Give It All (17 page)

“He talks about it, but it’s nerve-racking enough just riding behind him. I’ll stick with my hatchback. As for the shoot, we’ve got a hundred amazing sets and props going on in here. Pool table, jukebox, the front stoop with the bikes in the background, the bar itself . . .”

Raina nodded, torn between pride and guilt and confusion.
This bar. Her dad’s baby, and her livelihood the past few years. Her claim to local somebody-hood. A place she longed to escape from more and more lately, but also the only home she’d known. A softer woman than Raina might have been swayed by those journals, and gotten busy rethinking her intentions to sell out and move on—a more selfless woman.

But even so, she could imagine what her dad would say to her, if he was here.

I had my dream, and sure, you showed up and messed it up some. Now you go chase yours, and if you’re lucky, the right man or maybe a child will show up someday and mess it up right back.

She picked up her glass of ginger ale and tapped Kim’s beer with it. “Here’s hoping you can help turn my seedy little hobby into something lucrative.”

The rest of the shift passed slowly, and she sent Abilene home early. By midnight she gave up hope that Duncan might grace her with his presence, and instead hoped maybe she’d go upstairs and find him awake. And in the mood.

She cashed out at two, locked the doors, and put the stools on the tables. Her pulse spiked as she hiked up the back steps, but she found the apartment dark. She walked to the den, but there wasn’t even a sliver of light glowing beneath the guest room door.

She pouted. “Damn.”

“Damn what?”

She yelped—not a noise she normally ever made—and scrambled to switch on the lamp. Duncan was stretched out on the couch in a tee and lounge pants, looking bleary. Astrid vacated her spot on his belly, heading for the kitchen.

Raina rubbed her racing heart. “Jesus, you scared me. Good thing I didn’t sit on you.”

Duncan sat up. “Why did you say ‘damn’ just now?”

“I thought you’d gone to bed, and I’d kinda been hoping to get laid.”

He smiled at that, eyebrows telling her he found the statement both tacky and charming. “Is that all I am to you? A live-in booty call?”

“Don’t ever use that term again—there’s something very wrong about you saying it. And no, you’re more than that. Yes, you’re a great fuck, but you also clean, and—”

“I’m your maid, then?”

She nodded. “You’re my sex maid.”

He looked deeply offended, then shrugged. “I believe I’ll focus on the bit where you called me a great fuck.”

She pursed her lips. “So. You up for it?”

He looked her up and down, pretending to deliberate. “I could be enticed, I suppose, though I can’t say I appreciate being propositioned—”

“Great, see you in five. I need to brush my teeth.” She headed for the bathroom. As she capped the toothpaste she called, “So, what did you get up to all evening? Aside from cleaning my bathroom?” That had been an interesting development to come home to that afternoon. She doubted the fixtures had been this shiny when they left the factory.

Duncan appeared at the threshold. “It was an odd night.”

She raised her eyebrows, mouth full of froth.

“I wound up driving around town for a quite a long time,” he said. “I saw Vince was at the garage, so I stopped—”

A crash sounded from the kitchen—a crash and a clatter, then a hiss and the sound of Astrid booking it through the apartment.

“That was glass,” Duncan said, heading for the commotion.

Raina spat, wondering how an eight-pound cat had managed to break something so vigorously. She wiped her mouth and followed, hearing Duncan’s “Fuck” just as she reached the kitchen.

He’d turned on the light, and there was glass everywhere, the window over the sink smashed.

“You’re barefoot,” she said to Duncan. “Stay there.” Her boots crunched over shards, and she found the projectile in the sink—a yellow brick, with a lined notebook page snapped around it with a rubber band. She stood on tiptoe to peer out the window. The motion-sensor light had come on, but she saw nothing in the back lot—no one sprinting or speeding down the street in either direction.

“Run to the front and see if anybody’s fleeing,” she told Duncan, and he did.

Before she touched anything, she pulled out her phone and took a few pictures. She picked up the brick, blowing the glass flecks from it and then carrying it to the den.

“Nothing,” Duncan said, coming out of her bedroom. “No people, no vehicles. What does it say?” he asked, sitting next to her on the couch.

She unfolded and smoothed the page. The writing was familiar—those jagged capitals from the message scrawled on Duncan’s car, only in Sharpie this time, not paint.

EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT YOU DO
NE. CONFESS AND MAKE
IT EASY ON YOURSELF.
OR ELSE WE MAKE IT H
ARD ON YOU.

The penmanship was so self-conscious and awkward she had to wonder if the person had done this left-handed, to disguise his or her handwriting.

Duncan said nothing, just leaned forward to plant his elbows on his thighs and rub his face.

“Assholes,” Raina muttered, reading the note again. “Wrecking my plans to get laid.”

Duncan sat up straight, looking slapped. “This isn’t funny. Someone threw a brick through your window.”

“Rumors spread fast—didn’t take them long to hear you were staying here.”

“Someone
threw a brick through your window
,” he repeated.

“But it was addressed to you.”

“This
isn’t. Funny.
You—”

“Tomorrow. We can fight about it tomorrow morning over toast. For now, put some shoes on and let’s clean the kitchen.”

On that, they seemed to agree. He got his sneakers on while Raina took a couple of photos of the note. Then they tackled the mess, clearing away the glass, which seemed to have gotten into every corner.

“Poor Astrid,” Raina said. “That must have been terrifying.”

“I’ll check her paws, make sure she hasn’t stepped in any of it.”

While he did, Raina went downstairs to find cardboard and duct tape to cover the window. She hazarded a peek out the back, but the truck, the Merc, and her bike looked unmolested. She’d sweep up any shards that had found their way to the gravel in the morning, but not now. Tough as she was playing it with Duncan, she was rattled. Rowdy drunks she could handle, but this was upsetting. Someone out there had the balls to fuck with her dad’s bar—her dad’s
home
—and that was so fucking far over the line . . . Perhaps worst of all, it was clearer now that the vandalism on Duncan’s car was not an isolated, intoxicated impulse. This was a campaign, and that meant there were more
moves to come. They were going to need a plan. Though it would have to wait until morning, when they could think rationally.

Upstairs, she found Duncan in the bathroom, dabbing at his neck with a cotton ball.

“Astrid not take kindly to your examination?” she asked.

“No. Though luckily she’s not got a scratch on her.” He took the cotton ball away, frowning at it. “Which is more than I can say.”

“There’s Band-Aids in the cabinet. Come to bed.”

His reflection raised an eyebrow at her in the mirror as he blotted his wound. “I’m afraid this latest incident rather killed the mood for me.”

“Not for sex. Just . . . You know.” Raina could think of precisely zero words she was comfortable employing to accurately label what she wanted; she didn’t
cuddle
, or
snuggle
, and unlike Duncan, she wasn’t going to come out and ask to be held. “Just come to bed,” she said again, and left him to head there herself.

She changed and got under the covers, and when he joined her, she wrapped her body around his. There was no absence of lust, merely a mutation of it. Just now, she wanted to feel him against her, if not inside her; she wanted the strength of his body, not the visual glory of it. It was shockingly reminiscent of the weeks she’d spent sleeping with Miah. And that scared the shit out of her, to realize if she was here, physically clinging to Duncan Welch . . .

Shit, she was more than just literally attached to him, wasn’t she?

Whatever. Deal with it in the morning.
She buried her face against his neck.

“I doubt we’ll be seeing much of Astrid anytime soon,” he murmured, stroking Raina’s hair. “I kicked her once by mistake and she wouldn’t come out from under the bed for almost two days.”

“Did you take her to a cat therapist?”

He gave her hair a gentle tug in admonishment.

They lay in silence, and with each passing moment, Raina felt her body making demands.
Reach down. Stroke him.
While this simple contact felt so good on its own, a cagey part of her was trying to wreck that, to twist it all into a framework she felt
equipped to handle, and initiate sex. She parted her lips and dragged them against his throat as her hand slid from his chest to his belly.

He caught her wrist and moved her hand back up.

She huffed her frustration. “Killjoy.”

“Coward.”

Easy for the guy with the hold-me kink to say.
He’d told her the other day, he didn’t hug. Wasn’t this all just horizontal hugging, really? And if she wasn’t getting laid—or falling asleep anytime soon—maybe she could at least meet his needs, if not hers. “Turn over.”

He did, and she wrapped her arm and leg around him. After a tense pause, he relaxed and his broad, smooth palm closed around her hand, above his heart.

Oh shit, this feels nice.
He felt
right
, like a set of clean, dry clothes after a swim in a cold creek. Comforting. And in no more than a minute, she felt his muscles soften, heard his breathing deepen.

She couldn’t guess what had happened to this man, to have landed him with this surprising—and surprisingly sweet—need to be held. The why of it seemed moot just now, though. So rather than analyze it, she waited until his grip went slack and his fingers fell away from her wrist, and she kissed the back of his neck softly and said, “Good night, Mr. Welch.”

Raina slept poorly at the best of times, so Monday morning naturally found her wide-awake at dawn. Soothing as Duncan’s body was, she’d never fallen into any restful sort of sleep, too wired, too distracted by straining for the sounds of trespassers’ footsteps outside.

She had a client in the afternoon, so she’d need to take a nap at some point—she’d no sooner tattoo someone drowsy than drunk. But sleep wasn’t coming now, so she slipped her arm from under Duncan’s warm back, dressed quietly, and snuck away. With the coffee started, she headed downstairs to sweep and mop and stock the coolers. Might as well save Abilene the trouble.

By five thirty the bar was ready for the customers who wouldn’t arrive for another eight hours, and she grabbed the broom and headed to the front to tend to the previous night’s inevitable harvest of cigarette butts. As she unlocked the dead bolt, a zap of fear went through her, a twinge of misgiving to imagine the person who’d thrown that brick lurking outside, waiting for her. She held her breath, opened the inside door. Pushed the screen door out and—

Nothing. Cold air and scattered birdsong, the buzz of the neon sign overhead. Her shoulders dropped, and she tended to the lot.

It wasn’t until she turned to go back inside that the blow came—and not in the form of an assault, but in words. Two-foot-tall letters, fluorescent orange, scrawled jaggedly across the bar’s façade.

WE SERVE JACKALS.

“Oh,
fuck
you.” She glared at those ugly words, the bulk of
her fear replaced with anger. And worry that did remain was a new one, because she’d never imagined in a million years that anyone would have the balls to deface Benji’s.

At least she’d gotten up early enough to prevent just about everybody from seeing it. She took a few photos with her phone, then marched back inside.

She found spare paint in the back and dug a brush and rags out of the storage closet. It’d take a couple of coats, and the fresh paint wouldn’t match the faded stuff on the wall, but like Duncan’s poor car, it was better than nothing. She got to work.

With barely two letters covered over, a noise rose in the distance, and her gut dropped, blood rising to her cheeks. She knew that rumble, and she didn’t relish the conversation that was about to go down.

Vince rode by, as he did every morning on his way to the quarry. Raina was often out here just after dawn, and typically they just exchanged waves, but now his bike squeaked to a halt. She turned back to her painting, listening as he made a U-turn and scrabbled into the gravel lot. His engine went quiet behind her.

“The fuck?”

“Morning, Vince.”

“What the shit is this?” He knocked his kickstand down and strode over. “You got vandalized?”

“Keep your voice down—I’d rather Duncan be spared this.” Though there wasn’t much chance he could have missed it, with the din of Vince’s arrival coming through the broken window.

“‘We serve jackasses’?” Vince read, the final two letters obliterated. “That’s not exactly news.”

“Jackals. As in Duncan—heartless corporate criminal. And I got a brick through my window last night, with a note telling him to confess or else. He got a similar love letter spray-painted on his car, the morning I convinced him to leave the motel.”

“Jesus, that’s what he needs a touch-up for? Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“We’d both hoped it was a drunken one-off. Apparently it wasn’t.” She waved at the orange letters.

“Apparently.”

“Until Duncan gets his name cleared, we might need to arrange—”

The bar’s door popped open, Duncan marching out in his
sleep clothes. He turned to the wall, eyes widening. “Oh for
fuck’s
sake. This is ridiculous.” He himself looked a touch ridiculous, with a yellow bruise still smudged around his eye and a bandage on his neck from Astrid’s attack. Like his gleaming car’s damage, Duncan’s injuries were wildly conspicuous. Any one of the Desert Dogs could’ve rolled up with a flesh wound and not raised a single eyebrow.

Raina turned back to Vince. “Like I was saying, we might need to arrange a watch. So far, this shit bag only seems to operate under the cover of darkness. Maybe just have somebody park across the way or around the side, between closing and dawn.” Thankfully that left a small window.

“Don’t want to involve the sheriff’s department?”

She shook her head. “They’d just scare this asshole into staying away, and I want them
caught.
And I want two minutes alone with them before the cops take over.” Her boots were made for more than just walking.

Vince nodded, and Duncan looked relieved. She didn’t blame him—discretion was only half the reason she didn’t want the authorities involved. Duncan not winding up in protective custody was the other half—

“This is unacceptable,” Duncan said, still glaring at the paint, its orange glowing incandescent in the sunrise. “I’m moving back to the motel.”

She rounded on him. “The fuck you are.”

“Yes, the fuck I
am.
They can threaten me all they like and I won’t run and hide, but this is another matter entirely. I’m not letting you get wrapped up in it as well.”

“Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?” She came closer, held his stare. “Plus, you don’t need to
let
me do anything—I make my own decisions. And I’m deciding that neither of us is going anywhere, just because some angry dumb-asses managed to write a note and throw a brick and aim a can of spray paint.” Twice in her life she’d been made to feel like a target, like a victim, and both times by people she’d thought she’d known. To let a coward, a faceless stranger, intimidate her now? No fucking chance. “We’re both staying right where we are.”

Duncan crossed his arms. “To what end? To find out the next projectile that comes flying through your window is a Molotov cocktail?”

“I don’t submit to bullies any more than you do,” she returned.

“We’ll get a watch organized,” Vince cut in, businesslike. “Two of us at a time, one around back, one on the road. One armed. Kim and I could take tonight’s—Casey can watch Mom.”

“You’d let Kim get anywhere near this?”

Vince’s jaw clenched. “She’ll want to help . . . and I’ll never hear the end of it if I refuse. We’ll plant her down the block with her camera—thing’s got a zoom like a sniper’s rifle. She’ll be safe. Miah and Case could take tomorrow’s watch, and you two could handle the day after. Between the six of us, we got this covered. If things quiet down in the next few days, maybe we can downgrade to a security camera. Sound good?” He looked between Duncan and Raina.

Raina nodded, satisfied. Duncan’s nostrils flared, but after a stubborn moment, he dipped his chin stiffly.

“Good. Better forget my fixing your paint this afternoon, though. I’ll need that time to steal a nap.” Vince cast the orange letters a final glance, head shaking. “The messes never fucking end around here.”

“Goddamn idiots, shitting where they eat. This bar’s more sacred than the church to most of the residents. There’d be a lynch mob forming if it gets out that somebody pulled this shit.” Unfortunately Duncan would be in protective custody the second the authorities got wind, so going public was out.

“Few weeks ago I’d have agreed with you,” Vince said, then turned to Duncan. “Sadly it looks like the pitchfork-wielding natives have already found themselves a target.”

“This could be one person’s work,” Raina said.

“Or a dozen,” Vince said grimly. “Though considering they’re sneaking around in the dead of night, I think you’re probably right. A whole posse of shitheads wouldn’t be so shy about it. Let’s just hope whoever it was is dumb enough to brag about it . . . Right, I gotta get to work. But me and Kim’ll be by around last call, to go on watch duty.”

Raina gave his arm a grateful slap. “See you later.”

Duncan offered a stony “Thank you,” his attention moving back to the vandalism.

“Good luck with the bike,” Vince said to Duncan, then took off.

“What bike?” Raina asked Duncan.

“I’ll explain later.”

And having enough mysteries on her mind already, she shrugged and got back to painting.

“Let me do that,” Duncan said.

“Nah. My clothes are way cheaper than yours.”

“I—”

“You can pay for the window, okay? Don’t act like this is your fault.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if I weren’t staying with you.”

“You wouldn’t be staying with me if I hadn’t made you,” she countered. “Go upstairs and make us some breakfast, okay?”

He relented, rubbing his face wearily. He looked handsome, even disheveled, annoyed, and underdressed, with messy hair. It burned away her own angst.

Blotting out the orange K, she awaited a protest, but all he said was, “I’ll make a frittata.”

Her mouth said, “Sounds good.”

But something in her heart chanted,
He’s staying, he’s staying, he’s staying.

*   *   *

Duncan remained rattled through breakfast, dishes, his shower, and grooming. Happily, Raina went back to bed and slept through all his furious puttering.

There were layers to his anger. The thinnest was his indignation at having his own safety threatened. The thickest was his rage that Raina was being punished as well, whether it bothered her or not.

And nested between those two was a third layer, a hard and thorny one that had formed the moment he spotted those words, painted across the front of the bar. And it wasn’t the words themselves, or their meaning, or even that they’d been directed at Raina. Those things all bothered him, but it was the fact that the
bar
had been defaced.

Duncan couldn’t have guessed when he first walked into Benji’s, nearly two months ago, that he’d ever call himself a regular. To say nothing of it growing on him, and becoming a place he looked forward to going to. He’d never have guessed he’d wind up in its owner’s bed, or gazing upon the pages of her father’s notebooks, outlining the man’s dreams for the business. As deeply as Duncan had hated Benji’s upon first glance, he felt protective of it now.

Perhaps because Raina herself would never put up with protecting.
True. She’d never welcome his concern or doting . . .
But this didn’t feel like a simple case of projecting. He really had grown fond of the bar.

So fond, in fact, in idle moments, he found himself fantasizing about funding its renovation. Getting Raina to accept such a gift might prove a challenge, but he could afford it. A onetime gift of fifty thousand, perhaps, a good-bye present, when the time came for him to return to his own world. Back in his clean, modern condo on the harbor, he would be pleased to know that seven hundred miles away, the dive bar that had served as his strange little sanctuary during the worst period of his adult life was doing well, and in part, because of him.

If that’s what you really want, though,
he thought,
you’ve no business going back to Sunnyside.
The biggest threat to Benji’s was the casino and its attendant commercial boom. And Duncan’s sole function at Sunnyside had been to help ensure its completion.

It was a case of “You’re either for it or against it.” If he was for the casino, he was against Benji’s. If he was for Benji’s, he’d better pack up and find a new job the moment his name was cleared.

Stay with your job, bask in her venom for two more years. Tell Sunnyside to fuck off, and lose your only reason to ever see her again.
He had to assume that the latter was the only real option; he didn’t think he could handle sticking around and risk witnessing it if Benji’s got sold or shuttered or demolished, to make way for the future. The future of an entire town, as envisioned by a soulless, out-of-state conglomerate.

So keep your money, you idiot.
The gift would prove about as useful as his gifting someone with a makeover seconds before pushing the poor sap in front of a speeding train. After helping lay the tracks himself.

And that thought had him striding to the kitchen, emptying the cabinets of dishes, and scouring the shelves.

It wasn’t until ten—with the kitchen half-cleaned and a window replacement service scheduled for the next afternoon—that Duncan found himself able to take a deep breath again.

This still beats protective custody,
he told himself, looking around the place. And even if he went back to the motel, Raina would only take it upon herself to follow. With a plan in place to keep watch at night, perhaps this was for the best. Better to
be semisafe and comfortable here than considerably less safe on his own, and miserable to boot.

He allowed himself a moment’s pleasure, remembering how they’d fallen asleep. He’d not spooned with anyone since his last girlfriend, and that had been over six months ago. Tall as he was, he’d always been the big spoon before. Leave it to Raina to steal the pants in any given situation . . . though this time, he had to admit it had been heavenly. He hoped it wouldn’t take another scare to entice her to do that with him again. Perhaps something more akin to a date could find them there just as easily.

With that in mind, just after two, Duncan entered the kitchen with a bag of groceries cradled in one arm. A high buzzing noise came from behind the closed door. Raina had mentioned over breakfast that she had a client that afternoon, but Duncan didn’t allow himself the petty indulgence of frowning. He oughtn’t care.

I also oughtn’t be in the center of a criminal investigation or the target of death threats,
he reminded himself.
Since when did I start expecting life to be fair?

Not caring to linger, he put the groceries away and changed for his appointment with Casey Grossier.

By the time Duncan left his room, Raina had emerged and was in the kitchen, puttering. No company in sight. She met his eyes for a beat and smiled, the gesture warm but tough to read.
She’s likely just exhausted.

“Your client’s left, I take it.”

“He has,” she said, loading the dishwasher.

He.
Duncan rankled.

“He liked your cat. And she seemed to enjoy the attention, so I guess last night didn’t traumatize her too deeply. I just hope she doesn’t require any shots for fraternizing with bikers.”