Unmanned (22 page)
Authors: Lois Greiman
“Your daughter’s going to give Pete fits,” I said. “That’s good enough for me.”
She put a hand on her belly. “I was wondering if you would mind if we named her Christianna. After you.”
I felt my eyes well up unexpectedly.
But I could have sworn I heard, “Oh, for God’s sake!” coming from Father’s general direction. When I turned toward him, however, he was already clearing his scratchy old voice.
“Let us continue in God’s name,” he said, but he couldn’t ruin my evening. The rehearsal went by in a haze. Even the dinner that followed was stunningly bereft of humiliation.
We relocated to Porter’s Chop Block, not ten minutes from my parents’ home. The prime rib was rare, the potatoes soaked in butter, and the wine plentiful.
Holly’s mother was a still-handsome woman who looked like she’d battled life and won. She occupied one end of the table and didn’t seem to have, or miss, a male counterpart. As for my own patriarch, he sat in typical silence, looking angrily constipated, but no angrier or more constipated than usual.
All in all it wasn’t a terrible evening. Scary as hell, but not terrible. Rivera sat to my right, making terrifying small talk with Michael. James sat to my left. Glancing down the row of faces, I realized something I had never noticed before; we almost looked normal. Relatively fit, attractive, and all grown up.
A couple of tables away, a dark, blocky man lifted his glass toward us. James gave him a congenial nod and rose to his feet.
I had declined dessert. Partly because I’m one classy broad and partly because I didn’t want to scare Rivera right out of the state. I’d already eaten a small herd of Angus.
“That’s Pete’s philosophy anyway. Right, Chrissy?” Michael said, raising his voice. He stood up. Mom was talking to Holly, who was nodding rhythmically.
I turned toward my eldest brother, catching the tail end of the conversation. “What?”
“From now on we just come running to you when we screw up.”
“Hey, she’s just lucky I was there,” Pete said, putting a proprietary hand on his fiancée’s back.
“Yeah, lucky she could save your sorry ass,” James said.
“You kidding me?” Peter had been drinking a little. Okay, for an Irishman, he’d been drinking a little. For anyone else, including all kinds of dromedaries, he’d been drinking quite a lot. “It’s just a good thing I showed up when I did or—”
“What are you talking about?” Mom asked. “Was there some kind of trouble in L.A.? I thought you just went to make sure she was coming to the wedding.”
We turned to her in unison, eyes wide as lost lambs, and then everyone scattered.
“I’ll get the car.”
“I better get going.”
“I have to get home.”
“See you tomorrow.”
And suddenly we were standing in the parking lot, people scattering in every direction as the night settled in. It had rained a little. The concrete was wet.
“Hey.” Pete touched my arm. “Got a minute?”
Rivera glanced at me, silently asking if I was all right. I gave him the thumbs-up eyebrows. After which he gave Pete the “Don’t do anything stupid” glare, and strode off.
Peter John watched him go, then cleared his throat. “I just wanted to…” He loosened his tie a little, glanced at his feet. “I’m glad you came.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” I said.
He grinned, probably knowing I had planned to do just that. “I’m not going to screw this one up. Even though…” He shook his head. “Shit. I’m coming into this kind of blind. Didn’t even know she’d been married before.”
“She’s had a rough time, Pete. Victims of domestic violence…” I shrugged, still baffled…even with a Ph.D. Go figure. “They blame themselves sometimes. Don’t like to talk about it.”
His jaw tightened. He glanced toward the Chop Block. The door opened. A few silhouettes could be seen against the soft yellow rectangle of light.
“Almost makes me wish…” He paused, cleared his throat, tightened his fists. “I halfway wish he wasn’t dead so I could beat the hell out of him.”
I smiled a little. Christianna was going to have an interesting childhood. “You’re going to be a father,” I said. “You’ll get plenty of chances to be overprotective.”
“Shit,” he said again, but a grin was lurking. “A little girl. Maybe she’ll be like you.”
“I’m impressed you can say that without bolting.”
“Naw.” He shook his head. “It’d be great.” His gaze met mine. I waited for the punch line, but he only shuffled his feet again. “I wanted to thank you.”
“For saving your ass?”
He grinned. “’Course, if I hadn’t made you eat sheep turds all them years ago, you wouldn’t have been ready to shoot me when you thought I was pulling your leg.”
“Good thing you were thinking ahead,” I said, and he chuckled.
The patrons from the Chop Block were getting closer. The evening was friendly and warm.
“Hey, ain’t you Peter McMullen?” It was the bulky guy from the restaurant. The two men behind him were silent. One of them held a bottle in a bag. I gave them a smile.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “Do I know you?”
“Brad Stacy. Tiffany’s brother.”
“Tiffany?”
“Yeah, you remember. You dated her a few years back.”
“Oh, sure.” Pete shifted his gaze toward me, then away. I had no idea if he remembered her or not. But I didn’t care. I was happy, full, and maybe a little bit drunk. “Tiffany. How’s she doing?”
“Got two boys now.”
“Yeah? That’s great. Well, tell her hi, will you, buddy?” Pete said, and turned away.
“You told her you couldn’t have no kids.”
Pete turned back. “What’s that?”
Brad shifted his weight, squared his massive shoulders. “You told her the boy wasn’t yours on account of some injury.”
Pete barely missed a beat. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That umm…bull injury. Remember that bull on Grandma’s farm, Chrissy?”
I stared, mind bumbling slowly.
“Remember?” he said again, more pointedly this time.
“Sure. Sure, the…bull,” I intoned.
“Yeah. Biggest damned horns I’ve ever seen. Caught me right in the—”
“Looks like your fiancée is pretty damned pregnant, though,” Brad said.
Pete narrowed his eyes a little. Lifted his chin. “Listen, buddy, I don’t want any trouble. I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“Yeah? My little sister never did get hitched.”
“Yeah, well…” I laughed a little, just coming out of a trance caused by this unusual normalcy. “I’m sure she’s too good for my idiot brother,” I said, and took a calming step forward.
“Stay out of this,” warned Blocky Boy, and pushed me aside.
“Hey,” Pete said. “Nobody touches my sister.”
“Nobody touches mine, either,” snarled Brad, and thumped Pete on the chest with both hands, knocking him backward. “Nobody ’cept you.”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t seen her in years.”
“You’re a fucking liar.”
“And the baby was black. Hell, she told me she’d been sleeping with a linebacker for the—”
And that’s when Brad charged. He hit Pete in the gut with his shoulder. They tumbled to the pavement.
I screamed for them to stop. And suddenly footsteps were running toward us. Michael and James appeared out of nowhere, but Brad’s friends were pretty wasted. The closest one took a swing at Michael. The other smashed his bottle against the nearest bumper and advanced.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Pal,” James said, arms stretched out to his sides, but even I could see that that scenario was unlikely. The glass sliced across the front of James’s suit coat. And I think, although I’m not positive, that’s when I jumped onto Pal’s back.
After that there was a lot of spinning and yelling and cursing. I hung on for dear life, legs wrapped around my mount’s waist as I boxed his ears.
Until a shot exploded. Everyone froze. I glanced to my left, past my ride’s ear. Rivera stood five feet away, legs spread, gun pointed toward the sky.
“Christina,” he said, voice low and perfectly modulated.
“Yes?” I had a pretty good grip in Pal’s hair.
“Perhaps you should dismount.”
“He had a bottle,” I said.
Then everyone started talking at once.
“Shut the fuck up!” Rivera yelled.
We did. I climbed down. Pete scrambled to his feet. Our rivals converged, backing away.
“Peter?” Holly appeared, pale-faced and small-voiced, out of nowhere.
“Yeah, honey?” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and did his best to look casual.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He shifted his gaze to Brad, who raised his hands and slipped into the darkness. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Everything’s great.”
James and Michael agreed wholeheartedly. There were a few sheepish grins before they traipsed contentedly back to their cars.
In a minute Rivera and I stood alone in the parking lot.
His brows were low, but his mouth was quirking up a little at the corners.
“They started it,” I said, and then he laughed.
About the Author
LOIS GREIMAN
lives in Minnesota with her family, some of whom are human. Write to her at
[email protected]
. One of her alter egos will probably write back.
If you enjoyed Lois Greiman’s
Unmanned,
don’t miss the next mystery from this “dangerously funny”
*1
author.
U
nnerved
by
Lois Greiman
Coming from Dell Books
in 2008
Also by Lois Greiman
UNSCREWED
UNPLUGGED
UNZIPPED
AND COMING SOON
UNNERVED
*1 Janet Evanovich
Return to text.
UNMANNED
A Dell Book / November 2007
PUBLISHED BY
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2007 by Lois Greiman
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33711-9
v3.0