Only Witness, The (2 page)

              Long after the lot was empty, she rose to her feet and got back into bed.

Chapter TWO

              Vera spent the night tossing and turning. After one o'clock she'd debated taking something to help her sleep but immediately vetoed that idea with the memory of the Fed Ex man finding her ass naked and fast asleep on her front lawn when he came to deliver a package. He'd been thrilled, and she'd stopped getting things sent FedEx if she could help it. And that was the last time that she ever took an Ambien; no amount of sleep was worth the chance of repeating that humiliation.

              She toughed it out, caught bits and pieces of sleep peppered with nightmares of what she'd just seen along with nightmares about Deacon in general. The theme seemed to be her making a humongous ass out of herself in front of him while he laughed.

              Most mornings she was ready to go well before nine when she actually opened the shop. She'd be downstairs at eight, doing a little straightening up and brewing coffee that she'd share with her customers. If she was in the mood, sometimes she'd bake something as well, but lately that mood hadn't struck her. It was just after nine when she got out of bed. Vera took a leisurely shower before heading downstairs with a granola bar in hand. The grandfather clock that she'd found in a storage locker told her it was quarter to ten. She was later than she'd realized, but there was never a huge rush first thing in the morning, so it wasn't like it mattered.

             
She flipped on the light, started the coffee and walked over to the front door. There was a business card on the floor beneath her feet. It was most likely a real estate agent or someone who wanted to introduce her to their God, so Vera nearly left it there, but if she did and someone slipped on it she'd be liable for it. “Waste of a good tree.” She'd recycle it, but still, why bother with the card? The good quality card nearly slipped from her fingers when she saw it was from Valhalla Trucking. She flipped it over, her heart in her throat as she saw the scrawled writing on back.

Sign says you open at 9. It's 9.

Deke

              Despite wanting to run back upstairs and scream or cry or hide beneath her covers, Vera unlocked the front door. For better or worse, she knew that Deacon Hawke would be back. The visit and the card couldn't be a coincidence; he had to have realized that she'd been watching the night before. Probably she was lucky that he hadn't just broken into the house and silenced her, unless of course he wanted to get all the details from her before he killed her. Had he seen the curtain move? Had he been lurking just outside of her line of sight and seen when she turned the light on about ten minutes later because the dark had just been too much for her?

              Left with her thoughts, the morning passed by at a slower pace than usual. Vera sat at the counter and mostly screwed around on the Internet, reading news and gossip without retaining any of the information, but it was something to keep her busy. Her stomach rumbled, and she realized that she'd only had the granola bar for breakfast. She was actually hungry. Seeing as it was possibly her last meal, she decided to close the shop and head out to get take out in the form of eggplant parm and linguine with cannolis for desert. The calorie count was horrifying, but the thought of it was just too tempting to pass up.

              Vera slid her sunglasses on and stepped outside. She turned to lock the dead bolt on the door. The second that her key hit the lock, she heard the sound of an approaching bike. She jerked the key out, turned and wondered if she could make it to her car. It only took a second to realize that she wouldn't; the bike was nearly at her door.

              The bike pulled to the curb, the engines shut down and Deacon got off of the bike. “Going somewhere?”

              “It's lunch time.” Vera could have been blind and without a sense of smell, but she'd still have felt the long and warm pull of attraction towards the tall, buff man. His hair and beard were dark, his eyes were covered by dark glasses, but she knew that his lips looked absolutely perfect for kissing. She didn't even want to start thinking about his hands or other parts.

              “It's eleven thirty,” he removed the sunglasses. His eyes seemed to shift from brown to green and were as absolutely perfect as his lips and as distracting. Deacon seemed to realize that, because he grinned. “Little early, don't you think?”

              “I'm hungry,” Vera pressed her nails into her palms. Maybe a little jolt of pain would shock some sense back into her. “Is there something that I can do for you?”

              “Actually,” he removed his helmet, placed it on the handlebar of his bike, “I was hoping that we could have a little talk.”

              A talk had a foreboding sound to it, Vera swallowed hard as her heart became lodged in her throat, as it had when she'd seen the card. “A talk about what?”

              “Let's go inside,” he suggested, but it didn't seem like a suggestion. It was more of an order. Deacon Hawke was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, no matter what that might be.

              Vera knew that it wasn't good he wanted privacy and wouldn't answer her question; she just wasn't sure if it meant that he realized what she'd seen last night or was being his normal charming self.

              “I'm hungry,” she repeated, as if the words would mean more to him the second time around.

              “I wasted half an hour coming down here this morning to find this place closed when it should have been open. That's no way to run a business.” He took a step closer to her, eyes locked intently on her. “I'm not wasting another half an hour just to have to come back here later.”

              “Maybe you should tell me what you want then,” Vera snapped. Her nerves were completely on edge, her mind flashing back to the night before and what she'd seen. Was that why he was there?

              “You know my sister, right? Adelaide?” His eyebrows were raised, obviously surprised that she'd been short with him.

              Vera did all that she could to avoid his gaze. “You know that I do, Deacon. We met at one of her parties.” As soon as she said the words, she immediately wondered if he'd forgotten, which was a pretty humiliating thought.

              “Then you know that it's her birthday next week. The past few years I've just given her money, let her buy what she wants but this year, well this year she's made it clear that cash is not king.” Deacon hooked his sunglasses into the collar of his tee shirt. “Think that you can help me out with that? I was thinking a necklace.”

              Vera felt herself relax a little. If he was here about Adelaide and not what she'd seen the night before, then she could simply help him find a great gift and send him on his merry way. The thought of it cheered her. “Alright, I'll hold off on lunch. Wouldn't want you to waste any more time.”

              If he were anyone else, Vera would have teased him about him not seeming the jewelry type, but even if she was more relaxed, she wasn't stupid. “What kind of necklace?” The quicker she knew what he wanted was the quicker that he could leave. Now that she'd relaxed a little about the reason that Deacon Hawke was standing larger than life in her store, Vera began to feel something besides fear. It was a warmth that spread through her body, sent tingles to parts of her which had been dormant for way too long. It was a struggle to push it aside and focus on what he was saying.

              “Something with a charm on it.” Deacon told her.

              “A charm? Like a pendant?” Vera cursed her wandering mind. She needed to focus on getting him out of her store and to keep herself off his radar.

              “Yeah, that's what it's called. It needs to be an emerald, and it needs to be old.”

              “Antique?” Vera walked over to the counter and picked up a small notebook. She began to jot down what he was looking for. It was rare that she took requests; she mostly dealt in the stock that she had, but in this case she's make an exception, because honestly no one said no to Deacon Hawke.

              “Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I don't know about this shit.” He motioned around the shop. “That's why I'm telling you what I need.”

              “Alright, an antique emerald pendant necklace that Adelaide would like.” Vera bit back a sigh because that was going to be no small feat.

              “Exactly. And I need it for Friday.”

              “Friday? It's Wednesday, hell it's nearly noon, so the day is half gone. You want me to find you the perfect gift in forty-eight hours?” Vera demanded, her voice growing louder and annoyance spreading through her.

              “Is that a problem?”

              Vera finally met his eyes. Had he seriously just asked her that with a straight face? He stared at her, obviously waiting for an answer. She realized that it was a problem, it was a big problem, but it was much more manageable than the reason she'd thought he was at her door.

              “It is, but I should be able to find you something,” Vera told him. “I can show you two that I have here, but I'm not sure they'd be her taste.”

              “Then I don't want to see them,” he told her. “I want something that she's going to love.”

              “Okay,” Vera said slowly. “You realize that this isn't going to be cheap, right?”

              “Never said I wanted cheap. Besides, you'll work with me on the price.”

              There he went again with the ordering instead of asking. His cockiness was pissing her off and turning her on in equal measure, which only made her angrier. “I'll gladly give you a discount, but it's still going to be expensive,” she warned. She'd be damned if she ended up losing money.

              “Do I look like I'm hurting for money?” Deacon drawled the words as he stepped closer.

              “No,” she replied.

              “That's because I'm not,” he walked into an area full of chairs, “so it's not an issue.” Deacon stopped short as a large brown chair caught his eye. “That's for sale?”

              Vera moved over to where he stood, keeping as much distance between the two of them as she could without being obvious. With a sigh, she realized that he'd zeroed in on her own personal favorite chair in the world, the chair that she couldn't get up the stairs to her tiny apartment, so she'd reluctantly placed it on the sales floor. “You want that one?”

              “Aren't you supposed to look happy when someone wants to buy shit?” Deacon questioned with surprise.

              “Nothing in this store is shit,” Vera snarled the words as she turned to face him. He was looking at her as if she were lunch or maybe dessert, which made no sense. She was average! Average height, slightly above average weight, which was why diet week was so important. This morning she hadn't bothered with makeup, and her hair was still damp and pulled into a thick bun at the base of her neck. “I said nothing in this store is shit,” she repeated and crossed her arms.

              “Sure it's not, Sweetheart,” he took a step closer to her, “got some real nice stuff in here. Like that chair. I want it.”

              “Well you can't have it. It's not for sale.” Vera knew it was a weak protest, and she could see the price tag hanging off of the arm.

              “The price tag says otherwise. I'll take it. One of the guys will be by later with a truck to pick it up,” he told her. For a moment Vera was sure that he was going to step forward but he didn't. Instead he took several steps back and looked down at her.

              “I said that it's not for sale.” Vera informed him.

              “Should have taken the price tag off of it,” he grinned, “now how much do I owe you?”

              “A thousand dollars,” Vera replied because it was triple what the chair had cost her and there was no way he was going to part with that much money for a chair.

              “That tag says five hundred, that's what I'll pay.” Deacon's eyes narrowed at her. Vera was reminded once again that Deacon Hawke got what he wanted, when he wanted it.

              Vera's mouth opened and closed several times as she was trying to figure out something to say. “Fine,” she gave him her best annoyed look. Damn it, she really loved that chair. “If you're done shopping, I'd really like to get to lunch and to get to work on this little project you've given me.”

              “Just one more thing. How long have you been living in the apartment upstairs?”

              “A few weeks,” Vera's heart jumped right up into her throat again. “Why?” She thought her voice sounded high pitched and nervous, but if he noticed he gave no indication.             

              “If we'd have known that you were living here, we'd have made sure that someone came past at night to make sure everything is okay. You haven't had any trouble, have you?”

              Vera forced herself to keep her eyes on his. “No trouble,” she told him, “everything's been nice and quiet, just the way I like it.”

              “That's good to know,” Deacon studied her as if he knew that she was lying. But he couldn't know that, and she had a really good poker face, so she said nothing. “You sure that everything has been okay?”

              “I just said so,” Vera's voice rose, her tone defensive.

              Deacon studied her for another moment. “I'll let you go and get your lunch now.”

              “Thanks,” Vera wasn't sure exactly how she kept the relief out of her voice, but somehow she did. “Oh, I need a number to contact you about the necklace. Should I use the one on the card?”

              “No, trying to keep the gift a secret. Got a pen? I'll give you my cell.”

              Vera handed over the small notebook she'd grabbed earlier and the pen. “I'll call you as soon as I find something.”

              “Do that,” Deacon gave her the paper back, “in fact, use it anytime that you want.” His tone was casual, but a grin spread across his face, so Vera knew her poker face wasn't as awesome as she'd told herself it was.