Trouble on Tap (11 page)

Per usual, Luciana had taken over his kitchen, unloading groceries he hadn’t asked her to buy and stuffing homemade enchiladas in the fridge that he hadn’t asked her to make. Ever since he’d gotten out of the hospital, she’d made these weekly trips out to the cabin like he couldn’t fend for himself when she knew damn well he could microwave like nobody’s business.

“Would it kill you to buy some fresh fruit instead of stocking up on protein drinks and frozen food?” Luciana shut the refrigerator door with a disgusted snort. “So what did His Highness want?”

“The usual.” If being a pain in the butt counted as the usual, which, with Tyrell Hawson, it did.

“You have a ‘usual’ with the mayor?” Olivia plopped one last fresh flower into the vase she’d brought with her from the car and stood back to admire the totally unnecessary colorful bouquet taking up residence on the oversized island in his otherwise stark, mostly stainless-steel kitchen.

She glanced up at him with a satisfied smile on her face that knocked the air out of his lungs. It was the kind of look that had made men throughout history start wars and conquer new territory just to impress a woman. Some men, but not him. He didn’t have room in his life for grocery-store flowers and women so beautiful it made his scars ache—no matter how good she felt in his arms or just how badly he wanted to touch her every damn time he saw her.

Clamping his teeth together, he shoved the wisp of possibility out of his mind and turned on his heel, nearly going down in a heap because of the constantly underfoot dog.

“So what’s with the mutt?” The canine’s tail thumped against his calf. “I thought he was getting adopted today.”

Luciana shrugged. “Ellen from The Kitchen Sink came by with a box of puppies. You know those cuties were going to go first.”

She immediately turned and squashed the plastic grocery bags into a ball and stuffed them in the recycling bin she’d brought on a previous visit. But Mateo wasn’t fooled. He knew how his sister worked. If he didn’t act quick, he was going to end up with the furry mutt forever.

“That doesn’t answer my question. Why is the dog here?”

“He sure does like you.” Olivia circled around the island and squatted down near his feet, nuzzling her cheek against the dog’s scruff.

Just the brush of Olivia’s bare shoulder against his hip sent his thoughts veering away from the problem at hand and to the feel of her silky skin faster than a Hellfire missile.

Get a grip, Garcia
. He took a step back. The dog followed, but Olivia—thankfully—did not. He looked up at the custom tin ceiling and shoved his hands deep into his shorts pockets to keep from reaching out for her. When he dropped his gaze, his sister was looking right at him with a knowing smirk on her face that made his scar itch.

His sister had many faults, but being unobservant wasn’t one of them. She looked from him to the dog to Olivia and back again. If she got any crazy ideas, his life would go from peaceful to a shitstorm in a nanosecond and there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do about it.

“Luciana.” He’d used that tone a thousand times on fresh recruits and seasoned Marines alike. With them it had gotten immediate results. With his sister, all it got him was a well-practiced eye roll.

She gave him an innocent smile that would have fooled anyone not blood-related. “It’s only until we find this little doggie a home.”

Oh no. His house—shit, his
life
wasn’t made to be shared. “I’m not a dog person. I’m not a cat person. I’m not even a people person.”

“Really?” Luciana rounded on him. “That is total news to everyone here. Maybe it’s time you got out of your comfort zone, stopped hiding in your own little private fortress and opened yourself up to new experiences.”

“I’m not hiding.” He looked at Olivia. “Anyway, I’m already helping with the fundraiser.”

“Speaking of which,” Olivia said. “We had an idea.”

With Olivia on his right and his sister on his left, Mateo was trapped. “I’m not going to like this.”

“Probably not.” Luciana grinned. “But you’ll get over that.”

“We want you to sing at the fundraiser,” Olivia said.

His blood went cold.

He used to sing all the time—so much so that his nickname in his unit had been Mic. It killed time between missions and broke up the monotony of life on a forward operating base in the middle of a country half a world away from home and everything familiar. Old Motown songs, those had been his specialty. But the last time he’d sung a note had been a week before the explosion that had torn the guys he’d fought with to shreds. He didn’t have to close his eyes to see the devastation his own mistake had caused; it was always with him—awake, asleep or in-between.

“I don’t sing anymore.”

“Why not?” Olivia asked.

Because he didn’t think he could hit the notes anymore. His singing voice, like everything else, had gotten shredded in the IED explosion. Luciana was wrong. He wasn’t hiding from the people in Salvation; he was protecting them from seeing what kind of man one of their own had become. But he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

“Have you seen me?” He gestured to the twisted mess that used to be the left side of his face. “Nobody wants to look at this under a spotlight.”

Olivia moved in close, her fingers brushing across the map of scars on his face before dropping her hand to her side. “You care a lot more about your scars than anyone else in town does.”

It was the first time anyone without medical initials after their name had touched his face.

Unable to process his reaction to that, he fell back on his best weapon: anger. “That’s rich, coming from someone who doesn’t just look like a model but used to be one.”

Her face smoothed out into a beautiful mask of imperviousness. “That was low.”

That’s where he’d aimed, and he always hit his target. Maybe if he did more of that, everyone would finally leave him the fuck alone.

“I’m sick and tired of everyone coming around trying to get me to do what they want,” he bellowed. “Hawson wants what he wants. You two want me to work on this fundraiser and sing in front of half the town—of course, that’s if anyone shows up to this thing. Wait. I take that back. Oh, they’ll show. If for no other reason than because the people in this town love to watch a train wreck.”

Olivia’s cheeks blazed and she sucked in a deep breath, but she held her ground when a lot of others would have gone running. “You’re a real asshole, Mateo Garcia.”

“Glad you noticed.” He grabbed his coffee mug from the counter and took a sip of the now-cold liquid. “Now, if you two don’t mind, I have things to do.”

“Come on, Olivia,” Luciana said. “Let’s get out of here.”

The two women got as far as the front door before he realized they’d left something behind. “You forgot your dog.”

“No we didn’t,” Olivia snapped. “Maybe it’s time for you to start remembering that there’s more to life than that massive chip you have welded to your shoulder.”

They were out the door before he could come up with a scathing comeback.

The dog gave a forlorn half howl, snagging Mateo’s attention. “You want to go with them? Good. Go.”

He hustled out the door, the dog close on his heels, but he wasn’t quick enough to catch Luciana before her minivan was halfway down the drive. Olivia was nowhere to be seen—no doubt she’d stormed off to her cabin.

Mateo stood on the front porch as the dog whined and nudged his leg.

“What the hell do you want?”

The dog whimpered, pulling at the few heartstrings Mateo had left. Now he was scaring a homeless dog. Shit. He really
had
turned into an asshole. He hunkered down on the top step. The dog must have taken it as an invitation because he crawled into his lap and shivered.

“Shhh, boy.” He leaned back to make his lap bigger and rubbed up and down the dog’s spine.

Still the mutt whimpered.

Mateo didn’t mean to sing. The notes just came out as he petted the dog’s newly washed fur.

“Sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away.” The sound was rough and rusty, the notes broken in places where they shouldn’t be and sharp as a KA-BAR knife in others. Still, he sang to the shivering dog in his lap until the mutt relaxed…and for a good long time after his snores began.

Even the tallest shoes in Olivia’s still-unpacked suitcase weren’t going to make this day any better. The first annual Sweet Salvation Brewery Veterans’ Fundraiser volunteer informational meeting had disaster written all over it. With only a few minutes to go before it was set to kick off, Olivia had everything in place—except the volunteers.

“Just the little things,” Olivia mumbled to herself while glaring up at the fast-darkening sky as storm clouds rolled in from the West.
Oh yeah, feel free to pile it on, Mother Nature.

For the fifth time, she double-checked the tables to ensure each had a donation jar fashioned out of a beer growler to take back to town and set up at local businesses to collect donations; a stack of flyers featuring photos showing the damage to the center to post on church bulletin boards and at community gathering spots; and plenty of pens in case someone wanted to write a ginormous six-figure check. Wouldn’t that be nice? One fundraising volunteer meeting and they’d raise enough to fix the center and get the Sweet family into Salvation’s good graces months before her new niece or nephew arrived. Now that would be a win-win situation.

A fat drop of rain hit Olivia square in the middle of her forehead then rolled down the bridge of her nose before dripping off the tip. Lightning flashed in the distance. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Bang
. There went the thunder.

Miranda rushed over, armed with an empty crate that would normally be filled with freshly bottled beer. “Looks like we’re moving this shindig indoors, unless you put a last-minute wet T-shirt contest on the schedule of events.”

That made Olivia laugh. “Maybe next year.”

Moving fast to dodge the ever-increasing raindrops, she and Miranda worked together to get all of the decorations inside to the tasting room as the thunder came sooner and sooner after the lightning bolts that lit up the sky. They carried in the last dripping crate load just as the skies opened up and dumped enough water to limit the visibility to a few feet outside the brewery’s front door.

Her stomach sank.

Miranda came and stood on her right side and Natalie on her left. They stood there like sentries watching the rain come down.

“I’m sure it’ll pass,” Miranda said, sounding about as convincing as a sinner begging for entry at the pearly gates. “People will come to volunteer.”

Okay. This sucked, but it could still work. The tasting room was set up for a good-sized crowd and she’d arranged it so it would look as it would for the fundraiser in two weeks. There was a stage at one end for the band and they could run the blind beer-tasting challenge from the large bar in the back corner. People cold line up, taste the beer and deposit their vote for best beer in a comment box at the end of the bar. That was if the other breweries agreed to participate in the fundraiser. “Any word from the other breweries about participating?”

Natalie shook her head. “Nada.”

She glanced over at the clock. Fifteen minutes until go time.

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from groaning out loud. She was used to shit going south fast—what Sweet wasn’t?—but this was ridiculous. “Too many coincidences for me.”

“Yep.” Miranda nodded. “I think someone is trying to submarine the fundraiser before we even get a chance to train volunteers.”

It would’t be the first time. The Sweets hadn’t exactly been welcome in Salvation since…oh, since the town had been founded. Cattle thieves. Moonshiners. Rabble-rousers. The family was guilty on all counts. But Olivia and her sisters had been on the up and up since birth. Well, her sisters had been. Olivia had embraced the Sweet family crazy.

“Who would do it?” Natalie asked.

“Isn’t that the million-dollar question?” The list was long—with Mateo and his “usual” with the uptight Salvation mayor right at the top of it. He hadn’t been shy about his opposition to the fundraiser even after he’d agreed to help. Add that to the blowup last week and he made for a decent suspect.

“We need to cancel.” She sank down into the closest chair, wishing she could sink below the floorboards. So much for her grand plan.

“Don’t cancel. Postpone.” Natalie grabbed her clipboard from behind the bar and hustled over to the table where Olivia sat contemplating her latest failure. “Call it a rainout and say that you’ll reschedule the volunteer training.”

As far as believable excuses went, it made sense. Still, the abject failure of the day had her trigger shy. “What makes you think anyone will show up next time?”

“Because you won’t give them a choice.” Miranda sat down beside them. “You busted your hump to get something put together in two weeks. Imagine what you could do with a couple more?”

If she could turn the fundraiser into the event of the year in Salvation, there was no way the people in town could stay away. She just had to give them something they couldn’t get anywhere else. She needed to use her Sweet-inherited flair for the extreme for good and everything would work out.

“I could call in some favors from my friends in Harbor City, get some great raffle prizes.” Her modeling days had left her with a phone filled with contact information for some of the coolest photographers, artists and creative types in the industry. “Maybe Steffano would agree to do a makeover in between his styling gigs.”

Natalie began forming a list of possible giveaways on her clipboard. “See, this is a good thing.”

It was, but Olivia couldn’t shake the itchy feeling at the back of her neck that something more than freaky coincidence had happened to sink the fundraiser, and she was going to find out exactly what—or who—it was.