Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (109 page)

While Santo ducked down to retrieve it, the reaper righted the photo.

Visibly shaken, his pulse a staccato beat at his throat, Santo closed his eyes and rubbed the scruff of his beard. He mumbled something the reaper couldn’t hear, but then again, he didn’t need to hear it. They all prayed at this point.

After several deep breaths, Santo opened his eyes again and focused on the framed picture, once more positioned on the table. The image of a jubilant Santo with dark, sparkling eyes and a wide, dimpled smile looked back from the photograph. Wrapped around him from behind was a female with the same brown skin and velvety gaze. She laughed at the camera.

The reaper remembered her. He’d been the one to take her when her time had come. She and her baby had tasted of sweetness and light, and as he’d passed them through to their next destination, he’d been strangely moved by a sense of loss.

He frowned with distaste at the memory. He blamed another woman for the unwanted emotion. Roxanne Love. Before her, he’d never cared for the souls he’d reaped. Only that they’d abounded.

He watched Santo as the human scowled at the righted photograph. The reaper could see the memory of the last few moments replaying in Santo’s mind, in his expression. The spinning gun careening toward the snapshot, the frame teetering, toppling over with a flat, cracking sound that had left a splinter in the glass at the bottom right corner. Santo’s eyes shifted back and forth as he recounted each cause and effect in an attempt to rationalize how the frame could have come to be propped in front of him now, as if none of that had happened.

Santo shook his head in silent denial. Looking like the cop he’d been for the last twelve years, he narrowed his dark eyes and searched the room.

You know who I am. You invited me here.

The human’s fear simmered to an erotic terror. He gave the gun in his hand a desperate look, took another drink, and shoved the muzzle in his mouth. The cruel click of the pulled trigger taunted him, as impotent as the dry tears.

He savored Santo’s anguish. Few humans really desired death when they courted it in this manner. This one did, yet Santo felt he deserved the torture of the game he played. He owned half a dozen guns that would have done the job quicker, but he endured the punishment of each deadly click. The torment of forcing himself to do it again and again.

The reaper knew Santo would keep pulling that trigger, until the job was done. At 12:10 a.m., a clean shot would blow away the back of his skull and kill him instantly.

Or should.

For Santo Castillo, death would come, but not from a bullet. His beautiful face would remain intact, his gray matter safely stored in his cranium. The reaper had never taken a soul from a human that still lived, but he didn’t hesitate to do it now. He needed a body for a day, maybe less. Just long enough to find the woman who’d escaped him. The woman whose soul he’d touched, held, and lost. Just long enough to reap her and return to the Beyond.

In less than twenty-four hours Roxanne Love would die once again. Only this time he’d be there, in flesh and spirit, to make sure she
stayed
dead.

As Santo put the gun in his mouth once more, the reaper sat down on the table in front of him and let himself be
seen
. For a single, glorious moment, Santo’s terror swaddled them both, then the reaper took over and put an end to the human’s misery.

Fifty-eight minutes before she died, Roxanne Love noticed three things. The stain on the ceiling, her brother’s short fuse, and the tall stranger who quietly entered and sat in the back.

The stain had caught her eye earlier, and after that, she couldn’t stop looking at it. A stain meant a leak and that meant a bill. Bad news all around. But worse than that, the black splotch crouching in the far corner like a fat spider gave her a bad case of the creeps, though she couldn’t say just why. The crazy feeling stalked her as she served drinks to the two customers sitting at the bar of the pub she co-owned with her brothers and sister. She couldn’t shake it.

Then the man came through the front door.

Six and half feet, sporting the kind of muscle that took work to build, he strode in like he was on a mission. He wore a black T-shirt beneath a weathered leather jacket that looked like it might have been brown at one time but had faded to a distressed shade of beige. Jeans hugged his long legs and a whole lot of masculine mojo followed him like fanfare.

He took a seat in the corner, seeming to pull all the shadows in around him. The observation was so strange that she almost laughed. Almost.

“What can I get for you?” she asked, setting a cocktail napkin in front of him.

“Wild Turkey,” he ordered in a smoky voice that teased her a step closer.

He was ridiculously attractive with all that dark brooding attitude and he-man brawn. In contrast, he had the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen. Thick and black, they framed smoldering eyes the color of midnight.

“Please,” he tacked on when she stood there staring.

Embarrassed, she asked, “Straight up or on the rocks?”

“In a glass,” he answered with a bewildered frown.

She might have laughed if he hadn’t seemed so serious.

“That’s generally where we pour them,” she said. “The floor is just too messy.”

His startled expression became a slow grin that made her blush to her roots. He was
that
good looking. At the same time, a niggling sense of disquiet wormed its way into her addled brain.

“I’ll be right back with your drink,” she mumbled.

As she turned away, the stain caught her eye again and her unease tipped into foreboding. The power of the feeling on the heels of her embarrassment gave it a disproportionate weight that made it all the more disturbing. What the hell was wrong with her tonight?

She served the man’s drink quickly, avoiding his eyes and returning to the safety of the bar like an awkward teenager with a really bad crush.

A minute later her twin brother pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen. “86 the meatloaf,” Reece said, eyeing the deserted bar and tables. “We should just close up for the night.”

“Ryan says not before midnight.” Ryan was their older brother and the boss.

“Ryan says,” Reece mocked.

He caught sight of the man sitting in the corner and paled.

“Who’s that?” he demanded, turning his back as he filled his cup with ice and soda.

“A customer?” she answered.

He scowled at her. “I don’t think so. He looks like a cop.”

Surprised, Roxanne gave the man in question a glance. He didn’t look like a cop to her, but he had this dark, sexy as sin,
if George Clooney were Latino
thing going on that leant him a mysterious, dangerous air. He’d walked in like a he had a purpose, though. Now he sat cloaked in all that shadow and manliness. It was unnerving.
He
was unnerving. And he’d been watching her since he’d come in.

She knew, because she’d been watching him back.

“What does it matter if he’s a cop?” she asked Reece, trying not to look at the man again. “We’re not breaking the law. We’re serving food and drinks, just like it says we do on the front door. I’ve been checking IDs. Don’t worry about him.”

“I’m not worried,” Reece snapped.

“Then why are you biting my head off?” She grabbed his sleeve when he would have turned away. “Seriously. What’s up? What’s the matter?”

Her brother glanced at the man again before he searched Roxanne’s face as if seeking understanding. But she didn’t get what he wanted her to understand. In all honesty, it had been a long time since she’d been on the same page with her twin. Not since the
accident
.

“Nothing’s going on,” Reece said. “I just want to get the fuck out of here.”

With that, he filled his cup and went back to the kitchen. A few seconds later, she heard him slamming things around and cursing loud enough that Jim and Sal, regulars who could be found at their bar most any night, could hear him. The two men exchanged glances but said nothing. She felt bad for Manny, their dishwasher, who had to be stuck in the kitchen with Reece for the rest of the night.

She thought about following her brother and forcing him to talk to her, but what was the point? He’d either take his bad mood out on her or whine about having to work on Friday night and she’d heard it all before. Love’shad been opened by their grandparents back in the days when Mill Avenue had a producing flour mill and Tempe, Arizona had been a sleepy town. When their father had died, it became theirs. It was a piece of their heritage that they all held onto, even though lately it felt like more labor than love.

With a frustrated sigh, she went back to work, but business was slow and her two customers had full drinks. She wiped the bar, forcing herself
not
to look at the man in the corner or the stain on the ceiling.

But she couldn’t help it. Every few minutes she glanced up, eyeing the splotch balefully. Unable to shake the feeling that it was some kind of omen.

She couldn’t stop peeping at the stranger in the back either. He sat alone, nursing his Wild Turkey, pretending to mind his own business. But he was still watching her. She could feel it.

If he was a cop, why was he watching
her
?

And what did his presence have to do with Reece being strung so tight? The last time her brother had been such an ass-hat, bad things had happened. Things she didn’t even like to remember. The thought of living through them again made her bones ache.

At last, she tossed her towel beneath the bar and decided to quit dancing around and just find out who he was.

“How you doing over here?” she asked, approaching with an easy smile that felt utterly fake.

“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” he answered.

His eyes held a bemused gleam as they made a lazy sweep of her hair and face. She caught herself smoothing her ponytail and tried not to look completely disconcerted by him. But it was harder than it should have been. She couldn’t stop staring into his bedroom-deep eyes with those long, lush lashes. On any other man, they would have seemed feminine, but the angles of this one’s face were too sharp and masculine for that. A couple of scars nicked and wended over his black brow and straight nose, roughing up his features in a way that made his face all the more compelling.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” she said, pleased at how natural her voice sounded. It had just the right balance of warmth and inquisitiveness and none of the jittery nerves rioting inside her.

“It’s my first visit.”

She had the oddest sense that the innocuous statement held a double meaning she wasn’t sharp enough to catch.

“Well, welcome to Love’s. I’m Roxanne.”

“I know. Roxanne Love.”

He spoke her name in that husky tone, only now it held a note of satisfaction. As if finding her, recognizing her, had been a great feat that he’d accomplished against all odds.

Her smile faltered and she took a step back. The instinct was ingrained. It had been years since the media or the obsessed fanatics who’d stalked her in the past had caught her unawares, but she never fully let down her guard.

He smiled again. It seemed he couldn’t help himself, and a dimple flashed from his cheek. “I’ve made you nervous.”

“No,” she lied, “but you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Not formally.”

Not at all. No way she would have forgotten him.

“I’m Detective Santo Castillo,” he said and Roxanne released her breath on a soft whoosh.

Okay, so not a stalker. That was good news. But Reece guessing he was a cop and then freaking out about it…not so great. Not when it made her think her brother must be guilty of something.

The detective leaned across the table and handed her his badge.

Wary, Roxanne studied the medal and verified that the picture matched the man before giving it back. But a bad feeling settled around her. Just like the damn stain, it began to spread. She glanced up again before she could stop herself. As if to confirm a relationship, it had grown bigger and somehow more threatening.

She swallowed and forced her attention back to Santo Castillo. His glass was almost empty. “Drinking on the job, Detective?” she asked, nodding at it.

“Off the clock.”

“But not off duty?”

“What cop is ever off duty?”

She supposed he had a valid point, but she was getting too many mixed signals from him to know what to trust.

“So what brings you and your badge to Love’stonight?”

“Good food, fine brew, and great friends,” he said, quoting the motto printed on the front window.

“So you’re not looking for anyone?”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. Outlaws.”

“And if I am?” he asked.

She shrugged, glancing at the nearly deserted bar. “Good luck with that?”

A taut pause followed while he snared her gaze and held it prisoner.

“You seem a bit skittish, Roxanne.”

She felt a bit skittish. Excited. Like she’d just raced down a long staircase and found that the last step dropped into nowhere.

She balanced on the edge, hyperaware of him. His size. His intensity. His
presence.
She didn’t know if she wanted to bolt or move closer. He caught his bottom lip with his teeth and worried it for a moment, while his gaze delivered a message so
male
that she felt an instinctive, uncontrollable response.

He said very softly, “You have beautiful eyes. I didn’t expect that.”

“What?”

“It’s the gold in the gray, I think. It’s startling.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she stood there, speechless, mouth opened in surprise. She’d been told her eyes were pretty before—who hadn’t?—but coming from him, it seemed to take a deeper meaning. She felt another hot blush creep up her throat.

“What do you mean, you didn’t
expect
it?”

“I’ve been watching you.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. Why?”

The question hung between them, filled with a weight she didn’t quite fathom. He seemed to be sifting through his thoughts, examining and discarding responses. At last he said simply, “I find you intriguing.”