Bought His Life (8 page)

But then what would happen to Kimber? What if she got hurt because he wasn’t there to help her?

A picture of her mangled body, broken and bloody in a ditch sprang into his mind, and his stomach lurched at the thought.

Damn. He cared. It shouldn’t be that way, but it was.

His feelings for her didn’t make any sense. He’d only spoken to the woman twice, but they had a connection that was stronger than anything he’d ever experience. Like fate had intervened and brought them together.

Lawson walked into the bar, a dark, dingy place filled with smoke along with the foul odor of stale beer and unwashed bodies.

He spotted Kimber immediately—easy since she was the only woman in the place. And he wasn’t the only one to notice her female presence, either. Nothing but brutal-looking men—some at tables drinking, others playing billiards or darts, all of them casting lecherous gazes her way—occupied the joint.

Kimber sat at the bar, smoking a cigarette while some boisterous old man talked her ear off. With her back turned, she was completely oblivious to the attention she drew.

Stupid chit. She didn’t even bring her friend along—Bertha—like she said she would.
Not that having another woman around would have made the situation any better.

He found a booth in a dark corner by the door. From there, he could keep an eye on her, and everyone else for that matter.

The bartender came around and took his order.

“Just a beer.”

Grunting a response, the overweight man left.

Moments later, the heavy front door creaked open, and two men entered. These men were different than the rest of the riffraff in the place. Dark hair with tanned skin, they were well dressed and carried themselves like Cosa Nostra.

The smaller one pulled a phone out and pressed a button. “
La encontramos
.” We found her.

Since Kimber was the only female in the bar, there was no question who the thug was speaking about.

Shorty put the phone away and looked at his large friend, then nodded toward the door. “
La esperamos afuera
.” We wait for her outside.

As they turned to leave, they spotted Lawson in the booth. The smaller one stopped and held his arm out to halt his partner. He looked Lawson up and down.

“¿
Habla español
?” Do you speak Spanish?

Lawson was fluent, but he wasn’t going to let them know that. He stared at them questioningly.

“Hey.
Pendejo
. Do you know Spanish or not?” the man demanded again in English.

Lawson let the asshole remark go. “No. I don’t. Sorry.”

The huge guy in black gestured toward Lawson’s hat. “
Te parece como un idiota con ese sombrero en la cabeza
.” You look like an idiot with that hat on your head.

Lawson acted as if he didn’t understand the taunt. The two gangsters started laughing.

“My friend here, he says he likes your hat,” the smaller guy translated incorrectly.

“Thank you.”

His reply made them laugh all the harder. They left, still chuckling over what they believed was his ignorance.

When the front door closed, Lawson looked to Kimber. She was the one the gangster’s were waiting for, and they probably didn’t want her autograph.

What had she gotten herself into?

He took off his hat and settled deeper into his seat. Trouble was brewing, and it was only a matter of time before the pot bubbled over.

Chapter Eight

Kimber stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray and stared into her untouched glass of beer, wondering if her life was simply some huge cosmic joke. The whole day had been a bust.

First, she’d spent too much time at the Coast Guard Station for nothing. Seven interviews and not one person could verify that it was a plane that had appeared on the radar and not some space debris or something.

Then she’d run into that Lawson guy again. He had pissed her off royally, at least enough to make her want to kick his chauvinistic ass. Yet she couldn’t shake the small hope that she’d see him again. Why, she had no idea.

And to top off her crappy day, she was sitting on a creaky stool in some rundown hole-in-the-wall dockside bar, listening to Popeye go on and on about the latest big one that got away.

“Big as a Buick, I tell you. If I hadn’t cut the line, she’da pulled me whole boat under. Yep, wouldn’t be here now. But that was nuthin. No, dearie, there was this one time…”

Oh God. Not another story
.

She held up her hand. “Mr. Murphy, please, I want to ask you some questions about—”

The old fisherman clucked his tongue, “Now, young lady, what did I tell you?”

“Call you Captain?”

“Yep, that’s what everyone calls me. Been captaining my own boat,
Muirgen
, for over sixty years. Yep. My father, God rest his soul, was a fisherman, too, as was his father and his father’s father and so back many generations. The
Muirgen
came to me when my father died, yep, killed by those Nazi bastards in the Great War.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been hard,” she offered as she lit another cigarette, grateful that the shitty ass bar had obviously never heard of the Florida Clean Air Act. Otherwise, she might not have made it through the last half hour without losing her mind.

The old man nodded. “Yep, it was. Those were difficult times. I was only twelve back then and the eldest son. Still remember the day like yesterday. It was a sunny afternoon when the postman brought my momma the letter tellin’ us Papa was dead. Now my momma, being the strong woman she was, read the letter, but she didn’t shed a tear.”

Captain Murphy took a hefty swig of whiskey. Kimber moved to speak, but he shook his finger in front of her face.

“No, little lady, she didn’t. She crumpled the letter up, threw it down, looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Son, you’re the man of the house now. It’s up to you to see to your family. Take your papa’s boat and do like he taught you’. And that’s what I did, and have so ever since.”

He finished his drink and slammed the glass on the bar, signaling the burly barkeep. “Another, Frank. Oh, and another beer for the lady.”

“Oh no, that’s okay. I haven’t even finished the first one you insisted on buying—”

The bartender placed another beer in front of her and refilled the captain’s whiskey glass.

“Now the
Muirgen
has changed much from the fishing boat I inherited when I was only fifteen.”

Didn’t he say he was twelve?

“Through the years, I added to it, refurbished it, and—”

“Captain, were you on the
Muirgen
when you saw the plane go down this morning?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Matter of fact, I was. But it wasn’t an airplane. Now that’s an interesting story. I didn’t tell everyone, you know. Don’t want people to think I belong in the loony bin.”

Kimber put her smoke out and picked up her pen and pad. “Please, Captain, tell me all about it.”

“Well, it was the wee hours of the morning—”

“What time?”

“Oh, I’d say around four. I was on the
Muirgen
trying to get me some snapper. Now snapper, whether it be yellow-tail or mutton, it’s always best caught—”

“Captain, please, the plane.”

“I was getting there, young lady. So I was out fishing me some snapper when the sky, which was clear and dark when I left the dock, began to spit fire. Lightning speared the heavens, but not white lightning, nope, it was red and purple.”

Kimber put her pen down and sighed heavily. “Really?”

“Yep, the very air sizzled with them bolts. Then the wind kicked up, and my boat began a’rockin. I lost my footing and fell.” The old salt raised his hand in the air and gazed at the ceiling, staring as if reliving the moment in his mind.

Shaking her head, Kimber picked up her first beer and held it up in a silent toast.
To the stoic Mrs. Murphy, wherever you might be. You raised an imaginative son. Though you’ve made my life more difficult by doing so, may you rest in peace. Amen.
She took a deep gulp of the tepid liquid.

Captain Murphy lowered his arm and continued, “Now I was on my back, gazing straight up when I saw the sky rip open, torn asunder as if someone decided to gut the heavens. Then there was a flash of bright light and a small spaceship popped out!”

Kimber choked. Beer spewed from her lips and sloshed back into her glass. Some dribbled onto her lap.
Shit
.

“Yep, popped out like the sky gave birth to it. Then the gash closed. Moments later, the spaceship exploded.”

She put down her glass and grabbed a napkin off the bar, using it to dab the wet spots on her shirt and jacket.

“Damn aliens didn’t get in alive this time, but I thought it right to let you know the truth, since you’re a fed and all, and probably have experience with this stuff. I would have told the cops, too, but I knew they wouldn’t believe, nope, so I said it was a plane. But you government types know about them invaders. That’s why you were sent to question me, right?”

Captain Murphy downed his glass of whiskey. She leaned over and inspected the old fisherman’s head.

“What you looking at, lass?”

“I just wanted to see if you cracked your skull open when you fell.”

There was a moment of tense silence.

The fisherman exploded with laughter. “I like your sass, young lady. Reminds me of my late wife, Katie, except for the hair. Her hair was as red as flame. But I tell you what, her eyes were like yours, all emerald and gold and a’burning. Make a man crazy.”

Kimber smiled. It had been a long time since someone had complimented her eyes.

“But I have to leave now. The sun will be setting soon, and I gots to be on me boat before that happens. Great fishing to be done when the sun is setting.”

Captain Murphy placed two twenties on the bar. “Here you go, Frank. Get the lady a last drink and keep the change.”

The bartender, a man of few words, nodded.

“It’s been a real pleasure talking to you.” Murphy tipped his dirty white captain’s hat and walked off.

The bartender placed another beer in front of Kimber. She looked at her two and a half glasses and sighed. Her day had been so worthless she wondered if she should cut her losses and drink every drop, then go home. She was no further in her investigation than she’d been that morning.

Before she could move from the stool, a large bald biker in tight jeans and a leather vest strutted up beside her. He leaned against the bar and smiled, showing her a row of ragged teeth.

“Well, hello there, sweet mama. What’s a pretty lady like you doing here all alone?”

Besides violating her personal space, he smelled. She turned back to her beer. “Not interested.”

Loud guffaws filled the area behind her.

Damn, they had an audience.

“Oh, now why would you go and say such a bitchy thing like that? You don’t even know me or what I could do for you.”

Kimber grabbed her beer and took a swallow. “I said I wasn’t interested.”

The biker placed his hand on her knee. “Why? Do you already have man? If you do, I’m sure he can’t make you cream like I could.”

Ugh, disgusting. “Perhaps.”

Smelly biker dude licked his lips. He slid his hand over her pants until it reached the top of her thigh, then began rubbing slowly, letting his finger’s roam to the inside of her leg.

Kimber put her beer down and moved her hand to cover his, giving him her best come-hither look. The audience behind them whooped and hollered.

The biker smiled in victory. “I knew it. Your man doesn’t give you what you need.”

She was about to break the biker’s hand when someone came up on the other side of her.

“I beg to differ,” said a deep familiar voice.

Lawson?

He wrapped long fingers around her wrist and yanked her off the barstool. Like some tough-guy hero from an old Hollywood movie, he curled her arm behind her back and drew her to his rock-hard chest. Holding her tight as her body arched backward and her breasts crushed against him, he used his free hand to gently tilt up her chin.

She knew he was tall, but she literally had to crane her neck all the way back to see his face. He looked fiercely pissed off.

“Don’t you agree, sweetheart?”

The anger swimming in his compelling blue eyes stunned her to silence. Since she couldn’t think of a reply, she maneuvered her hand between them and pushed on his chest.

He pivoted her around and pressed her back against the bar. Trapping her between his muscular arms, he lowered his head and nuzzled her ear.

“If I knew you were the type of woman who liked to be taken by force, I wouldn’t have bothered with all the formalities earlier today,” he whispered acidly.

She gasped.

Taking advantage of her open mouth, he thrust his tongue in. His lips were warm, soft and tasted of beer. She moaned in protest, and he responded by deepening the kiss.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Her heart raced. Her blood surged. The assault on her senses was too much. The pleasure from his mouth, the rough wood rubbing against her back, the adrenaline rush… She was either going to faint or have an orgasm. She wasn’t sure which.

He pulled away and turned his head in frustration. “As much I would like to continue, there are other things that must be dealt with first.”

Lawson spun her away from the bar a split second before a wooden stool hit the spot they’d just vacated, splintering into dozens of pieces.

He gave her a pointed stare. “Don’t move. Don’t get involved. And for the love of God, don’t go outside.”

No sooner had he finished issuing his commands, all hell broke loose. Four very large, very mean, very furious bikers came at him. Falling on him in a heap, they broke a table on their way to the floor. Glass shattered. With flailing arms and legs, the fight ensued.

Kimber touched her lips, still swollen from the kiss. Considering the situation, Lawson was holding up pretty well. But what was he doing here? Why had he followed her? Did he think she couldn’t take care of herself?