Trouble on Tap (17 page)

Fear for Mateo ate away at Olivia as she rubbed her cheek, bruised from stumbling into the brick wall, and followed him toward the police car. A small hand wrapped around her wrist, stopping her.

“Nothing you can do for him right now,” Ruby Sue said as she tugged her back toward The Kitchen Sink’s front door. “Best thing to do is to get your ducks in a row for bail.”

Still trying to process what had just happened, her brain hiccupped. “Bail?”

Ruby Sue shook her head. “Come on, girl, it hasn’t been that long since you had to get your parents out of the county jail.”

“More than ten years.” Her dad had protested the closure of the drama club, her most loved extracurricular activity, by sitting down buck naked on the fifty-yard line during the high school homecoming game.

Ruby Sue shrugged. “When you’re my age, ten years is an eye blink. Come on inside, we’ll get you some pie and figure out what to do next.”

They weaved their way through the gossiping crowd surrounding Larry as the paramedic evaluated his obviously broken nose. Everyone there was determined to get a good look at the damage Mateo had inflicted, no doubt so they could exaggerate it sufficiently at the Boot Scoot Boogie honky tonk later that night.

The cold march of ants up her spine told her the exact moment Larry spotted her in the crowd. She knew she shouldn’t look. She should just keep moving.

“Unless you come up with the cash,” he hollered, “I’m going to sell that video to the lowest bidder!”

Something inside her snapped and she jerked to a stop. After everything, he still thought he could cow her into doing what he wanted. The man was a moron, and so was she for ever thinking she saw something in him. The crowd buzzed around her. She and her sisters may be the only Sweets left in Salvation, but the town still knew what Larry had no clue about. You could push a Sweet only so far before they let their freak flag fly and invited the world to come sit down and see all their ugly up close.

The initial blast of anger gave way to a crystal clear understanding of what had to happen next. He thought he had a bargaining chip? He had nothing, and she was going to show him just how little of nothing he had.

“You lost whatever hold you had over me with this video when I came back home. In Salvation, I’m just one more in a long line of crazy Sweets. We’re
expected
to do things that cross the lines like get naked in an elevator. Hell, my grandmother allegedly burned down the DMV; we, of course, maintain it was an electrical fire. Do you really think that video would harm my reputation in
this
town?” She laughed. Hard. For once, being an unhinged Sweet was going to work in her favor. “You want to sell that video? Go for it.”

“I will.” He tried to smirk but the way his lips were swelling up made it impossible.

Now to turn the screws. “Just remember that everyone here heard you threaten me unless I gave you cash. That’s blackmail.”

“Semantics.” He shrugged, but his gaze darted around the crowd as if confirming they’d heard. “I was giving you first right of refusal.”

“The cops won’t see it that way. Not to mention that video wasn’t a gift to you, so you can’t sell it like you did the photos. You stole it from a hotel’s security system. I may not be able to hire every attorney on the West Coast to go after you for that theft, but I bet a massive high-end hotel chain like that one can.” She paused to let her words sink into his thick skull. “After all, they don’t want their guests to think they sell security footage to the highest bidder.”

“They wouldn’t come after me.” His voice was firm but there was no missing the sweat making his forehead wet.

“And that’s just civil penalties.” Time to bring it home and scare the ever-loving shit out of Larry so well that he’d never bother her again. “The theft would still catch the prosecuting attorney’s eye—especially a high-profile, sexy case like this would be. I still know a lot of media folks and I won’t be the least bit shy in asking them for coverage. Everyone in the western hemisphere would know what a scumbag you are and that the video is stolen goods. You’d never be able to sell it. Even the shittiest of porn sites would know not to touch you with a twenty-foot pole dipped in hydrogen peroxide. Face it, that video is worthless.”

Heart hammering in her chest, Olivia savored the rush that went with taking an asshole down a couple pegs or twenty. Then she turned on her heel and left, leaving Larry and more than a couple of gawkers with their mouths hanging open, and stormed into The Kitchen Sink. Only a few people remained inside, including her least-favorite mayor, Tyrell Hawson. Just the sight of him leeched some of the fuck-yeah adrenaline from her. The man sucked the joy out of everything.

Unlike the others, who were glued to the diner’s front windows, he sat with his back to the hubbub outside and sipped coffee from a bright-red mug. “Looks like your chickens have come home to roost and have shit all over our police chief. He had a promising career going until you came back to town.”

Mateo. Her gut twisted. She hadn’t thought of his job. An arrest was a day that ended in Y for previous generations of Sweets, but not so for the Salvation Police Chief.

She lowered her voice, hoping against logic that the few people in the diner weren’t doing everything they could to overhear. “Larry took the first swing.”

“Looked to me like your protector returned a lot more than one swing’s worth.” He glanced up from his half-empty coffee mug. “Oh no, our police chief is done carrying a badge, unless someone who has a lot of influence were to go to bat for him.”

She snorted. “Someone like you.”

“Now that you mention it, that does sound like me.” His lips curled in a cruel mockery of a smile.

The air wheezed out of her lungs and she sank down onto the chair next to his. How did she get here? Bargaining with the man who loved to bedevil the Sweets at every turn. “What do you want?”

“Cancel the fundraiser for the veterans’ center.”

“But that’s something
good
that will benefit the whole town. Why does your hatred for my family outweigh the good we can do?”

He sat his mug down on the counter and swiveled his chair so he faced her. Loathing rolled off him in waves as a crimson flush crept up his neck.

“Because you’re bad for Salvation,” he snarled. “Your family likes to think of themselves as eccentrics with hearts of gold who are involved in criminal hijinks, but to me, your people are the broken windows in a neighborhood. You’re the first sign of things going downhill. Fool that he is, out there, Mateo was trying to protect your reputation—as if that was possible. Well, I’m trying to protect this town so that it grows and prospers. If your family name is connected to anything like the veterans’ center, it will only tarnish Salvation.”

By the time he was done, Tyrell’s round cheeks were bright red with bitter frustration. It wasn’t just a power grab, an ego trip, or revenge for the Christmas special documentary crew that had caught him dancing with his horse. He really believed what he was saying. There’d be no convincing him otherwise. He’d keep fighting her every step of the way—and he wasn’t above fighting dirty and taking down anyone who got in his way.

“Cancel the fundraiser. That’s it?” She pictured Miranda’s rounding belly and her throat tightened. Then she imagined Mateo handing in his badge and going to jail because of her.

He nodded. “One word from me and the judge sets a low bail and dismisses the charges. Then everything goes back to normal.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do we have a deal?”

She nodded, unable to get words past the lump in her throat.

“Good. I’ll go speak to the judge.” He stood and took a few steps toward the door then stopped and pivoted back to look at her. “Don’t think about double-crossing me. I’m not the kind of enemy you want to have.”

Sunset’s last orange hues were barely visible in the western sky when the dog picked his head up off Olivia’s lap and jumped down from where they’d been snuggling in the porch swing. Handsome, perched on the porch railing, executed a deep feline stretch and stared out into the darkened driveway. Headlights pierced the night as Mateo’s truck rumbled up the gravel road.

Her hands shook as she brushed them across her favorite yellow skirt and stood. Waiting on the porch after she’d called Luciana to let her know Mateo had been taken into custody had been the longest hours of her life. Against her better judgement, she’d pinned all her hopes on the mayor delivering on his end of the bargain, and he had. Relief swept through her as she released the breath she’d been holding since he’d started up the drive.

Mateo got out of the Salvation Police Department SUV, stopping at the back bumper and stared at her. Awareness sparked between them, making the rest of the world disappear. This was where she belonged—with the man she loved.

Energy buzzed through her, lightening her steps as she hurried to the railing, ready to call out to him, but something in the ramrod-straight line of his back and the grim twist to his lips stopped her. Dread spread like icy crystals throughout her body.

Not heeding or noticing the undercurrent, the dog went nuts, yapping and hopping along beside Mateo as he made his way stiffly to the front porch.

He glanced up at her cheek and winced. “Are you okay?” He reached out but stopped before his fingers grazed her bruised cheek. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” She pressed her hand to the bruise; the swelling was already going down. “When you swung your arm free, I stumbled and whacked my cheek against the diner’s brick wall.” But a scraped cheek wasn’t what made her insides twist. “Did they file charges?”

He jammed his fingers through his hair, as if he could shove everything that had happened out of his head. “The whole thing was captured on The Kitchen Sink’s security cameras. You can see him take the first swing and then hear him taunting. The sheriff’s office took the case to avoid conflict of interest with my department. They aren’t filing charges.”

Relief made her shoulders sag. “So what happens now?”

He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he climbed up the porch steps and went to the door. After unlocking it, he pushed it open and then turned to face her. “You need to find a new place to live…as far away from me as possible.”

Her breath caught and she clasped her hand to the base of her throat. “Mateo, don’t—”

“I’m no good for you.” He turned away from her, showing her only the scarred left side of his face as he stared straight ahead into his dark house. “I knew it in that hotel room, when I was still whole, but when you came home I let myself forget. I played pretend. Seeing that video brought everything back. I’m not a man anyone should be with, let alone you.”

Pulse pounding in her ears, she rushed across the porch, grabbed his arm and forced him to turn and look at her. “Let alone me? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that I’m a fucking walking disaster!” he roared. “Just look at my face and you can see that. What’s even scarier is the fact that I’m the lucky one. The other poor bastards with me ended up dead. And today, I try to help you and I end up making things worse because now your shit of an ex-boyfriend won’t just want money, he’s gonna want revenge. Just get the fuck out of my life. You don’t belong here—you never did and you never will.”

He slid his arm free and went into the house, closing the door in her face.

Olivia just stood there, trying to make sense of the world and of the man who she’d loved for most of her life. A numbness drifted over her, the kind she hoped would never go away because that’s when the bone-deep pain would hit, hard enough to drop her to her knees.

She couldn’t be standing on Mateo’s front porch or be in the cabin or even Salvation when it hit.

Scooping up Handsome, she walked to her car. The keys and her purse were still in it. Without thinking about where or how or what next, she got into her Fiat, drove down the driveway and turned left onto the highway. She didn’t even look back when she hit the Salvation County line.

The pounding on Mateo’s door wouldn’t stop. It broke through the hangover headache beating his brain to a pulp and continued relentlessly. He sat up on the couch, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes that now stunk of bourbon and shit-ass decisions about his life. The dog had his nose pressed to the bottom of the front door, sniffing, as if whatever was on the other side was better than a T-bone steak.

Olivia
.

His pulse ratcheted up and he jumped from the couch. That was how the mutt reacted to her every time—something they both had in common. She’d come back, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to push her away another time. He’d fail her again.

“Mateo Garcia, we know you’re in there,” Miranda hollered through the door. “Open up right now!”

Relief and disappointment double-punched him in the gut. Not Olivia, her sister. He nudged the dog over with his foot and opened the door.

Both of Olivia’s sisters stood on his front porch looking as if they were ready to storm the castle, all they were missing were pitchforks and torches. The dog obviously didn’t get the same we’re-here-to-slay-you vibe, since it had gone all waggle-butt as it weaved a figure eight around and between the sisters’ feet fast enough that he was nearly a blur. Neither Miranda nor Natalie seemed to notice.