"Sure," I said, heading to the office so I could dump my purse. "And I"ll help with the restock."
"That"d be cool."
I went into the office thinking it wasn"t surprising Darryl forgot the restock. If he was on alone on a weeknight, shutting down the bar, more often than not he forgot something. The only thing he never forgot to do was securing the money from the register in the safe.
Darryl could forget something you told him two seconds after the words left your mouth.
I didn"t think this was because he was stupid (entirely). He was just one of those people who didn"t have all their synapses firing. It took patience, but if you had that with him, he got where you needed him to go eventually.
I made it to the office, dumped my purse on the desk, and turned my mind from Darryl to the decision I"d made in my car on the way to work.
After I"d texted Merry last night, he hadn"t texted back. With the games we were playing, that could mean anything.
But he seemed entrenched.
As for me, I needed to protect myself, and part of doing that was getting him out of my business, any business I had. To accomplish that, I had to sort out the Trent and Peggy thing, and considering I had a job and a kid, limited money, and no investigative skills, I had to call in help.
If I was going to be facing lawyer fees to keep Ethan, I also had to h.o.a.rd my cake.
All this led me to one conclusion: I had to find someone who"d do the legwork for me and do it for a price I could afford to pay.
I dug out my phone, scrolled down to that name in my Contacts, and hit call.
Ryker answered on the third ring.
"What"s goin" on with you and Merrick?" he asked as greeting.
I set my teeth, not surprised Ryker knew something was going on with Merry and me because Merry had dragged me into the office at J&J"s. Morrie saw that, probably fifty other people saw that, and no doubt at least forty-eight (if not all fifty-one) of those people were talking about it.
I shared the minimum. "Something happened. One-time thing. We"re movin" on."
"One-time thing?"
"One-time thing," I confirmed.
"You stupid?" he asked.
I decided not to answer that or react to it all, but I only decided that because I needed him.
I changed the subject. "I got a situation."
"No s.h.i.t?" he told me.
Thinking he still was referring to what he didn"t really know was going on between Merry and me, something I was done talking about, not to mention I had to get out and help Feb, I kept our conversation firm where I wanted it to be.
"Listen, I need a favor," I said.
"I play, you pay," he replied.
This was not a surprise. Ryker did nothing for nothing. You always paid. But I was speaking to him because he had three options he accepted for compensation: you owed him a marker, you gave him information, or you gave him money.
There was no marker he"d be willing to hold from me. And I didn"t want to spend the money on an investigator, not one as good (or expensive) as Tanner Layne, not one who was probably s.h.i.t but less expensive, and not Ryker.
But I worked at a bar and Ryker dealt in a lot of currencies, information being one that for him was most lucrative.
"My ex and his wife are making rumblings they might wanna take my boy from me," I shared.
"Sucks, sister," he muttered but didn"t jump in to offer services for free.
"They may be happy just to negotiate more time with him. Before I sit down and do that, I wanna know, they get that time, he"s goin" to good people. I need you to help me on that. And as a down payment to that s.h.i.t, I"ll tell you the renters two doors down from my place had a short but loud conversation I overheard and the name Carlito was mentioned."
I didn"t know if Ryker had any interest in Carlito.
I just knew that Ryker had interest in anything, specific things being worth more, and those specific things he took an interest in was the kind of guy Carlito was.
Ryker was silent.
I opened my mouth to speak.
"You at the bar?" he barked, his tone so loud and severe, I automatically jerked the phone an inch from my ear.
I felt nastiness slithering up my neck into my scalp at the sudden extreme Ryker was aiming at me.
"Yeah," I answered hesitantly.
I got nothing in reply.
"Ryker?" I called but heard beeping, telling me the call ended.
I stared at my phone for a second, went to recent calls, and called him again.
He didn"t answer.
s.h.i.t, that was not good.
I left a voicemail of "Call me," stowed my purse, shoved my phone in my back pocket, and headed out to help Feb.
"You need me to get anything from the storeroom?" I asked over the bar she was hunkered down behind.
"Took stock and grabbed everything I needed. Just gotta rotate it."
I went behind the bar.
There were four fridges back there. She was at fridge two.
I went to fridge three and dragged one of the boxes she"d filled toward me.
"Heard you took care of Merry after the Mia news made the rounds," she remarked casually.
Lying in wait.
s.h.i.t.
I knew I wouldn"t get away with it. She was my big sister in a lot of ways.
I opened the fridge and pulled out the front bottles of Bud.
"Yep," I confirmed.
"That go okay?" she asked.
I looked to her. "We got drunk. We f.u.c.ked. s.h.i.t got wrinkled. We"re ironing it out."
Her eyes got big at the we f.u.c.ked, but I ignored that and went back to the fridge.
"You two ironing it out...is that working?" she asked.
"Yeah," I answered her question, unsure if it was a lie, a semi-lie, or what I hoped it would be-the truth.
"Cher," she called.
I turned my eyes to her and there it was all over her face-that sweet that rode close to her edge, easy to get to if she gave a s.h.i.t about you.
"It"s cool," I a.s.sured.
"s.h.i.t like that goes down, a girl can get ideas."
I grinned and did it to hide the pain. I was good at it, so I was relatively certain she bought it.
"Not a girl like me."
The sweet didn"t move from her expression. It also didn"t hide the concern that started seeping in.
I twisted on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet to give her my full attention.
"Listen, Feb, he"s in love with another woman."
"I know that," she replied, the absoluteness of her words driving that thorn deeper. "I just don"t want you to get hurt while he"s workin" through that. And I know Merry"s a good guy, but even good guys do stupid s.h.i.t when they"re workin" through hurt like that, as evidenced by the pile of stupid s.h.i.t he"s ama.s.sed while doin" just that for the last however-many years."
"I know the score," I told her, something she had to know.
It seemed she didn"t when little wrinkles appeared between her brows and her head tipped to the side.
"What"s the score?"
"He"ll work through it, just not with me," I said the last quickly to rea.s.sure her. "He got what he"s gonna get from me on that. And it was good, Feb. He needed it, and it was far from s.h.i.t bein" there to give it to him. But that"s done. If we can iron things out, we"ll get back to what we had, keep that, and I"ll be happy when he finds what he needs to get happy."
She didn"t believe me and didn"t hide the fact she didn"t. It was right there with the sweet, the gentle, the concern.
She knew.
She knew I was in deep with Merry.
There was a lot I"d share with Feb, lay on her, lean on her to help me work it through, b.i.t.c.h at her just so I could get it out. Anything. Practically everything.
But not that.
"It"s gonna be okay," I declared, doing it with finality so we could stop talking about it.
She nodded, hearing my tone, knowing what I needed and, being Feb, giving it to me.
With me helping, it didn"t take long to finish the restock. When we were done, she grabbed the empty boxes and headed to the back to finish the stock take.
I went to the front to unlock the door.
I hadn"t yet fully made it down the bar to round it when the door opened.
I turned and stopped when I saw Ryker prowling in, his eyes clamped on me, his big, motorcycle-booted feet bearing down on me.
The vision of this from Ryker would likely scare ninety-nine percent of the human population straight to the point of wetting themselves.
This was because he was huge. He was also wearing a black tank stretched across a ma.s.sive chest, a black leather jacket hanging from his extensive shoulders, this hiding the two sleeves of tattoos adorning his arms. He had a large, lethal-looking knife sheathed at the side of his belt. He was bald and many would think he was ugly.
I was not a woman who thought that. Rough, tough, and scary didn"t turn me off, and a man did not have to be conventionally attractive to get my attention.
Just looking at him, I knew Ryker could be a monster in bed and be that in a bad way.
He could be the same in a very, very good way.
Or he could shock the s.h.i.t out of you and be all about you in gentle ways that blew your mind.
I suspected, depending on his mood, he was both of the last two. I suspected this because I knew Lissa, his woman.
She was a good woman, a hardworking one, a kind one, and not a stupid one. She would no sooner glance Ryker"s way again if he didn"t treat her right than she"d do harm to the daughter she adored. Definitely not have him in her bed and keep him there.
I also knew all about Ryker, including the fact he"d put a ring on Lissa"s finger and officially adopted Lissa"s girl, Alexis.
He loved his girls. And when the unimaginable threatened the "burg and Alexis got caught up in it, nearly had her world obliterated by it, Ryker didn"t hesitate after he went all out to make sure she was safe. He claimed both her and her mother, officially and legally, and covered them in his considerable protection.
So no, even if the man looked like a lunatic, he didn"t scare me because he didn"t hide who he really was, and the way he looked after the women under his roof said it all.
I put my hands on my hips and snapped, "You hung up on me."
I held my ground even as he got toe to toe to me, bowed his back, and put his mug right into mine.
"You did not hear whatever you heard from your neighbors," he growled.
My blood ran cold.