Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (21 page)

Donna Tomlinson stepped up. “I just got a call from the Land’s Edge representative. Now that I think about it, the timing is kind of interesting. It seems like each time there is criminal activity and we lose tourists, we get a call.”

“What is it?” Kim asked again.

“Forty cents for every dollar owed.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Robbery!”

“Isn’t that against the law?”

Kim shook her head. “No, but coercion and extortion are.”

“So is murder,” Ricco said. He turned to Kim. In front of the entire town, he asked her, “Will you help us save Evergreen?”

Fear, doubt, and the knowledge that if she agreed she would lose everything she had worked so hard for grabbed her hard by the throat. And for what? To keep a few Stepford folks out of the mouth of the big bad wolf? If the Evergreen deal fell through for Land’s Edge, there would be no marriage to Nick. That she could live with, but could she live with that man’s death on her conscience? Because of the information she had given Nick, he’d taken it upon himself to hike up the ante.

She thought back to the most recent acquisition, the Sierra Resort in Laughlin. The place had been run down, but it had been operating in the black until the Banshee motorcycle gang had taken up residence and all hell had broken loose. Just like here. Had Nick resorted to terrorism to get what he’d wanted? In her gut she knew the answer.

One way or another, she’d find out.

“I need all of the numbers, the loan docs, everything financially attached to this town. Give me twenty-four hours and we’ll meet again,” Kim said softly, then added, “but I can’t promise you I can fix this.”

Ricco smiled. “I know you can find a way.”

“What do we tell the Land’s Edge rep?” Donna asked.

Kim caught her worried gaze. “Tell them to shove it up their ass,” she replied.

The crowd erupted, but she saw more than a few doubting Thomases amongst the crowd. She wasn’t so sure either, but she knew how to bring a town down and take it apart; now she would have to find a way to do the opposite.

With no guests to disturb her, Kim set up shop in Esmeralda’s kitchen. Booting up her laptop, she got to it with an adding machine and a mountain of paperwork. In short order she had each loan labeled and categorized, every one of them neatly stacked for easy reference. The more she dug, the deeper shit she found Evergreen in. At first she was angry at Leticia for allowing the town to get into such bad loans, but as she dug deeper she saw that Leticia had thought they would be able, with time and money to spare, to get out of debt. But the longer they took to repay and defer the interest, the more it accumulated. They needed over three million cash to just keep afloat for another month. And Nick knew it. She knew she shouldn’t have given him the consortium information. As a CPA, didn’t Leticia know that rule number one was always have an airtight contingency plan?

Even if the town could come up with the cash at the end of the month, they would need the consortium to allow them to refinance the loans, no doubt at a desperation interest rate. The winds of recession were blowing fiercely across the country. Foreclosure was no longer a hush word; in California, it was as common as a housefly.

Several times Esmeralda came in and asked if Kim needed anything. Ricco stayed away. But several times she looked up, feeling his gaze on her, to find the doorway empty.

At midnight her cell phone rang. It was Nick. She ignored him. After he called back every minute for fifteen minutes straight, Kim answered. “What is it?”

“What the hell is going on? My rep was told to take the offer and shove it up his ass!”

Kim smiled. “I don’t doubt it. Evergreen is on to you, Nick.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your hired thugs. Even for you that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, stop it! One of your guys was shot in the back today. He’s dead! By the cop he was shooting at. Is that what you wanted? I was the victim of a mugging by the same creep right before he got his. He took my grandmother’s locket! When we searched the bag of loot it was gone. Who knows where it is!”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Kimberly!”

“That’s bullshit.” She took a long breath and exhaled. “Look, Nick, I didn’t sign up for terrorism.”

“Kimberly, I swear to you, I did not hire anyone to strong-arm Evergreen into submission. It’s not my style. You know that.”

“Did you hire that motorcycle gang in Laughlin?”

“I swear to God, Kimberly, that was an ugly fluke that worked in our favor.”

She wanted to believe him. Really she did. But something nagged at her intuition. Nick was not an innocent. To that end it was better for Evergreen and for herself to keep Nick’s confidence in her.

“I want you to come home, Kimberly. There’s nothing left for you to do there. We have them by the short hairs. Let nature take its course now.”

She’d let him think so. “You’re probably right.”

His voice was low and soothing. She rubbed her temples, a sudden migraine erupting behind her eyeballs. “Do you want me to come get you?” he softly asked her.

That was the last thing she wanted. “No. Actually, I’m going to head out of here tomorrow and go down to the La Playa in Carmel for a few days and regenerate.”

“How about if I meet you there? We can get to know each other better.”

A week ago she would have leapt at the opportunity. Now? She just wanted to be alone. “Nick, I think we need to talk when I get back to L.A.”

“Are you having second thoughts about our marriage?”

“I’m having second thoughts about a lot of things. I’ll call you when I get settled in Carmel. Give me a day or two?”

She hung up the phone, laid her head down on the table, and closed her eyes.

“Who’s Nick?” Ricco asked from the doorway.

Her body stiffened, and her heart rate jumped.

She turned her head on her hands. “You have no right to ask me anything.”

He strode into the kitchen, his face contorted in fury. She sat up straight. What had he heard?

“You’re right, I don’t—not about you personally, but I want to know how he fits in with the town I call home.”

“Really? You call a place you hit and run for less than three weeks out of the year home?”

“Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want?”

Kim stood and arched her back, suddenly exhausted. Her sudden trip to Carmel had been a ruse to keep Nick away from Evergreen. Now she thought it wasn’t a bad idea. “The answers to your questions are irrelevant.”

“What are you hiding? Why are you really here?”

“You’re a cop, you figure it out.”

Ricco smirked. “You’re a cold one, Misses Grinch.”

“And you’re a commitmentphobe, Mister Playboy.” He scowled. She smiled. “Truth hurts, huh?”

“You make not wanting to commit sound like a disease. What’s wrong with not making promises you won’t keep? What’s so wrong with being honest about not wanting a committed relationship?”

She shrugged. “Nothing—if you have ice for a heart.”

“Me?
Ice
for a heart? Are you kidding me? I’m a furnace inside!”

“You’re lukewarm at best. You can’t stand the heat, so you run far and you run fast.”

“You don’t even engage.”

She raked her fingers through her hair. “Fine, turn it around and beat me up. Bottom line is, your old man couldn’t commit and somehow you think if you make a commitment and break it you’re him. Get a clue, Ricco, promises are made to be broken. It’s life.”

“And just because your parents and every guy you’ve slept with disappointed you, you expect it from every other man.”

“Duh.”

“Not all men are pieces of shit.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I don’t care enough to find out.”

“You’re a liar.”

Her head snapped back. He walked into her space. “You want what every other female in this world wants.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me what that is.”

“You already know what it is, you just won’t admit it.”

“Really? If you know so much, tell me exactly what my heart’s desire is.”

Ricco swept her hair from her shoulders and pressed his hand to her chest. Her heart leapt against his palm. “You want a man to put you up on a pedestal. You want him to love and cherish you. You want him to never lie to you or ever cheat on you. You want to know that you above all other women are the one he chose to spend the rest of his life with, and nothing or no one can change that.”

Her chest fluttered beneath his touch and his words. Every word he’d said was the truth. “Cinderella, if I were man enough for you, I’d sweep you away right this minute and set you up on that pedestal.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I’ll screw it up somehow. And I care too much about you to see you fall and get your heart broken.”

She leaned into his hand, feeling more fatigued than she could remember. “I don’t think you’re afraid to commit, Ricco, I think that’s an excuse.”

“For what?”

“You’re just as afraid as I am of being abandoned by someone you love.” He stiffened, and she knew she’d hit home. “It doesn’t make you a coward, Ricco, it just makes you human.”

He smiled sadly and nodded his head. “Maybe there is truth in that.” He drew her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “It’s been quite a roller-coaster ride since we met.”

She drew back and smiled. “You can say that again.”

He pulled her along with him and up the stairs to her bedroom door. “Get some sleep. You have a town to save in the morning.”

• • •

W
HEN
R
ICCO CAME DOWNSTAIRS SEVERAL MINUTES
later, dressed for a run, he stopped short just outside the kitchen doorway. A small noise alerted him to someone’s presence. He went for his gun but frowned. Jimmy had had to take it after the shooting. He didn’t have a backup weapon.

He peeked around the corner to see his father scrolling through Kim’s cell phone.

“Find what you need?” Ricco asked, striding into the room.

Enrique had the grace to blush.

“I told you last night to hit the road. Why are you still here, and why are you going through Kim’s phone?”

The old man sighed heavily. Leaning on the cane he didn’t need, he sat down in Kim’s vacated chair. “I have a suspicion about your friend.”

“Really? Are you going to ask me to pay for that information?”

“No, son. Believe it or not, I do have affection for you and don’t want to see you hurt.”

Ricco threw his head back and laughed long and hard. His cheeks strained and his eyes actually teared. When he calmed down he looked his old man in the eye and said, “You don’t care about anyone except yourself. Get out of here before I call the cops.”

Enrique stood and faced his son. “I’ll go, but before I do, be warned, I have a hunch your friend Miss Michaels has ties to the people who have been terrorizing Evergreen.”

“That’s it.” Ricco grabbed him up none too gently by the elbow, thrust the cane into his hand, then shoved him toward the back door. “Get out!”

Once the image of his father was gone, Ricco locked up after himself for the first time since he could remember. Then he did what he always did to clear his mind. He ran. And ran. He pushed the visions of his father, his mother, and his sisters out of his mind. For a few miles he even managed to push from his mind Kim’s last words to him and her smiling blue eyes. Replacing it was the still body of the man he’d killed that day, and while he was never one to feel sorry for a criminal, he did have regrets for taking a life. But they were short-lived. It was the old law of the West—kill or be killed. He’d do it again one hundred times over.

And once he reminded himself that it could have been Kim or himself in the black body bag, he didn’t give it another thought. But he gave Kim more thought. His father’s accusation niggled at his brain. And every time he thought of Kim tied in with Land’s Edge he felt like he was going to puke. So he pushed it away and took the accusation with a huge grain of salt. It was just his father’s way of fucking with his head some more. The man didn’t care who he hurt in the process.

Ricco bellowed in rage, and his fists punched the air. He was sick and damned tired of his peace being destroyed by his father’s past, present, and future. Ricco came to the abrupt conclusion that most of his frustration wasn’t what his old man had done to them; it was the fact that he continued to do it. He wanted the man to stop. To come clean. Not that he longed for father-son fishing trips, but he wanted to be rid of the emotional burden of knowing he could never trust the man with himself or his family. He was afraid it would never happen.

He ran until his brain could not formulate another thought if his life depended upon it. Nevertheless, he came to a decision, one that terrified him as much as it thrilled him. Kim was right. He wasn’t afraid to commit; he was afraid of being abandoned. And that realization brought him to another one: For the first time in his adult life, he was willing to stick his emotional neck out and take a chance, despite the record amount of turmoil in his life at the moment.