when Nacho raised his fingers to touch it, she opened her mouth to warn him.

“Do not touch that!” A Godlike voice boomed from the rafters.

Nacho jerked his hand back as if he
had
been burned.

Priss looked to the hayloft and into the eyes of an enraged yeti.

“Do. Not. Move.”

The warning wasn’t needed; Priss and Nacho stood, shocked to stillness.

A talking yeti she could
possibly
believe in. But one wearing a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt, jeans and motorcycle boots? The man—for that was the only other option—started backward down the ladder growling unintelligible words, his long frizzy black hair bouncing with every step. His back was broader than the ladder, and the boards under his hairy hands looked like toothpicks in comparison.

At the bottom, he turned and, hands fisted, advanced on Nacho. “Goddamn kids. You come to rip me off too?”

Eyes huge, Nacho just stared.

“Hey!” Priss stepped out of the labyrinth, forced her cowardly feet forward, and inserted herself between the two. “Back off, dude. He’s not hurting anything.” Though her brain screamed not to, she turned her back on the huge hunk of attitude with facial hair, and grabbed Nacho’s shaking hands. Tightening her lips, she tried to telegraph toughness. Nacho got it. He shook her off and hung his thumbs in the front pockets of his baggy jeans.

“I had a break-in a month ago. I thought—”

She spun. “Bet you get a lot of repeat customers by scaring the crap out of people.”

He reached a huge paw into his back pocket and pulled out a purple bandana, folded it lengthwise and tied it around his forehead. It didn’t do much to tame his hair, but it made him look marginally more human. “What do you want?”

Priss stepped out from between the two, but not far. “My brother needs to talk to you.”

A nanosecond of pure terror crossed Nacho’s face.

He needs this.
She tightened the muscles in her stomach and made herself still.
He needs this.

“Um. I didn’t steal your paint.” His eyes darted, probably scouting the nearest escape route. “But I used it.” The rest of his breath huffed out of him. “For tagging.”

The man’s bushy eyebrows merged when he frowned. “Where?”

“The Bekins warehouse.” Nacho’s voice shook, but he stood his ground.

Priss kept her fists at her sides, ready to step between them again.

“Oh, yeah, I saw that.” He squinted, tugging the beard that covered every bit of skin but his lips. “What’s your name?”

“N-nacho.”

“Well, N-nacho, not bad work. For a beginner.”

Nacho looked like a prisoner whose firing squad had just taken a smoke break.

“But.” He pointed a blunt finger. “Defacing private property is a crime, and accepting stolen property can land you in jail.” He leaned into Nacho’s personal space. “Did you learn anything?”

“Y-yessir.”

“What?” It was more a demand than a question.

“Crime costs more than it’s worth.”

His barely discernible lips quirked. “Good answer.”

Priss let out her breath and put a hand on Nacho’s shoulder. Under that kind of pressure, what he said would have to be the truth, wouldn’t it? “Okay, we can go now.” She just wanted out of this creepy place and away from its volatile owner.

Nacho shrugged from under her hand. “Um. Sir?”

“Name’s Bear.”

Of course it is—no one is named Yeti.

“Mr. Bear—could you tell me how you did this?” Nacho pointed to the flames on the bike’s gas tank. “They’re epic.”

She heard the rumble of Bear’s chuckle in his chest first because it was at ear-height.

“It takes years of practice, kid, and the right tools.”

Nacho looked up at Bear, hero worship plain on his face. “Would you show me?”

Priss put her hand on the back of Nacho’s neck and propelled him ahead of her, straight toward the exit. “Getting late. We gotta go. Sorry to bother you.”

They were picking their way through the rusted-wire maze when the Godlike voice echoed through the barn. “You come back sometime. We’ll talk.”

Nacho had turned and taken a step back, before she snatched his collar and swung him back around. “Don’t even think about it.”

But before Mona even hit the black top Nacho started in. “Did you see that sweet paint job? Shit, that guy—”

“Don’t swear.” She glanced to Nacho’s happy-kid smile. He smiled so seldom. She tightened her lips to stop her responding smile.
It’s not your job to make him happy; it’s your job to keep him out of jail.
And safe.

He gave her the puppy-dog eyes. “I could come over after school and hang out with Mr. Bear.”

“Doesn’t that guy scare the crap out of you? He looks like he eats kids for breakfast.” Her fear made the words pour out hot. “Besides, you’re grounded, remember?”

Nacho fell back against the seat with a huff.

She kept her eyes on the road as retroactive fear bloomed in her mind. What the heck would she have done if that Bear guy hadn’t backed off? Her bluster wouldn’t have gone far with a guy twice her size. He looked like a parolee. That lizard Ms. Barnes would lay a little green egg if she knew Nacho was hanging out with a guy like that.

Priss swallowed lead-shot prayer beads of worry. She’d been so busy snatching Nacho from one disaster to the next, she hadn’t had time to consider that her brother’s safety, his happiness, hell, even his morality—or lack thereof—was on her.

Nacho may try to look tough, but he was just a kid, naive and vulnerable. Brass-knuckled responsibility battered her gut.

Priss thought back to that first day, when she’d only gotten ten miles from here before turning back—where had she thought this road would end?

You didn’t think. You reacted.

As she had when she left Las Vegas, all those years ago. She hadn’t been looking ahead—she’d been looking over her shoulder, running from where she’d been. And she should know by now that was a good way to end up flying into a closed window.

* * *

A
BELL
SOUNDED
when Adam opened the door to The Widow’s Adventure Travel Agency. Posters of exotic destinations crowded the walls, vying for attention: Tahiti’s white-sand beach seduced, Paris crooked a red-tipped finger, while the cliffs of Dover sang a siren’s call.

God, he wanted to go—to all those places.

“Hi, Adam,” the owner hailed him. “I got that information you asked about.”

“Hey, Nancy.” His march from the drugstore ended as he crossed the sun-splashed linoleum. He loved the thought of coming here every month, making plans. “Which one?”

“The Amazon River Cruise.” She slid a trifold brochure across the counter. An orange, yellow and black spotted frog on a vivid green leaf stared from the cover.

He breathed out. “Ooooh.” A thrill zinged and his stomach plunged on a roller coaster’s first dip.

“You’d fly from LAX to either Brazil or Peru, depending on if you want the lower or upper river.” She flipped the brochure to a map on the back. “Then you hop on a thirty-passenger ship for your cruise. They also have pontoon-boat excursions into the smaller tributaries. You can do a zip-line canopy tour, a nature...”

He tuned out the rest, imagining himself in a pith helmet, breathing water-laced air, staring through binoculars into the jungle as a diesel engine chugged and water lapped the sides of their small boat....

When he turned the page, his heart tripped into a manic rhythm, pumping an adrenaline surge that weakened his knees. A glossy photo showed a man hanging suspended by a slim rope over a yawning canyon. Mesmerized in vicarious horror, Adam took a few moments to realize Nancy had stopped talking. He glanced up.

Her features were painted with pity. “How many years have we done this?”

A flush of heat surged, boiling up his neck to burn his face. “I can’t make up my mind. There are just so many amazing places in the world to see.” He slapped the brochure closed and stuck it in his back pocket. “Thanks for this. I’ve got to get back to the store.”

“Wait, Adam—”

The door closed behind him, cutting off the sympathy he didn’t want to hear. But he felt it nevertheless in the weight of Nancy’s regard until he left the travel agency’s plate-glass window behind. As he walked toward Hollister, a coffee-scented breeze from the neighboring bakery’s patio cooled his damp face.

I’m not doing that again. Not ever.

But even as he recited the litany, he knew that in a few weeks, his wanting would draw him again to the travel agency like a junkie to a pusher.

Sliding the brochure out of his back pocket, he glanced at the gaudy frog. He imagined himself at an airline terminal, suitcase rolling behind him, the dark maw of the gangway ahead.

At the other end of that black tube stood an airplane, waiting to swallow him. Apprehension crawled over his skin like Amazonian bugs. He shook it off with a shiver.

Feeling a brush at his shoulder, Adam looked up. A boy hurtled past, glancing back, mouth open in a laugh of delight. A shout rang out and another boy ran past, chasing. They looked free, unfettered—familiar.

The kids turned a corner and were gone. Adam stood in the middle of the sidewalk wheezing as a guilt-tipped knife slammed into his gut.

A fluke had slammed both his and Roger’s childhoods to a full stop.

But at least I had a chance at adulthood.

The knife sliced again. He lost a lot in the accident. But in the years since, he’d allowed the fear to take everything else—his chosen career, his freedom, and finally, his pride.

And without those, how much of a man was left?

Priss was dead-on right about him. He watched life from the outside, without getting any of it on him. Walking faster, he dodged pedestrians on Hollister. Priss was tiny, but she jumped headfirst into life, swimming through whatever came. What excuse did he have?

Dammit, he was done wasting his life, being afraid. He owed Roger that much.

He didn’t know why, but he’d been given a life.

It was time to reclaim it.

* * *

A
FTER
DINNER
, P
RISS
and Nacho assumed their usual positions on opposite ends of the couch. Priss leaned against her end, feet tucked under her, listening.