Loose Ends Read online

His grin came back.

  But it grew unsure when he turned it to his dad.

  Cal dipped his chin at his boy.

  The uncertainty vanished and Sam’s smile again grew bright.

  That was all it took. Sam was in no doubt he had his father’s love because Cal made sure that was the case. And he loved his old man. They’d had times like these, they’d have more.

  But in the end it would always be all good.

  “Rooms. Trash. Homework,” Cal said again, and Sam took off.

  Ben went to his mother and gave her a squeeze around her middle. Shooting up fast, the kid might be taller than Cal when it was all said and done.

  The hug was his apology. Ben wasn’t a fast talker or a smooth one. He was an actions-speak-louder-than-words kid.

  Like his dad.

  Vi in turn gave her son a hug like all the hugs she gave her children.

  For moments through it, it wasn’t a given she’d ever let go.

  Then she did.

  And when she did, Ben switched to his dad.

  Cal suspected he gave his kids the same kind of hugs his wife did.

  After he did that and Ben took off, Cal reclaimed Vi as she looked to Ryker. “You want a drink?”

  “Nope. Need to chat. On the deck,” Ryker answered.

  Then, not being asked, he stalked through the room, the den and out the back door to the deck.

  Cal looked down at his wife. Vi looked up at him.

  Then he turned them around and they followed Ryker, still connected.

  They stayed connected as Cal slid the door shut behind them and they faced their friend.

  “What’s up?” Cal asked.

  But Ryker was looking at Vi.

  “What color roses say, ‘I’m shy but I wanna fuck you, but not just fuck you, I think I like you’?”

  Cal stared at Ryker.

  He knew when she didn’t answer that Violet was doing the same thing.

  “Well?” Ryker pushed. “Purple?” he said, like he hoped that was the answer.

  Ryker and roses and the color purple did not compute.

  What the fuck was going on?

  “Ryker—” Cal started.

  Ryker spoke over him, still to Vi. “You know flowers and shit, lay it on me.”

  She did know flowers “and shit.” When Ben went into kindergarten, they got serious about her landscaping business. Now she designed and installed yards in the ’Burg, Danville, Plainfield, Zionsville, Avon. She even had some clients in Indy.

  “I’m not sure there’s a color that says all that, Ryker,” Vi answered.

  Ryker’s face got hard, which didn’t mean he was pissed, just disappointed.

  Vi read it. “But orange, peach or coral usually mean desire or fascination.”

  “Not purple?” he asked.

  “Sorry, no.”

  Cal pressed his lips together when he heard through his wife’s words she was also suppressing laughter.

  At this point, Cal cut into the conversation. “What’s this about?”

  Ryker looked to him. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

  The man looked back to Violet, and Cal didn’t take offense to the brush off. If you took offense to Ryker’s ways, you’d either be in prison for murdering him or not have him in your life in another way, as in, cutting him out for being a jackass most of the time.

  The man was a prickly character, but he was good people.

  Ryker started with, “So, you know, not to be insensitive and shit, but time has passed, you got your happy ending, so I figure you’re all good.”

  This made Cal tense but Vi giving his waist a squeeze made him cool it as Ryker went on.

  “What did it for you with Cal? Was it him rescuing himself from his own kidnapping? Saving you from yours? Or killing a guy for you?”

  “What’s this about?” Cal repeated on a growl, no squeeze from Vi making him cool with this line of questioning.

  “It’s okay, Joe,” Vi said softly.

  “It fuckin’ is not,” Cal returned, his attention not leaving Ryker.

  Ryker looked to Cal and he did it appearing impatient, like Cal butting in was wasting time he did not have.

  “I know this dude, yeah?” he stated. “Good guy. Fuckin’ skilled at pool. I bought Lissa some fancy-ass blender and food processor with a killing we made on a game against a couple of tools. He’s solid. And the bro is good-lookin’. I mean, he’s so good-lookin’, I can say that shit without feelin’ my dick shrink. You feel me?”

  Cal did not confirm he felt him.

  He urged, “Keep going.”

  Ryker kept going.

  “But the fucker is shy. I don’t get it, but he just is. He likes this girl. Good girl. Pretty. Nice. But he’s like, terrified of her or something. I could tell she was interested at first but he didn’t make a move, so Lissa says this chick reckons he’s not into her so she moved on. He’s bummed.”

  Ryker stopped speaking.

  Cal still didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

  “And?” Cal prompted.

  “And, so, you know, shit has calmed down. No one has been kidnapped or got involved with the mob or anything for a while but it’s not like you don’t remember shit like that. So, I was thinkin’ how he could get this girl’s attention and I thought, fake kidnap her, he could save her, she’d be happy he did, like real happy, if you know what I mean, and then he could give her some roses to seal the deal.”

  Cal and Vi were both totally silent.

  “Just gotta make sure he doesn’t have to do anything extreme, like shoot the motherfucker, since the motherfucker will be me, you know, wearin’ a ski mask so she doesn’t know it’s me,” Ryker finished.

  Cal and Vi remained silent.

  Ryker focused on Vi. “So, gotta know, would it have been all good if Cal just rescued you or does this shit have to be whole hog, ’cause I’m gonna have to come up with another scenario seein’ as I like this dude, but I’m not feelin’ bein’ shot so he can get laid.”

  “You’re going to kidnap a woman so some guy can get her attention?” Cal asked, and Ryker looked to him.

  “Yeah,” he answered, like he’d done that yesterday, and the day before, and was totally down with doing it tomorrow.

  “And you can say that shit with a straight face, not realizing you sound like a lunatic,” Cal noted.

  Vi swallowed a giggle.

  Ryker’s face got hard in a different way and he jerked his head toward Violet. “Seemed to work for you, motherfucker.”

  “We were living together before we both got kidnapped, Ryker,” Cal pointed out.

  “You were?” Ryker asked.

  “Yeah,” Cal answered.

  “Shit, I wasn’t around for your gig,” Ryker muttered.

  “You do know that’s not the lunatic part of your plan, right?” Cal queried.

  Ryker threw up both his big mitts, which creaked the leather of the biker jacket that he was wearing even though it was late April, they were having a warm spell, and it was seventy degrees.

  This was not a bad thing considering for Ryker it was biker jacket or wife beater (what he was currently wearing under the jacket) and Ryker appearing in nothing but jeans, New Rock boots (something he was also right then wearing) and a wife beater usually cleared entire rooms of people who didn’t know him.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he demanded.

  Vi spoke up. “Go to this girl, tell him your boy is shy, but he likes her, and see if she’ll make the first move. Then be his wingman so he doesn’t mess it up.”

  “Are you blind?” Ryker asked Vi.

  “No,” Vi answered calmly.

  Ryker threw a hand up his front. “She’s not exactly gonna smile and pull up a chair for me if I make an approach for my bro.”

  He had a point.

  She might actually run screaming.

  “I see this as a problem,” Vi murmured. Then she offered, “Joe can go talk to her.”

/>   Cal looked down at his wife. “Say what?”

  She looked up at him. “You can go talk to her.”

  “Uh, no,” Ryker cut in, and they both turned to him. “Have you looked at your man recently?”

  “Uh . . .” Vi trailed off, clearly not feeling like stating the obvious.

  “He ain’t young anymore, like my boy, but he can take the panties off a woman with a look, especially a woman who don’t know why he’s approaching,” Ryker explained.

  “He’s wearing a ring,” Vi reminded him.

  Ryker shook his head. “She won’t give a fuck. Serious. And my bro don’t need competition, having some broad thinkin’ of Cal doing the deed with her when he finally gets in there.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Cal muttered.

  Vi giggled.

  “You don’t want no girl thinkin’ of you either,” Ryker aimed this at Cal. “You’re taken.”

  “I don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks but my wife,” Cal returned. “Now round up Lissa, take her to the bar, have her sit down with this girl and explain things, arrange a meet, hang close so your man doesn’t fuck shit up and done.”

  “I don’t take my woman to this bar, man,” Ryker declared, visibly appalled by the thought. “It’s rough. She’s sweet. She don’t go to joints like that.”

  Cal sighed.

  Vi giggled again.

  “It’s gotta be a kidnapping,” Ryker decreed.

  “It does not gotta be a kidnapping,” Cal returned.

  Ryker looked to the back yard and muttered, “I shoulda asked Jasper. He’s up for anything.”

  “You are not going to ask my daughter’s husband to help you kidnap some woman,” Cal clipped, and Ryker returned his attention to Cal, lifting his hands again, but this time to press them down.

  “All right. All right, hoss. Calm down.”

  “Find another way,” Cal ordered.

  “I could—” Vi started.

  Christ, she’d be all in and probably corral Feb, Rocky, Dusty, Jessie, Mimi and Cher on the act, calling Frankie to come down from Chicago, more strength in numbers, if he didn’t nip that in the bud immediately.

  So Cal tightened his hold on her, saying, “You’re not gonna do dick.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled, giving big eyes to Ryker.

  Jesus.

  “Well, the only good thing about this waste of time is that I probably don’t gotta get shot,” Ryker shared.

  He’d said “probably.”

  Not a good sign.

  Fuck.

  “Do you want to stay for dinner?” Vi suggested, and Cal shifted his eyes to the sky.

  That was his woman. Ryker suggests a fake kidnapping, she asks him to dinner.

  “Thanks, beautiful, but no go. Lissa’s cookin’. I should get my ass home. Maybe brainstorm with her alternate scenarios,” Ryker replied. He looked to Cal, lifted a hand, clapped him on the shoulder so hard Cal had to brace so he didn’t send Vi flying. “Later, bro.” His attention went to Vi. “Later, babe. You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

  And then he walked to the door, through it, the house, and calling shit to the kids to say goodbye, out the front door.

  What he did not do was close the sliding door to the deck, so Cal reached out to do that.

  When he straightened from that effort, Vi curled around to his front so she was pressed there, holding him with both arms.

  He wrapped his free one around her to return the favor and looked down at her face.

  “He’s totally gonna kidnap this woman,” she noted.

  “Yup. Totally,” Cal replied.

  They could just say that things had settled down with their crew since the last of them—that would be Cher and Merry—had sorted out their shit.

  But things had not settled down for Ryker.

  He was not a magnet for trouble.

  He was the instigator of it.

  And a fake kidnapping was not the most ludicrous thing he’d come up with.

  “You totally gotta follow him so he doesn’t kidnap this woman,” she went on.

  He clenched his teeth, felt his cheek pulse, then unclenched them to say, “I’ll grill, eat, round up Colt or Layne, or Mike or Merry and sort him out.”

  She smiled. “It’s totally cute. Ryker as matchmaker.”

  He gave her a squeeze. “There’s nothing cute about Ryker.”

  “This is.”

  He shook his head.

  She rolled up on her toes.

  And Cal had long ago vowed to himself that not ever, not even during a fight when he was pissed as shit at her, was he going to ignore an invitation like that.

  So he never did.

  And he didn’t right then.

  He dipped in and took her mouth.

  The sliding door opened, they broke their kiss and turned their heads to see Ben sticking his out.

  “Mom, how firm are you on no tots tonight?” he asked.

  It was Cal who answered.

  “It was less than twenty minutes ago so your mother and me have not forgotten your disrespect earlier.”

  Ben tucked his lips in and ducked out of the door, closing it behind him.

  “I’m gonna go get out the fryer,” Vi decreed.

  “Babe,” Cal held tight when she started to pull away. “You’re a pushover for that kid.”

  And she was.

  Ben. And Sam.

  And Angie, Keira and Kate.

  She shook her head. “Nope. I’m a mom. He apologized. It’s done for me. I carry a grudge, he learns to carry grudges. You can be the bad guy and take care of the follow through to make sure they learn their lesson from this.” She shot him a huge smile. “I’m gonna be the awesome mom who fries up tots.”

  She was an awesome mom not frying up tots.

  “Deal?” she pushed.

  “Deal, baby,” he murmured.

  Her smile got even bigger.

  He kissed that too.

  Then he let her go.

  She went inside to the kitchen, her daughter and the fryer.

  He went to turn on the grill and then back to the door where he stopped, looking in.

  Sam was sitting on a barstool, leaned into the bar toward the kitchen, his mouth moving.

  Ben was helping his mom out (and getting something out of it) by pulling out the fryer.

  Angie was chopping something Cal couldn’t see.

  Violet was leaned into the counter opposite her blabbing son, her attention on him, her lips curved into a smile.

  She had two girls from her first marriage, a good marriage to a man she loved who’d been killed.

  She gave those girls to Cal.

  He had a son from his first marriage, a shit marriage where his junkie wife committed negligent homicide, letting their baby drown in a bath, something that caused Cal’s sick father to have the heart attack that ended his days.

  Cal thought nothing could pull him out of the pit that threw him in. He’d been drained so dry by that, it felt like his insides had split and cracked.

  And there . . .

  Right there . . .

  All his wife had given him.

  She said he balanced their scale of give and take.

  She had no clue.

  No clue.

  No clue any time he was with Kate and Keira, any time he looked at Angie or Sam or Ben, any time he woke up to hear her breathing at his side in the middle of the night . . .

  He knew he was the luckiest man on earth.

  She thought she was the luckiest woman.

  He stared at Violet Callahan smiling at the boy they made.

  Yeah.

  She had no clue.

  On that thought, Cal walked into his house, through the den, into the kitchen, to his family.

  The End

  A novella tying up a Loose End from

  the book Heaven and Hell featuring Hap and Luci

  Second Best to a Dead Man

  Luci

  LUCIANA GORDON SAT i
n a chair on the eighth floor of Saks Fifth Avenue, the one on Fifth Avenue, staring unseeing at the boxes of shoes all around her.

  She’d taken the express elevator.

  She shouldn’t have bothered.

  After she’d had a salad, alone in the restaurant, she’d wandered the enormous floor filled with shoes, sprinkled with handbags for decoration, and asked Elena, her salesperson, to bring her thirteen pairs of shoes.

  She’d tried on one shoe of one pair.

  And then she remembered like she often remembered, all the time, suddenly, with no warning.

  She remembered Hap’s face after she’d pulled away from the kiss she’d given him. She remembered how hard her heart had been beating. She remembered how her skin felt heated and cold at the same time.

  Desire.

  And terror.

  She then remembered how it felt to be swept up in his arms as he carried her from her deck to her couch.

  That feel had been just desire.

  She blinked her thoughts away and saw she had on a blue Aquazurra pump with a triple layer of fringe as an ankle strap.

  It was fabulous.

  It was also ridiculous.

  She’d never wear that shoe in North Carolina, even in her shop, where she wore all her fabulous shoes.

  She’d found a zone she never thought she’d enter.

  Putting on a shoe that was too fabulous.

  No. It wasn’t too fabulous. She could do fabulous anywhere, any way she pleased, even wearing shoe fringe at her boutique in Kingston.

  It was that Hap would be in fits of laughter if he saw her in that shoe and there would be no end to the teasing.

  This would be . . . back then. Back before she kissed him. Back before she pulled away from that kiss and saw that look on his face that was gentle and fiery and greedy and hesitant, and something more. Something so much more, something that held promise, something that held riches beyond imagining, all of this at the same time.

  Back before he carried her to the couch.

  Back before he stopped all the wonderful things they were doing on the couch, left her and ended any possibility of them.

  Back when she actually saw him, which now she did not. Not anymore. Not for months.

  Because he was avoiding her to make his point that all of that had been a mistake.

  “Luci?”

  Her head came up and for a second, she was so deep in her thoughts she did not recognize the petite, slightly stooped woman hovering beside her.