Crazy Cool (6 page)

“This will only take a minute,” he said, getting out of the car.

Was he going to leave her in the car? In this neighborhood?

She went for her seat belt with one hand and the door handle again with the other, but he beat her to it, coming around the front of the car and opening the door for her.

Avoiding his presence, his very existence, to the best of her ability, she got out of the low-slung bucket seat and pulled her dress down as best she could—which wasn’t very good.

“Here,” he said, slipping out of his suit jacket. “Put this on.”

Her eyes immediately fastened on what the jacket had been concealing. He was wearing a gun. The dark straps of a shoulder harness slid down his arms as he shrugged out of it and casually released both the gun and a couple of extra magazines. The harness and the magazines went back in the car, the gun went into his left pants pocket, which absolutely ruined the line of his slacks.

A gun. None of the guys she’d ever met from the Department of Defense had carried guns. They’d all been paper pushers. A smart girl would call her mother, if she ever found herself in this much trouble, and she was plenty smart—but she’d be damned if she called
her
mother.

“No, thank you,” she said in a voice that said he could go to hell and take his jacket with him.

Hawkins grinned. He’d take her angry any day. It beat the hell out of taking her scared—and oh, yeah, he’d done that once, the very first time, made love to her when she’d been frightened. He’d been seeing her for a week, coming over to the Brown Palace, having lunch and dinner with her, sometimes showing up for breakfast, sometimes taking her out, wondering what kind of strange gig he’d landed in—a beautiful girl who lived alone in the fanciest hotel in Denver, with unlimited room service and some sort of power over the manager, who seemed to be at her beck and call. He hadn’t asked a lot of questions, because he hadn’t wanted to answer a lot of questions. Street rat, car thief, these were hardly the things he’d wanted her to know—so he’d just gone with the moment, falling crazy in love with a girl he knew he could never have. Then one night she’d taken a phone call in the suite, and it had come out who she was, Senator Marilyn Dekker’s daughter.

He distinctly remembered his blood instantly running cold. Jet-set playgirl princess he could have handled. Senator’s daughter had sounded like the perfect way to get busted, and his first thought had been to get the hell out of there and never come back. She’d known it, too, and that night, she simply hadn’t let him leave, not that it had taken much to keep him. A few kisses, her soft hands on him, everything she’d already given him that week would have been enough to hold him at her side, but that night she’d given him more, and he’d taken it all. He’d taken her, and she’d taken him, blowing his mind in the process and sleeping like a baby the whole rest of the night.

He hadn’t slept a wink. He’d lain there, wide-eyed, wondering what in the hell had happened and waiting for the cops to bust down the door and throw his ass in jail for nailing a senator’s daughter. Eventually, they had. He’d been convicted of murder, but he’d always known his true crime had been sleeping with an American princess.

“It’s just for a minute, just long enough for me to grab a pack of cigarettes without you starting a riot.”

She shot him a look of exasperation. “I’m hardly likely to start a riot.”

“You already have, babe.” He let the words sit there between them, let them sink in, let them give her a little warning about where he was coming from. No, he didn’t like her, and he didn’t like the situation they were in, but neither had his memory short-circuited. He remembered plenty, and her dress wasn’t helping matters.

He held the jacket up again. This time she took it.

She wasted no time in rolling up his sleeves and pushing them up her arms, instantly transforming his he-man suit jacket into part of her bad-girl ensemble. As the coup de grâce, she slipped both of her hands inside the collar and freed her hair, sending it sliding down the back and over the side of his coat.

Thank God Mama Guadalupe’s sold Faros, because he definitely needed a cigarette.

At the back door, he pressed a palm-sized call button and in seconds, a small panel in the door slid open. Two eyes peered out of the hole.

“¿Que?”
came a voice to go with the eyes. A rectangle of light spilled through the darkened doorway, accompanied by a cacophony of noise and the smell of food.

“Es Cristo,”
Hawkins said, bending down so the person on the other side of the door could see his face.

“¡Cristo!”
came a glad cry, before the panel was slammed closed. He heard the sound of locks being opened, and within seconds, the door swung out, revealing a scene of chaos: Mama Guadalupe’s kitchen.

C
HAPTER

7

K
ATYA HESITATED
at the door, taken aback by the wall of heat and steam that came pouring over the threshold. Hawkins put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her forward. The temperature inside the kitchen had to be close to a hundred degrees. A dozen waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and what-have-you, along with a dozen cooks, were all talking at once, chattering, yelling, all moving in the confined space. Dishes clattered, people shouted out orders, food sizzled and steamed—incredible food, Mexican food. They weren’t five steps inside the door before someone shoved a plateful in her hands.

Behind her, she noticed Hawkins was already eating. With the subtlest of body English, he kept her moving forward, while listening intently to the wizened old doorkeeper give him a rundown of complaints in rapid-fire Spanish. Katya understood the old man’s tone of voice far more than she understood his words, and it sounded like Hawkins was being implored to right a thousand wrongs.

“Sí, sí, qué asco,”
he agreed, interjecting other appropriate nods and condolences between bites. By the time they hit the doors into the dining room, he’d finished a fajita and half an ice-cold beer, and the old man was smiling, beaming.

“Gracias, Superhombre. Gracias.”
The old man nodded and took Hawkins’s empty plate before shooing them out the door into the equally chaotic, but more dimly lit and far more upscale dining room.

Superman?
What was that all about? she wondered, startled by the name, by hearing someone else call him that. She knew just enough Spanish to order lunch, and the old man had called him Superman.

She didn’t have time to ask why, though she was pretty sure it wasn’t for the same reason
she
had called him by that name. The doors no sooner closed behind them than someone else called out.

“Cristo!”

“Daniel.” He lifted a hand in greeting as his other arm came around her waist, his body English suddenly far less subtle as he guided her over to the far end of the bar, as far out of the melee as they could get.

Mama Guadalupe’s was packed to the rafters with a boisterous crowd of Denverites, young and old, eating Santa Fe gourmet and listening to a bluesy jazz quartet. In the bar area, people were dancing where they stood, and the waiters all looked like they’d been hired out of a Latin boy escort service—especially Daniel, who had followed them over to the bar.

God, he couldn’t have been twenty-one on his best day, and he was simply beautiful. Silky black hair and a fifty-dollar haircut, flashing dark eyes and a blinding smile, honey-colored skin and a lean, muscular build.

“Cristo,
¿qué pasa?
What’s happening,
hombre?”
Daniel’s questions were for Hawkins, but his gaze was on her, making it clear he was angling for an introduction. To top it off, he’d taken her plate and set it on the bar, produced a set of napkin-wrapped silverware from out of the apron tied around his waist, and signaled the bartender for a glass of water, all in the course of greeting Hawkins.

Katya couldn’t help herself. She was charmed. He was adorable, practically jailbait but adorable, and in about two more seconds she was going to ask him to call her a cab.

“I’m looking for Mickey Montana. Is he in tonight?” Hawkins asked.

She could feel him standing close behind her, where she’d sat down on a bar stool, and amazingly, found she didn’t mind, not with Daniel’s adorably predatory gaze giving her a once-over—twice. She was also glad she’d taken Hawkins’s coat.

“Mickey’s always in on Friday night, since he broke his leg,” Daniel said, shifting his attention to Hawkins.

“Broke his leg?” Hawkins repeated.

“
Sí.
At the Cataclysm Club three weeks ago. There was a band,
una banda muy mala,
and a little rumble in the alley.
Mickito,
he fell off the dock and broke his leg. So now he’s in every night, but especially on Fridays.”

Well, that made perfect sense—almost.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Hawkins said to her, leaning in closer. “Rick.”

She looked up and saw him offer the bartender a five-dollar bill over the bar. Without a word, the bartender reached under the bar and slid a pack of cigarettes back over to him.

“No toques,”
he said above her, and she glanced up in time to see the very cool, very steady gaze he was leveling at Daniel.

“Sí, señor.”
The boy’s smile disappeared, but only until Hawkins walked away. Then it returned in full dazzle. “I’m Daniel,” he said, extending his hand.

“Katya.” She took his hand in hers, felt its warm strength. “What did he just say?”

“Superman, he tells me ‘Don’t touch,’ but—” His smile grew even broader as he gave their hands a quick glance. “We’re touching, no? Would you like a margarita or
una cerveza
? It’s on the house. Everything’s on the house for Cristo.”

“Why is that?” she wondered aloud, gently retrieving her hand.

“This is Mama Guadalupe’s
restaurante,
and many, many years ago, Cristo and his
amigos,
Quinn and Creed, they saved Mama Guadalupe’s life,” Daniel explained.

She was beginning to detect a pattern here. No wonder they called him Superman. She also remembered Christian’s two friends. She’d repossessed a car with Hawkins and Creed Rivera one night, an experience as close to sneaking up in the middle of the night and stealing something as she’d ever had. It had been both exciting and terrifying, and something she still couldn’t believe she’d actually done. The other guy, Quinn Younger, she’d met one early morning when Christian had taken her to a chop shop on the north side of Denver, in an industrial area known as Commerce City. Quinn had been in the middle of dismantling a Honda Civic and none too happy about it. Hawkins had explained that they’d all gone clean, or at least tried to go clean—but sometimes old friends got into trouble and old debts came due, especially, it seemed, if the old friend was a guy named Sparky Klimaszewski. The next time she’d seen Quinn had been on a full-page photo spread in
People
magazine, his shirt unbuttoned, his pants unzipped, and a smile on his face that had made all kinds of promises. Unbelievably, the chop shop hood had become an all-American hero, an F-16 pilot shot down over some war-torn country who had lived to tell the tale and become one of
People
magazine’s Most Beautiful People.

“The margaritas are very,
muy
good,” Daniel continued, his smile both teasing and encouraging her. “Rick is
famoso
in all of Denver for his margaritas, and for
mis amigos,
he uses only the finest
ingredientes,
only the freshest limes.”

“Then I’ll have a margarita, thank you,” she said, just to be agreeable. It was the polite thing to do.

“Ah, you won’t regret it,” he assured her, and signaled the bartender.

She doubted if she would, as she had no intention of actually drinking it. What she intended to do was go home, on her own, and lock the door. To further that end, she gave Daniel a warm smile.

“Could you call me a cab, please? Christian might be a while”—she hoped—“and I don’t really want to be waiting around very long.”

“Absolutamente.”
Daniel grinned.

She watched him leave and felt some relief at having finally taken back a little control.

In retrospect, all that had really happened was a few fireworks going off—too close to the amphitheater, that was for darn sure, but still, it had only been fireworks. The biggest amount of damage had probably been to the paintings that had been on the stage. Alex, she knew, would have the complete lowdown on the Oleg Henri, and they would have to decide what to do if it was irreparably damaged—whether to write it off as a business loss, or whether it would still be considered a charitable contribution.

The margarita arrived with a smile from the bartender, and to be polite, she took a small sip. Her hand shook just the tiniest bit, and a corner of her mouth twitched in a brief smile.

Okay, she admitted it, she’d panicked, too. But there had been explosions, and fire, and people screaming, and she had been knocked senseless, and then Christian had come, and he’d been all over her—but she wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. Not ever.

She took another sip of the margarita, looking over the top of the salt-rimmed glass for Daniel. He was flirting with the hostess at the front desk, who was hanging up the phone.

Wonderful. If all went well, the cab would get here before Christian, and at least she’d be saved the awkwardness of a confrontation.

She still needed to apologize to him—that went without saying. But he was in Denver, and she was in Denver, and she could arrange something a little more formal, a little more dignified than an apology with her wearing a ripped dress on a night that had gone to hell in a handbasket.

She took a bit bigger swallow of the margarita. It was everything Daniel had promised, and it was helping. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore.

Maybe an invitation to the gallery? She and Alex were launching a new artist at Toussi’s tomorrow night, a brilliant young local woman named Nikki McKinney. Suzi Toussi, the woman she and Alex had bought the gallery from, had been watching McKinney for years and had begun arrangements for the show months ago. It would be the perfect opportunity to smooth things over with Hawkins, a lovely gallery setting, lots of other people around, and her looking her best, doing what she did best.

He’d obviously done well for himself. He had a government job that paid him well enough to buy very expensive clothes. She didn’t need to look inside the jacket she was wearing for a label. She could tell by the way the jacket fit, the feel of the cloth, and the fine detailing that the jacket had been handmade by a tailor.

He’d definitely done well for himself, but so had she, and against odds nearly as awful as his—maybe even more awful.

A memory shuddered through her, but she shoved it away and took another drink.

They’d both survived their past, and that was something to celebrate.

She would need his address for the invitation. She slipped her hand in his pocket while she took another drink, hoping to find a business card.

Her fingers immediately encountered something solid, made out of metal—and full of bullets. Another magazine for his gun, she realized, gingerly removing her hand.

She switched her margarita to her other hand, took a drink, checked the other pocket, and found money. Glancing down, she pulled the bills partway out and fanned them with her thumb.

Goodness sakes.
He had over five hundred dollars of pocket money in his pocket.

Guns and large amounts of cash only brought one thing to mind, and it wasn’t the Department of Defense.

Thinking she had better stop before she found God only knew what else, she set her drink on the bar and asked Rick for a pen and some paper. She would jot Christian a quick, polite note, inviting him to the gallery and leaving her phone number. Then tomorrow night, she could find a quiet moment to tell him how sorry she’d been—how sorry she still was—for what had happened. If he didn’t call, she at least knew she could track him down through Mama Guadalupe.

While she waited for the pen and paper to arrive, she took one more sip of Rick’s rightfully famous margarita.

H
AWKINS
threaded his way back through the crowded bar, his gaze searching for and finding her right where he’d left her. Great. He relaxed a fraction of an inch. His meeting with Mickey Montana had taken longer than he’d expected. Come to find out, Mickey hadn’t exactly fallen off the loading dock at the Cataclysm Club. He’d been pushed from behind. Right in front of a tractor-trailer that had been rolling up to unload. It was enough to make a guy think, and as much as Mickey didn’t want to think his cover had been blown, it wasn’t looking good, so he was spending some time laying low at Mama Guadalupe’s. Mickey had given him a name, though: Ray Carper. It was a name and a man Hawkins hadn’t thought about in years. Ray had been a pigeon for the cops when Jonathan Traynor III was murdered. LoDo was his beat, and with all the dead bodies that summer, he’d had a busy season.

Ray had gotten a little fixated on the Traynor murder and, in between drinking binges and bouts of schizophrenic paranoia, he’d spent his time trying to piece together a grandiose conspiracy theory that included all the murders and half the city council. Knowing Ray and his history better than most of them wanted to, the cops hadn’t paid the guy much mind. Dylan had talked to him a number of times during the trial and had wanted him as a witness for the defense, despite his difficulty in keeping his stories straight. So had Mickey, but they’d been overruled by Hawkins’s court-appointed lawyer. The last Hawkins remembered seeing Ray was in a flophouse on Blake Street before all the flophouses on Blake Street had been turned into upscale condos.

By then, he’d been released from prison, and Ray’s story about a bunch of guys in tuxedos and a girl in a pretty dress had mirrored his own story of the night he’d saved Katya, except in Ray’s version, the girl had died—so no, Hawkins hadn’t thought publicly promoting Ray’s story would do him much good. He’d always known he’d been railroaded into taking the fall for Traynor’s murder, but when it came to putting Ray Carper on the witness stand, he figured his lawyer had probably made the best decision.