Defending My Mobster (BWWM Romance) (15 page)

At the hotel, a woman with a frizzy perm stood behind the counter. She looked vaguely familiar.

“We have a reservation under Findley,” Aaron said to her.

“Well, if it isn’t Tamika Davis,” she said, smiling at me. Why did everyone say ‘if it isn’t’? What if it was? I ran through a mental index of all the people I knew. Finally her face clicked into place.

“Carol?” I asked. She smiled even wider. “You’ve lost weight!”

“It’s great seeing you again,” she said. Sure it was. We’d never been friends. “He’s quite a catch.” She gestured with her head towards Aaron.

“Oh, he’s just a colleague. We’re here for work,” I said. Aaron cleared his throat.

“Really?” Carol’s long nails clacked on the keyboard and she squinted at the screen. “It says here it’s a room booked with a double bed.”  I knew we were going to share a room; Larry was a cheap-ass who refused to fork out more money than he needed to.

“We asked for two beds,” I said. “Can’t you move us?”

Carol shrugged. “The reservation wasn’t for a two-bed room.”

“Dammit,” I cursed under my breath. “First Noah and now this.”

“What was that?” Carol asked.

I plastered a fake smile on my face. “I was just remembering good old Ingram,” I said. “Please move us.”

Carol’s eyes went cold and the smile drained from them until it was only on her lips. “We’re fully booked.”

“The room will be fine, thank you,” Aaron said. I think he felt the atmosphere change.

“Down the hall, third one on the left,” she said, holding out the key to me. I reached out my hand, but Carol opened her hand and dropped it on the floor. Aaron ducked to pick it up, and steered me away from the counter.

In the room he dumped his bags on the double bed.

“You sure left a lot of friends behind,” he said. I buried my face in my hands for a second. When I dropped them again, Aaron looked concerned.

“Are you okay?”

“The sooner we get out of here, the better,” I said.

Chapter 2 - Noah

My truck’s headlights sliced through the night and the darkness folded close behind the truck like a curtain. The ranch was quiet, with the sound of crickets surrounding me when I parked and got out. I climbed the three steps that led up the porch and to the front door.

Inside I hung the keys on the key-hooks, and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. Tam was back. Tamika. She’d made it very clear I couldn’t call her Tam anymore. And why should I? She’d left with her tail between her legs seven years ago, and I was the one that had driven her away.

Seeing her today had been like a hallucination. I could almost not believe it. Her hair had been shorter than before, styled and sleek against her head. Not the black mass of little braids she’d had before. And her body had been soft and curvy like she’d been before. She was all work and no play now. Something to make up for the woman she didn’t end up being, I guessed. She’d smelled like summer rain. Evergreen.

She’d sat across me in that truck and it had taken everything I had to act normal, keep things civil. What would have been the alternative? I could still conjure the feel of her caramel skin from memory. The tips of her fingers were smooth when they’d caressed my chest. My neck. My face. Her lips on mine.

I sighed with a shudder. We’d only been kids then. She’d been what… nineteen? Just a child. And at twenty-two I hadn’t been much wiser. But love didn’t have age, did it? Her chocolate eyes today had been closed. The only thing I could read in them was pain. It had been the last thing I’d seen in them before she’d left, and I’d hoped I would never have to see that again.

She’d sat far away from me, like what had happened between us was a disease, something she could catch again. I’d wanted to reach out to her. There were so many things that should have been said all those years ago. But I’d been scared she would reject me. That man she’d been with, he was much more her type. Classy and obviously rich. Someone that could give her what she deserved, not a loser like myself that ran away from difficulty.

I walked deeper into the house. Something dropped in the kitchen, and I stopped in the darkness of the passage. I took my rifle off its hooks where it was on display, and loaded it. Slowly I crept toward the dim light that came from the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” I asked when I saw who it was. Vanessa stood in the kitchen, drying a pan. She looked at the rifle in my hands.

“Were you going to shoot me?” she asked. Her dark brown hair was in a neat bob, and hazel eyes smiled at me from a constellation of freckles. She wore a cream dress suit. She always looked like she was ready to go to a meeting. Or council someone.

I looked down at the rifle, and shrugged.

“Did you forget you’d asked me to come over?” she asked, setting the pan on the stove. The truth was I had.

“I just didn’t expect you so early.”

She arched her eyebrows. Honestly I didn’t really want her here at all. It was like waking up from a dream to find reality waiting for you. Not my favorite sensation. Vanessa rummaged in the fridge and pulled out meat and vegetables. She was at home on the ranch, and she knew her way around my kitchen. She’d obviously gone grocery shopping too, because I didn’t do vegetables as a rule. It was because of her I ate decent food at all. I was quite happy surviving on jerky and Dr. Pepper.

Tonight her comfortable attitude in my kitchen annoyed me. I wanted to be alone to sort through the plethora of emotions that had crept up on me from left field, and now I had to push them away and play happy-families. I couldn’t very well send her home. She lived in Kerrville, some distance away, and I wouldn’t let her drive alone at night. I’d have to put up with her.

“How was your day?” she asked, setting the wooden table in the middle of the kitchen with two plates and knives and forks from the drawer. I only ate here when she came over, and then I liked to use my hands and a container. Easier than washing dishes.

“Did you end up firing that stable hand?”

I shook my head.

“He’s been stealing from you. Why didn’t you do something about it?”

“I spoke to him about it. He was all sorry-like, promising he wouldn’t do it again.”

Vanessa gave me a level stare and I turned to check if I needed to take out the trash. It was easier than facing her head on. “I need the extra help. I can’t run this place with fewer men than I already have, and where am I going to find a replacement now?”
 

“I’ll ask around for you,” Vanessa said. She flipped her hair and stirred the food on the stove. Rich stew smells filled the kitchen.

“I’ll be fine.” I was irritated. It was my ranch. What did she know?

“You can’t keep doing things the way the Harrisons did, you know,” she said. The Harrisons were the couple from Ohio that had owned this ranch before I’d gotten it. I’d worked here as a ranch hand to get away from my drunkard of a father. They’d needed the help, they were almost bankrupt, and after Tamika had left I’d needed the work to drown myself in. When Mrs. Harrison died of cancer, Mr. Harrison had signed the ranch over to me before going back home. They’d had no kids, and he had no interest in keeping a place that reminded him of her.

“I can’t see why not,” I said.

“They were going bankrupt, remember? Come on, I know a bit about ranching, you have to give me that.”

“You know about tourist ranching. It’s not the same thing.”

Vanessa pursed her lips into a thin line, and added spice to the pan.

“I’m sorry,” I said because I knew I’d hit a nerve. Vanessa’s father had passed away before the weekend. He’d bought a tourist ranch some time ago as a retirement investment, and it was all she had left of him. She was set on making the most of it, running it right and keeping it the way he’d had it. She’d been reading up on it.

“Have you heard anything?”

Vanessa shoved the food around in the pan with a spatula. “Some firm is in town to take care of the estate. That’s what they called it. Apparently some lawyer and an estate manager have to come out to sort out his stuff because he didn’t have a will.”

“He didn’t have a will?”

“That’s what I said! But they won’t listen to me. He was with some firm in Lafayette, Findley and Monroe, and they said they had nothing. So I can’t be the one to deal with his stuff because he didn’t say so. Can you believe it?”

When she turned to me, the pan in her hands, her eyes sparkled with tears.

“I’m sorry, Van,” I said. “Maybe it will be quick. Your dad had a big business. I’m sure they’ve got his and your best interest in mind.”

Vanessa snorted and scraped some food into my plate then hers.

“Sure. They’re lawyers, Noah. The only people they care about are themselves. And they want money for it, too. Who do you think has to pay their fees now? And I have to move all dad’s stuff, sort out his paperwork in the city and clear out his office with all the legal documents at the ranch, which means that until that firm is officially fired, I have to fork out cash to take care of everything. My dad dies, and he’s not cold in his grave before they start asking for money.”

She sat down and took a bite. I tested the food. It was spicy and not exactly my kind of thing, but she’d gone through the effort of cooking so I forced it down.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.

I swallowed hard. “Working.”

She dropped the fork with a clatter. She was annoyed. I didn’t understand why.

“You’re always working.”

“You know running a ranch doesn’t give you a day off, Van,” I said. Even if it was the weekend I’d be working, but then at least her annoyance would be justified.

“Why did you ask me to stay the night?” she asked.

I didn’t even know. I was sure that I’d had a reason when I did it. But then again, I didn’t have many reasons with her. Why did I date her? I told myself it was because she was beautiful and funny. Sometimes. I told myself it was because I liked her. Or because she liked me. I told myself it was because no one deserved to be alone, not even a son-of-a-bitch like me.

“Why do you ask?” I asked to stop my own train of thought rather than because I really wanted to know what she had to say.

“I’m meeting with the Estate Manager tomorrow. I was hoping you could come with me.”

I pushed the food around my plate. I had a lot of work to do. Some fences needed repairing. I needed to check the fields and there were some calves that would do great at the upcoming auction. They needed to be taken away from the rest. Besides that there was a lot of bookwork and planning, things the staff couldn’t do for me.

“Please,” Vanessa said again when I didn’t answer. “It’s bad enough to have to deal with my father’s death, without having to decide right away what’s going to happen to everything he has left. I’m taking the day off for it.”

“Is Joan taking your place?”

She nodded. Vanessa was a children’s psychologist. She’d opened a school for children with special needs, and she was a counselor on the side for troubled youth. It was a full time job. Joan was a sort of intern from what I could tell.

“Alright,” I finally said. I supposed I could leave some of the things up to the staff. I had help for a reason.

***

I opened my eyes the next morning with the first light of dawn turning everything into a soft grey. Vanessa was plastered across my chest, her hair a mess across her face and her mouth half-open. She was always so perfectly prim I wondered if she would forgive herself if she knew what she looked like when she was asleep. I slid out from underneath her, careful not to pull the covers with me. On the floor I found my jeans. I took the last clean shirt out of my cupboard and buttoned it up. Vanessa woke up from my searching under the bed for one of my boots.

“Are you headed out?” she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

“I have a couple of things I need to take care of. What time is your meeting?”

“Nine.”

“I’ll meet up with you.”

“You’re not driving in with me? I’d hoped we could go together.”

I shook my head. “I have to take care of a couple of things. Where’s it going to be?”

She sighed. “The conference room at the hotel. They’re staying there and it seemed better than letting them onto the ranch right off the bat.”