Fearless Love (25 page)

Joe frowned as he pulled the green glass bowls out of the cupboard. “I forgot you were going over there. Any problems?”

She shrugged. “Depends on how you define
problem
, I guess. The place is a concrete pit, so my voice bounces around like crazy. The manager runs sound, and I don’t think he really knows what he’s doing. A significant number of the customers looked like they were on the verge of passing out.”

“Who’s the manager?” He spooned strawberry mousse into the bowls, trying not to frown.

“Guy named Cowen. He’s a sleaze, but it’s minor.”

Joe paused, eyes narrowed. “A sleaze how?”

MG yawned, then shook her head. “He asked me to have dinner with him after I was done. But I told him I was busy, and he didn’t push it.”

Joe managed to put the bowls on the table without slamming his fist down. His jaw felt painfully tight. “Son of a bitch,” he grated.

“Yeah, it wasn’t great. But the take looks okay. I haven’t counted it yet.” She unsnapped the guitar case and reached inside, pulling out a handful of bills.

He sighed. “At least it’s folding money instead of quarters.”

She straightened the bills on the table top. “The coins are in my pocket. I didn’t want them rattling around my guitar.” She began to sort the bills carefully. “There’s more here than I thought.”

“How much?” He took a bite of mousse—not bad. He’d have to tell Darcy tomorrow.

“Looks like around fifty bucks. That sort of makes up for all the eggs the chickens aren’t laying right now.” She gave him a tired smile, then picked up her spoon.

He watched her plunge the spoon into the mousse, mentally damning Todd Fairley to the deepest circle of hell. “Look, MG…”

She glanced up at him, and he felt like wincing. Her eyes were deep set with fatigue. “What?”

“I’m almost living here now. I could help with the mortgage. That’s only fair.”

Her lips moved into a faint smile, but she shook her head. “I’ll make it. I’ve never charged my lovers rent before, and I don’t want to start with you.”

The plural on
lover
left a slightly sour taste in his mouth. “I want to help out. Why not let me?”

She grimaced, then took another bite of mousse.
Stalling.
“I’ll be okay. You just find out what going on at the Rose. Then I can go back to work.” She glanced up at him again, her brow furrowing slightly. “I mean, I will go back to work, won’t I? You’re not firing me permanently?”

Deepest circle of hell plus three.
He reached across the table to grasp the hand that wasn’t holding a spoon. “I’m not firing you at all. So yeah, as soon as I can, I’ll put you back to work.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Great. If you catch the thief soon, maybe I won’t have to go back to Bleeker again.”

“Again.” He straightened in his chair, jaw tight. “You’re going back?”

“Cowen offered me another spot next week. I’m not crazy about the place, but the money turned out to be okay.”

Joe pulled up a mental image of the Bleeker Roadhouse. Dark, dingy and faintly threatening, as he recalled. With a manager who was trying to hit on her. And she was going back there. “Goddamn it, MG…”

She shook her head. “Leave it. Please. It’s just the way things are right now.”

“I want…” He paused. What did he want anyway? “…you. Safe. Here. With me.”

“We have that right now.” She smiled up at him “This is wonderful mousse, by the way.”

“Diversionary tactic,” he grumbled, but his gaze dropped to her lips, the spoon sliding in, her pink tongue reaching out to lick a bit of mousse off the silver tip.

Instantly, his groin turned to granite. “Want another helping?” he managed to croak.

She shook her head, pushing herself to her feet. “It’s great, but I want to do something else right now.”

“Such as?” He watched her swing her hips around the corner of the table, heading his way.

“Such as this.” She settled into his lap, winding her arms around his neck, then pulling his mouth down to hers.

Traces of strawberry and cream lingered on her lips and tongue. He slid one arm around her waist and the other across her back, pulling her closer, tasting woman along with dessert.
Delectable combination.
It would be even sweeter licked from her navel, of course.

She pulled back slightly to smile up at him, green eyes flashing in the dim light of the kitchen. “That’s delicious.”

“It is that.” Joe managed a faint grin. “And you did manage to take my mind off the thief and the Bleeker Roadhouse. For which I thank you.”

She moved forward, dipping closer to his lips again. “You’re welcome.” Wisps of red gold curls strayed across her cheeks. The tip of her tongue played across the swell of her lower lip.

I love her.
The words darted through his mind unexpectedly, producing a faint jolt of surprise.

You should tell her. You need to tell her.
He really should, he knew that. But he didn’t feel like now was exactly the right moment.

And when would the right moment be?
He hadn’t a clue. He cupped her face in his hands, bringing her lips gently to his until all the blood in his body seemed to have moved below his waist.

“C’mon, lady,” he murmured finally, “let’s go to bed.”

Chapter Nineteen

Fortunately, Joe could cook omelets more or less in his sleep because that was pretty much what he was doing. He and MG had made love a couple of times during the night, maybe because they were both a little on edge. If that was the effect of all the drama surrounding them, he wasn’t entirely sorry about it. On the other hand, his sleep deprivation was definitely getting out of hand.

Kit Maldonado walked into his office shortly after breakfast, closing the door behind her after checking the hall outside. Seeing Kit was always a pleasure, and today she wore a dress the color of raspberry sherbet that set off her dark hair and made her skin glow golden. Nice way to start the day. Maybe.

Joe raised an eyebrow. “What’s up, darlin’?”

She handed him a printout, then dropped into the chair beside his desk. “You asked me to keep track of anything unusual in the kitchen operation, and I just noticed something on the spreadsheet for this month. Did you change the trash collection service?”

Joe frowned, shaking his head. “No. We didn’t have any problems with Allied so far as I know. We got somebody new coming in?”

She nodded. “Fairley signed a contract with some company called Mallory Waste Management. I checked their Website. They’re based in Austin. I assumed you’d approved it since it didn’t come through me.”

“Nope.” He tapped his fingers on the printout, glancing through the names. “Has he changed anything else?”

“He made some recommendations for a linen supplier and a printer for the menus, but I didn’t take him up on either of them.” She shrugged. “Their prices weren’t that much better than what we’re getting now, and I don’t like switching suppliers unless something’s wrong with the ones we have.”

Joe’s mouth twisted. “Hell, he could be getting kickbacks or offers of kickbacks.”

Kit nodded. “Possibly, but you’d never be able to prove something like that. Unless he was really stupid, which he doesn’t seem to be.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Joe rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I’ll have to check into the garbage collectors, though. That has an interesting ring to it.”

“You think he’s getting kickbacks there?”

He shrugged. “Or something.”

Kit leaned forward. “Joe, maybe we should tell Nando about all of this. Or even Erik Toleffson. The losses are up to a few hundred above and beyond the losses we normally have. It’s getting into felony range.”

Erik Toleffson was the chief of police. He and Nando were both formidable, and bringing either of them into this would wave a significant red flag under the thief’s nose.

Joe sighed. “Not yet. We might tip him off if we move too soon. This stuff is always hell to prove, and I want to see if I can catch the SOB actually doing something.”

“But if you do, then you’ll tell Nando?”

“Possibly. If the evidence is solid. And if we nail him taking enough to make it worthwhile.” Taking somebody to court over the theft of a stick blender wouldn’t be a winning proposition. He managed to give her a faint smile. “Let me poke around with this trash collection thing and see what I can find.”

Kit pushed herself to her feet. “Okay. As long as you don’t beat the guy to a pulp, I guess you can handle it your way. See you at lunch.”

He nodded at her retreating back. But he had to admit—beating the thief to a pulp was beginning to look better and better.

Nedda hadn’t expected much from Lloyd Kurtz, and he’d managed to live down to her expectations. His reports had been sketchy at best, although he’d nailed down the identity of her grand-niece’s lover. Correction: her niece’s lover. “Grand” was simply an unnecessary complication.

A cook no less. Nedda didn’t know whether to find that funny or a relief. A cook wouldn’t be likely to bankroll the mortgage, making it far more likely that her niece would default on the loan.

Which was all that really mattered.

Nedda wasn’t particularly shocked about the girl entertaining men at the farm. Nedda had entertained a few herself at her place after Mort had taken off. Not while Caroline was still living at home. But once her daughter had left just like her daddy, Nedda had enjoyed the occasional male caller.

Of course, she’d had to send them packing if it turned out they were more interested in her money than in anything else. But she figured that came with the territory. If you took up with a man, you had to expect him to try to get whatever he could. It had been her job to make sure they only got what she was willing to give.

Now she’d moved beyond all that. She couldn’t remember the last man who’d crossed her doorstep, and she didn’t particularly care that she couldn’t. Men came and went. Land stayed.

And the land that made up the Carmody family farm was hers, no matter what the deed said. And no matter what her fool brother had decided. That girl had no right to something that belonged to Nedda. Harmon should have known better than to try changing that principle.

She timed her visit to the feed store so that she didn’t have to compete for the clerk’s attention with a lot of other customers. The clerk in this case was Young Chris Farnsworth, the owner of the store. Nedda had timed her visit for that too. She might as well talk to someone who knew the answers to her questions and would know why it was in his best interests to give them.

Farnsworth wasn’t as imposing as his father, Old Chris, had been twenty years ago. He needed another fifty pounds to approach that. But he already had the old man’s glacial blue eyes and thin-lipped scowl. Nedda figured it was a start.

Young Chris nodded at her a little warily. “Morning, Ms. Carmody. What can I do for you?”

Nedda surveyed the store carefully, studying the content of the shelves. “You got chicken feed here, Farnsworth?”

He nodded even more warily this time. “Yes, ma’am. Cracked corn and pellets. Got oyster shells too, if that’s what you’re after.”

“I understand my niece buys her feed here. That right?”

He raised a silvery brow. “Yes, ma’am, she does. Just like her grandpa used to do. Good customer.”

“She pay her bills?” Nedda raised her chin imperiously. When she did that, most people told her what she wanted to know since they figured, correctly, that arguments would be futile.

Farnsworth wasn’t like most people, oddly enough. “That’s private. Can’t talk about people’s bills. Nobody’s business but theirs and mine.”

“It’ll be my business if she doesn’t pay, though, won’t it?” Nedda leaned forward, resting a fist on the counter top. “Seeing as I’ll be paying them myself.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You responsible for her debts?”

“Let’s just say I’ll be the one holding the bag if she don’t pay.” It was true in a way—since she’d be the one owning the farm.

His jaw tightened again. “Well, if that should happen, I guess we can talk about it then.”

“I guess we can,” Nedda snapped. She turned and stalked out of the store.

Farnsworth was proving annoyingly ethical. She’d have to figure a way around him so that she got the information she needed. But that shouldn’t be impossible—she had fingers in enough pies that she should be able to find something somewhere. She needed to know just how deeply in debt her niece was right now. Bonnie Sue at the grocery store had said she didn’t owe anything there, so far as she knew—she wasn’t on the bad check list anyway. Nedda was still looking for ways in at the power company and the city water and garbage offices. Somebody there would tell her if the bills were being paid. Whatever money Harmon had left must be close to running out by now. He couldn’t have had much insurance. Not with the medical bills he’d had to pay.

You’re a mean woman, Nedda
.

She stopped abruptly, her head swiveling. Nobody talked to her like that. Not if they wanted to keep what they had. A boy and girl walked arm in arm further up the street, their dark heads leaning together. A solitary man stood outside the insurance agency on the corner, checking his cell phone. None of them even glanced at her.