In Rides Trouble (15 page)

But not right now.

Because right now that sound meant he was stuck exactly where he was for the amount of time it would take to get to Red Delilah’s—approximately ten minutes, depending on traffic. And those ten minutes promised to be the longest, most agonizing of his life.

Becky licked the last bit of celery salt from her fingers after having wolfed down a hot dog and frowned toward the end of the bar where Frank was trying and failing not to stare into the Grand Canyon of Delilah’s cleavage.

She liked the bar’s proprietress and namesake; she really did.

Delilah was clever and fun, and she could double pour a Guinness so it formed the perfect frothy head—a real talent in Becky’s book. She was warm and welcoming, always there with a sympathetic ear when a girl had one too many and started lamenting aloud the pathetic path of her love life—or the lack thereof. She had a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of classic rock bands, could diffuse a bar fight with only a high-pitched whistle, and wrangle an uncooperative drunk into a taxi cab…

She also just happened to be built like a living number eight, with a set of curves that defied humanity. And even though Becky generally liked Delilah, right now she was envious as hell of those curves and the nearly hypnotic effect they seemed to have on Frank.

Yepper, maybe if
she
looked like an hourglass, he would finally give her the time of day and let her apologize, because if there was one thing she was sure of, it was she was sick and damned tired of walking on eggshells around him…or having him walk on eggshells around her…or whatever the heck was going on to make the room experience a sudden blast of nuclear winter whenever they both managed to inhabit it.

“Did that satisfy your craving?” Angel asked as he plunked a sweating bottle of Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout down on the polished bar and swung a muscled leg over the wooden stool beside her.

“I could eat two more,” she told him, dragging her eyes away from the pair at the end of the bar. “But I just bought a really cherry pair of 7 For All Mankind jeans, and it’d be a shame not to be able to fit into them.”

He tilted his head and smiled at her, and she wished she could read whatever it was she glimpsed behind his dark eyes, but…she couldn’t. Even after all the hours they’d spent together, he was still such a mystery she couldn’t help but wonder if there was anyone on the entire planet who knew what Jamin “Angel” Agassi was really all about.

Not for the first time, she tried to guess what his real name might have been. Maybe it was something cool, like Asher or Raphael. Although, given life’s little ironies, it was probably more like Bob or something equally disappointing.

“Who is that man?” Angel/Bob asked, dragging her from her fanciful thoughts.

She glanced in the direction of his gaze but could barely make out the shadowed profile of the man tucked into a dim booth in the far back corner of the bar.

“I don’t know. I can’t really see him. Why do you ask?”

“He’s been watching us.”

She squinted, trying to make out the face within the shadows. It was useless. “How can you tell? It’s too dark over there.”

“I can tell,” his raspy voice brooked no argument.

Okay, so Shadow Man was watching them. So what?

“Well, it’s not like there’s a ton of activity in here right now. We’re probably the only thing
to
watch.” She took an unconcerned sip of her beer.

And speaking of activity…

She figured it was about time to check in and see just how ol’ Frank was making out with the whole trying-not-to-drool-down-the-front-of-Delilah’s-V-neck-sweater thing.

When she glanced in their direction, she was pleased to find there was no drool involved, although there was a lot of playful grinning and flirtatious gazing.

Grrr.

“You should call him over here and do it,” Angel announced.

Uh, non sequitur anyone? Still, Becky couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I thought you said I didn’t need to. That I should just forget all about it.”

“Yes,” he sighed, shaking his head in annoyance. “And I still believe that was good advice, but you’re not going to be satisfied until you get this apology…how is it you say?…out of the way. And I, for one, refuse to sit here and watch you fidget until you plotz.”

“Ew!”

“It does not mean what it sounds like it means.” With that, he grabbed his beer and stood up. And before she could stop him, he sauntered to the end of the bar where Frank and Delilah stopped their bantering to glance at him questioningly.

Becky lit up like a campfire when Angel said something to Frank that caused him to frown so fiercely she was amazed Angel didn’t immediately curl into a protective ball. That particular look of Frank’s always had that effect on
her
. Angel, however, seemed immune. He just smirked and crossed his muscled arms over his chest, standing his ground.

With a curse that even she, at the other end of the bar, could hear above the beats of the jukebox, Frank pushed past Angel, accidentally hitting the guy’s shoulder with his own—yeah right—to stomp in her direction. His big biker boots crushed the peanut shells scattered over the scuffed wooden floor into baby-fine powder.

“What?” he growled, towering over her. She tried to remind herself that he was just a very fit man, like all the other very fit men she worked with, operators who had to keep their bodies in peak condition because their very lives depended on it. But she failed, because despite what she told herself, Frank Knight would always be the toughest, meanest,
biggest
sonofagun she’d ever known.

“What
what?
” she asked, her hackles instantly twanging upright in defense.

“Angel said you wanted to talk to me, so
what
did you want to talk about?”

“What is it between you two, anyway?” she asked, thinking back on all that testosterone-y weirdness that’d gone down in Frank’s office.

“
That’s
what you wanted to ask me?” he thundered, causing every head in the bar to turn in their direction. Thankfully, given the early hour, besides the Knights there were blessedly few heads.

“No,” she hissed, trying to ignore the heat of embarrassment climbing up her throat to sting her cheeks. “I just don’t understand why you two—”

“Becky,” he ground out. Well at least he’d moderated his tone so the whole bar was no longer privy to their conversation. For that, she was grateful. Until he continued, “Just spit it out, for the love of God.”

Oh, and now it was her turn to make a scene.

“I’m sorry, okay!” she yelled, sudden tears pricking behind her eyes, which only pissed her off further. If she stared bawling right there in the middle of her favorite bar, she swore she’d never forgive him.

“You’re…you’re
sorry
?” he sputtered. Yep, she’d never before willingly offered up an apology, so she could understand his incredulity now. “For what?” he demanded, still looming over her until she felt the need to shrink down into herself. She had to make a conscious effort to keep her spine straight when her shoulders wanted ever so much to slink up around her ears.

“For the time we…for w-what happened on the
Patton
,” she muttered as she darted a glance around the room to make sure no one else had heard that juicy little nugget. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that, and I’m…I just wanted to say I’m sorry, okay? I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I want things to be all right between us.”

“Sonofabitch.” He briefly covered his eyes with his big hand. Then he dragged his palm down over his face and the raspy stubble on his jaw. Taking a deep breath, looking like he’d just aged ten years, he hooked a toe in the rungs of a barstool, yanked it out, and plopped onto the seat with a groan of weariness, or embarrassment, or some other emotion she couldn’t name.

Ugh, this was turning out way worse than she ever imagined. Maybe she should’ve listened to Angel.

Except…hold the phone, Frank’s eyes were strangely soft when he finally turned toward her. “It wasn’t your fault, honey.”

Honey.
Honey?

If there’d been a record playing, the needle would’ve scratched across the vinyl surface.
Scccrrriiitch.
Because Frank Knight was not one for endearments. Hell, before the deal they made on the
Patton
, he’d refused to call her anything more informal than Rebecca, much less something as personal as
honey
.

She sat there for a second. Completely pole-axed. All she could think was honey, honey…honey?

Finally, shaking her head like a dog shakes off water, she managed, “Of
course
it’s my fault. You were out of your frickin’ mind.”

“Mmm,” he agreed, nodding his head. “Just enough out of my mind to do something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Her heart stopped beating. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Becky.” He sighed, grabbing her pint of Guinness and taking a big slug. She couldn’t help but check the glowing neon Budweiser clock above the bar to make sure he wasn’t violating his food and drink cut-off time. He still had fifteen minutes. “Don’t pick this moment to turn dense.”

So Angel was right. He
had
wanted to kiss her.

“But if you’ve always wanted to kiss me, then why, for Pete’s sake, haven’t you?” She thought of all the time they’d wasted. Time they could’ve been loving, living their lives together instead of continually, carefully keeping each other at arm’s length.

“Because I’m your boss, and I’m too old for you,” he replied, his eyes bleak as they stared straight ahead to the shelves of liquor glinting on the mirrored wall behind the bar.

She couldn’t help noticing he made no mention of the woman up in Lincoln Park. So, had she been right about it not being serious? About the woman just being a friend with benefits? Her heart not only began beating, it leapt with hope.

“First of all, you’re not technically my boss. My paycheck comes directly from the sale of the choppers, not the U.S. government. Second, thirteen years isn’t exactly a spring/fall relationship, Frank. It’s more like a spring/summer relationship, if you want to categorize it. Or,” she went on, getting more upset by the minute because things could’ve been so different if only he’d let them—the big, stupid dill-hole, “maybe you could take the enlightened approach and admit that when it comes to relationships, age doesn’t matter.”

He turned to her then, his expression strangely pained. “But it does, Becky.” When she opened her mouth to argue with him, he pushed ahead. “Besides, that’s not an issue now.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Simply that.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what we could or couldn’t have had now that you have Angel.”

Her mind blanked. Simply…blanked. She understood the words that’d come out of his mouth—they were English, after all—but they didn’t make a bit of sense.

“What are you talking about?” she cried, then nervously glanced around the bar.

Thankfully, everyone except Angel appeared determined to give them their privacy. Angel, for his part, simply perched at the end of the bar, nursing his beer, not trying to hide the fact that he was narrowly watching their exchange.

Now she really,
really
wished she could read the mysterious Israeli, because somehow he was involved in all this…this…whatever the hell this was.

“I’m talking about the fact that you’re in love with the pretty-boy ex-Mossad agent.”

It was like he was spewing advanced Calculus formulas. His words were English, but they might as well have been Mandarin Chinese. “I am?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No!”

He blinked at her, the scar slicing up from the corner of his mouth going stark white, the big one slashing through his eyebrow puckering and turning vivid pink when he frowned fiercely. The man’s face was a brutal, beautiful mess. It was like a roughly detailed map of the harsh life he’d chosen, and she figured she could look at it for the next hundred years and always find something new to admire.

After a long moment, he licked his lips and asked, his deep voice even deeper than usual, “You’re not in love with Angel?”

“Of course not. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s carrying a flame for someone back home and…What? What’s that look for?” His square jaw jerked back on his neck like she’d punched him, his storm-cloud eyes intently searching her face.

“But…but the way you two have been acting, I thought—”

She held up a hand, stopping him. “And how have we been acting? Like friends? Like colleagues?”

“Like lovers,” he growled.

Okay, it was definitely time to call bullshit.

“Whatever, Frank. I haven’t treated Angel any differently than I’ve treated the other guys. Think about it.”

“I saw you two cuddling on the couch.”

“Cuddling is a bit dramatic, don’t you think? It was more like I fell asleep on the poor guy, and he was nice enough not to disturb me even though I was snoring and slobbering all over the front of his shirt.”

“But…” He shook his head, trying his level best not to believe her. God only knew why, because
she
sure as heck didn’t. “But you two have been inseparable since you got back.”

“Uh,
yeah
. Because we’ve been racing to finalize the plans for his bike, since you just hit me up for another custom job. Surely you remember all the hours you and I spent coming up with the design for Boss Hog?”

Geez,
she
sure remembered them. They’d been the best hours of her life, immediately followed by some of the worst. Because most evenings, after they’d worked all day together, side by side, he’d taken himself up to Lincoln Park. To Chesty McGivesItUp.

Grrr.

“I remember
precisely
what it was like to work so closely with you, Becky. And the two of us certainly weren’t laughing and joking around like you and Angel have been doing.”

The man was an idiot.

“That’s because things are
different
between us, you big, stupid dill-hole! They always have been!”

He opened his mouth to say something when the front door of the bar opened and Samantha Tate, Chicago’s newest, brightest, most persistent reporter stepped inside.

Oh, sweet Lord, not now.
Becky rolled her eyes and groaned.