Fearless Love (24 page)

MG wrapped her arms around his waist, rubbing her face against his chest. “I really wanted to kill you for a while.”

“I know. But I’m glad you didn’t.” He moved her gently back into the room, closing the door behind him before she could think better of letting him inside. He walked with her to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and then tumbled her into his lap, reaching for her beer. “Jesus, this has been an awful four days. I’d get a beer of my own, but I don’t want to let go of you for that long.” He took a swallow from her bottle.

She rested her head on his shoulder. “You think you had an awful four days. Believe me, you don’t know the half of it. So who’s doing this? The Beav?”

He shrugged. “He’s one possibility. Only I don’t think he set up the thing with the balsamic vinegar. The thief probably had that stowed away where he could get it later. You just stumbled across it when you were in the pantry, and he was lucky. You got suspected instead of him.”

She pulled back to look at him. “Fishhead’s in the pantry a lot. Could it be him?”

“Yeah, it could.” He shifted to bring her closer. “It could be Fairley or Fishhead. Unfortunately, it could also be Leo or Jorge or somebody on the cleaning staff. Even Placido. I don’t want to think it’s any of those guys, but realistically, it could be.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now we catch him, whoever he is,” he said with a lot more confidence than he felt. “Darcy and I are both keeping an eye on the kitchen. Sooner or later, somebody will slip up.” Of course, a lot of people had keys to the kitchen, including Fairley, which made the whole thing a lot more dicey than he was letting on.

“But you can’t watch things all the time.” MG could apparently read his mind.

“No.” He shrugged. “I’m banking on the thief being more greedy than smart, which may or may not be realistic.”

She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “This could take a while.”

Right.
“Look,” he said cautiously, “is this going to cause you money problems? I could get you an advance on your salary or something. And we’ll still buy your eggs.”

She sighed. “I should be okay for a little while, thanks to the money I get for playing at Oltdorf twice a week now. And I just picked up another gig tonight. If I have to go too long without another job, I may have problems making the mortgage payments, but I’m all right for now. Thanks for offering, though.”

“Another gig where?”

She shrugged, turning to look at him. “Some other little town around here. Bleeker, I think it’s called.”

Joe sat up straighter. “Jesus, not the Bleeker Roadhouse.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” She shrugged again. “They’re paying me a percentage of the gate, which is better than passing the bucket like Dewey does. Why?”

“It’s one of the roughest roadhouses in the state. Hell, bikers stay out of there. What night are you playing?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Maybe I can drive you. What time do you go on?”

She shook her head, leaning back against him again. “I go on at seven thirty. There’s no way you could cook and take care of me. Plus I wouldn’t let you anyway.”

He moved a golden curl away from his eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because I’m a big girl. I’ve been playing at dives, alone and in groups, for a while. One thing I’ve found—places like the Bleeker usually have more-than-adequate bouncers. If I feel nervous, I’ll have one of them walk me to my car.”

“That assumes the bouncers aren’t the ones you need to be worried about,” Joe muttered.

“Usually they aren’t. Look.” She pushed back a little so that she could look up at him again. “I appreciate the thought. And I appreciate the concern. And I appreciate like hell that you finally hiked down here tonight and stood outside my window. But if this is going to work, we need to trust each other’s judgment. Okay?”

After a moment, he nodded. “Okay.”

She relaxed again in his arms, cuddling close. “Are you staying?”

He sighed. “Sure. Somebody’s got to get the eggs back to the Rose tomorrow.”

Chapter Eighteen

By the following week, MG was back to feeling exhausted again. Joe spent almost every night at her place, leaving early in the morning with a load of eggs. Theoretically, she could have gone back to sleep, but in reality she didn’t. She worked on songs and practiced in the morning, then did chores in the afternoon. Joe had helped her extend the fence so that the chickens could wander around the grass in the yard, but she still let them out to roam farther afield every now and then. Egg production had dropped off as they molted. Some of them looked so seedy she wondered if they needed sweaters for the cool nights.

Right. Put sweaters on your chickens. That should convince everybody you’ve gone round the bend.

Joe assured her they’d be fine, but he also assured her, regretfully, that her egg production was going to drop to almost nothing while they got their new feathers. Now she watched the disconsolate hens, feathers half gone and half grown back, as they wandered silently around the lawn. Apparently, losing their feathers made them too depressed to cluck.

The drop in egg production worried her, though. The eggs weren’t bringing in much—maybe forty bucks a week or so. But it was still forty bucks she needed. Particularly when she didn’t have the money from the Rose anymore. Sometimes she wished she’d taken Joe up on his offer of a salary advance. Most times she knew better. Better not to be financially dependent on anybody right now, especially not the hot chef up the road, no matter how much she liked him.

On Thursday she headed for Bleeker, trying not to think about Joe’s warning. She’d sung in rough places before. Of course, she’d usually been part of a group of singers when she did. The manager at the Bleeker Roadhouse hadn’t mentioned anything about other acts, but she figured there had to be some. Surely they wouldn’t expect her to carry the whole evening on her own. Not when she was an virtual unknown.

She arrived at seven and found a place to park at the back. The roadhouse was a rectangular cinder-block building with a set of narrow windows at the front and a flickering neon sign above the door. The color had once been something like burgundy, but now it looked like dried blood.

She shivered.
Don’t be stupid. You’re just here to sing and get out.

She stepped inside and then paused to let her eyes adjust. The windows looked like they hadn’t been washed in a few decades and any light that managed to leak inside was only decorative. Another dim light illuminated a stage at the far end of the long room. The bar at the near end was the brightest thing in the building. Once her eyes were more accustomed to the darkness, she could see tables scattered around the floor with a few groups of drinkers. In front of the stage, there was an open area that might have been a dance floor. Of course, it might also have been a safety zone to keep the musicians from being hit by low-flying projectiles.

MG tightened her grip on her guitar case and started toward the stage. The few customers drinking at the bar glanced her way and then seemed to lose interest.

The manager stepped from the side of the stage to meet her. She struggled for a moment to remember his name. Cronin? Crown? Cowen, that was it. Unlike Dewey, he didn’t dress the part—no cowboy hat or western suit. His jeans and T-shirt looked grimy in the dim light, but she couldn’t tell if it was fashionable grime or not. Given the general ambience, she was betting on not.

“Evening.” Cowen smiled, giving a quick glimpse of brownish teeth.
Fashionable
was becoming less likely by the moment.

“Hi.” MG gave him her professional smile, clutching her case in both hands so that she wouldn’t have to shake his hand. “Is there a place I can get set up?”

He glanced around the room, frowning slightly. “Maybe. What do you need?”

“A stool and a microphone, mainly. Is your sound man here yet?” The sound man looked to have his work cut out for him, given the concrete walls and floor. Her voice would be bouncing around like crazy unless he could work with it.

Cowen shrugged. “I do sound. You start singing and I’ll make it work.”

MG managed not to grimace. This wasn’t exactly a high end engagement, after all. “Okay. When do you want me to start?”

“Soon as I get the stool out for you. Just take a sec.” Cowen turned back toward the stage, which suddenly looked a lot smaller.

“How long do you want me to play,” she said a little desperately.

He shrugged again. “Until you get tired, I guess. We don’t get many people on Thursday. You might want to stick around for a couple hours, see if you can get some donations. I’ll pass the hat a couple times and leave it out where people can see it.”

“Donations?” Her hands tightened on the case again. “I thought you said this was a percentage deal.”

His lips moved into another grimy smile. “No cover tonight. If you want a percentage of nothing, that’s okay with me. But you’re liable to pick up more if I pass the hat.”

She blew out a breath. “Right. Well, let’s get started.” The sooner she got going, the sooner she could take her money and go home. She glanced back at the few dim shapes sitting at the tables and felt like sighing. She had a feeling she’d be lucky to clear the cost of gas to Bleeker.

Oh yeah, this was going to be a really great night.

Joe was not in the best of moods to begin with. He’d inventoried the kitchen equipment that morning, on the excuse that he was checking to see if anything needed to be replaced. None of the big stuff was missing, although there were the usual problems with small stuff like whisks that disappeared regularly. He was almost disappointed since he’d come up with a theory about the thief selling immersion blenders and stock pots on line.

Fairley had located an extern, Ezra, from some small culinary school in San Antonio. In most ways the kid was more clueless than MG had been, but his knife skills were superlative. The chances of him being able to see how the Rose was being ripped off were, however, slim, and since Fairley had hired him, Joe doubted Ezra would feel like keeping an eye on him anyway.

Joe worked breakfast and dinner, as usual, and made a couple of surprise visits during lunch prep on the very remote possibility that he’d see Dietz doing something suspicious. He didn’t, but the surprise visits had basically screwed his chances of getting any work done on the event planning. He had a stack of files with him now, but he doubted he’d take the time to even look at them. Once he walked through MG’s door, he planned on doing nothing much beyond nibbling strawberry mousse from her navel. He’d even brought the mousse with him.

Visions of slurping strawberry mousse from her willing body disappeared as soon as he turned in the drive however. Her house sat dark and silent, only the yard light illuminating the back yard and the chicken house.

He pulled his car to the side, frowning. She’d told him she had a gig that night, but she was usually done before he was when he did dinner. He’d never thought to ask her for a key.
Well, shit.

He weighed the possibilities—he could sit and wait in the dark or he could go home and call her later. He sighed. The first option made him feel a little like a stalker. The second option might not work since he had no idea whether she’d finally paid her phone bill and gotten her cell turned back on.

He was reaching for the ignition key when he saw headlights on the road. He settled back, watching MG’s car turn down the drive and roll to a stop in front of the house.

She stepped out of the car, and then stood waiting for him, leaning against the side of the Kia, her guitar case hanging loosely from her hand. From a distance she looked relaxed. As he moved closer he changed
relaxed
to
exhausted.

He stepped beside her, brushing his fingers through the curls that drooped across her forehead. “Are you just getting back from your gig?”

She nodded, closing her eyes, then leaned against his shoulder. “Three straight hours of singing,” she mumbled. “I was almost ready to do theme songs from eighties kiddie shows.”

“Three hours?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wasn’t there a main act?”

She shook her head against his shoulder. “Just me. And around thirty drunks.” She leaned back to look at him. “That’s not entirely fair. Some of them were just drinking. Only a few of them actually made it all the way to drunk.”

“Let’s go inside.” He put his arm around her shoulders, nudging her gently toward her front door. “I brought you some dessert.”

She unlocked the door, then pushed it open, flipping on the light as she did. “That sounds good. I should be able to stay awake long enough for dessert. What is it?”

“Strawberry mousse.” Visions of MG’s body stretched on the bed, strawberry mousse decorating significant areas, faded slowly from his mind.

“Great.” She yawned widely, rubbing her free hand against the back of her neck. “Maybe the sugar will help me re-energize.”

He took the guitar case out of her hand, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table. “Sit. Why did they have you play all night at Oltdorf?”

She shook her head, resting her elbows on the table. “It wasn’t Oltdorf. It was Bleeker. And I guess they don’t have too many acts during the week.”