Trouble on Tap (9 page)

“Probably smells the donuts,” he muttered to himself as he balanced the box and coffee in one hand and reached for the door handle.

As he pulled it open, he angled his body to protect the donuts. Simons would give him the stink eye for the rest of the day if he lost her morning double-chocolate almond bear claw to the dog. He’d gotten the door open about two inches before the pooch barreled out, jumping and yipping as if he had more than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a treat.

Enacting evasive measures, Mateo executed a quick spin and slid through the doorway. Not realizing that it wasn’t wanted, the dog trotted in behind him and followed him across the lobby and through the Employees Only door.

“He’s been manning a post at the door all morning,” Simons said as she rose from her desk and took the donut box from his grasp.

“Probably planning his escape.”

The dog plopped down on his right boot, panting happily with his fat tongue hanging out of his mouth.

“Uh-huh.” She took her bear claw and glanced down at the mutt. “He looks like a cagey one.”

Wet or dry, the dog looked bedraggled and pitiful. Made up of so many breeds mixed into one shaggy body, he was practically a freak of nature.

“He looks like he needs a bath and probably a bunch of shots.”

“What he needs is a name,” Simons said, and gave him a pointed stare.

Oh no. You name it, you bought it. He knew the rules. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Because he picked you.”

Mateo yanked his foot out from beneath the dog’s butt and pivoted on his heel. “Then he’s bound to be disappointed.” Without waiting for a response, he marched into his office and shut the door behind him. He hadn’t even crossed the room to his desk before the mutt started whining and scratching on the other side of the flimsy wood.

First he gets dragged into helping Olivia Sweet with a fundraiser and now a dog was stalking him. Did life get any better? Shit was getting FUBAR fast.

Lucky for him, he’d figured out a way out of the fundraising fiasco. It hit him at about three in the morning while staring at his ceiling, so he wouldn’t close his eyes and see Olivia’s amazing tits. He’d find plenty of stuff at work to do so he’d be too busy to do any more than the absolute minimum. If that meant showering and being out of his house at dawn and not getting home until after dark, so be it. Extra patrols had to be needed somewhere. Whatever it took, he’d limit his interaction with the crazy woman as much as possible while still keeping Luciana from getting on his case.

He glanced down at the call sheets from the night before. All two of them. Staying balls-to-the-wall busy in a town the size of Salvation wouldn’t be easy, but he’d been in worse scrapes.

“Semper fi, do or die,” he muttered to the empty room.

A low growl sounded outside his door, followed by a sharp rap.

“Come in.”

Salvation’s mayor, Tyrell Hawson, pushed the door open. The dog galloped into the room, skidding to a stop beside Mateo’s desk. After a quick glance back at Mateo, the mutt returned his focus to Hawson. There wasn’t any growling, but the fur on his back stood straight up so there was no mistaking the animal’s opinion of the mayor. Maybe the dog wasn’t as dumb as a box of rocks after all.

“Mayor.”

“Garcia.”

He didn’t get up. “Is there something I can do for you, Mayor, or did you just come by for a donut?”

Not noticing the slight, Hawson flopped down into the worn guest chair opposite Mateo’s desk. “I’ll grab one on the way out, but I needed to chat with you a bit first.”

“Shoot.”

“I understand that Olivia Sweet is in town. Possibly for good.”

Watching the man with Napoleon’s stature maneuver was like seeing a tank try to speed—painful. “Uh-huh.”

“The gossip making the rounds is that she has some crazy notion to hold a beer fundraiser for the veterans’ center—and that you’re not only helping, but that she’s living behind your house.”

Mateo kept his mouth shut. He knew a leading statement when he heard one. God knew what Hawson’s angle was, but he definitely had one. The man was all about greasing wheels to get his way. Still, he was technically Mateo’s boss, since the police chief served at the mayor’s prerogative. If the mayor went to the town council asking for his ass on a platter, both cheeks would be delivered within the hour.

“You know no good will come of anything connected to the Sweets—especially Olivia.” The mayor practically spit out her name in disgust. “She’s not our kind of people. She’s all flash and no substance. You and I both know she’s not putting on this fundraiser for the good of Salvation’s veterans. Imagine going from being famous one day to slinging beer the next. She’s going to do whatever it takes to get back in that limelight. I figure a story about a supermodel turned small-town philanthropist would get a lot of eyeballs.”

“That’s a lot of supposition on your part.”

“No, it’s a lot of knowledge and expertise. I’ve been mayor for long enough to know the Sweets inside and out. The whole family is a wreck. Look, we’re both Marines. We know what it’s like to have a non-hacker in the ranks. The only way to form a cohesive unit is to weed that sucker out. Olivia Sweet is a non-hacker and Salvation is your unit.”

Mateo raised his gaze to the photo on the wall above Hawson’s left shoulder. It showed his fire team the day before the bombing. Luciana had hung it. He kept meaning to take it down but…

The Sweets were trouble and Olivia wasn’t an exception. The town of Salvation, on the other hand, had supported his parents and his sister while he was gone and when he’d had an extended stay at the VA hospital in Richmond. When he’d first come home, there were stilted visits and too cheerful greetings. Those had thankfully stalled out. Now they just left him alone to do his job as police chief. And he liked it that way just fine. They stayed away and he kept them safe. No involvement. No soft spots. No veering from standard operating procedure. He gave the photo one last hard look.

Olivia had been so damned excited as she’d tried to drag him into some sort of fundraiser brainstorming hell at The Kitchen Sink yesterday it had taken everything he had not to join in—something he sure as hell didn’t do anymore. “I really don’t see the harm in her trying.”

“Don’t see the harm? Don’t you remember the fallout from that so-called coming home documentary she did a few years ago?”

Mateo suppressed his laugh—barely. Hawson had been caught singing to his horse. The video had gone viral and still got airtime occasionally today. The internet never forgets.

“And I’m not just talking about me here. Salvation was the butt of jokes on national TV. People called us the hick’s version of heaven. You know the people here. It hurt folks to see their town humiliated. You can’t let that happen again.”

“And how exactly do you propose I stop that?”

“Keep tabs on her and let me know what she’s up to. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Spy?” That left a dank taste in his mouth.

“That’s an ugly word, but yes.” Hawson shrugged. “You run the intelligence operation. I’ll take care of erecting roadblocks.”

“And the veterans’ center?” He wasn’t about to screw over his brothers. He wouldn’t fail them again.

“I’ll find the money. The county doesn’t have two plug nickels to rub together, but the city has an emergency fund. I can get the town council to agree to make repairs—maybe even rebuild.”

That was probably a better deal than any imaginary money Olivia could raise in a fundraiser. Still, he couldn’t get onboard with the idea. “I’ll think about it.”

“What’s there to think about? It’s either the town you’ve sworn to protect or Olivia Sweet. Where are your priorities? Where is your loyalty?”

Not with the Sweets. “Right where it belongs.” In Salvation.

“Then I can count on you?”

Fuck. If he passed the deal up, he didn’t doubt the mayor would hold a grudge no matter how it negatively affected the area’s veterans. The little man didn’t give a shit about anything except his own power.

“Well, Garcia? Are you in?”

He nodded. “Affirmative.”

The mayor stood and reached out his hand. Mateo shook it as briefly as possible. Hawson didn’t seem to notice or care. “Good to know that once a Marine, always a Marine still stands. I’ll grab that donut and get out of your hair.”

As soon as the door clicked shut behind Hawson, the dog relaxed against Mateo’s chair. The vibrations from its thick tail thumping against it reverberated up his spine. Without thinking about it, he reached down and scratched the mutt’s thick scruff.

“Yeah, I like it best when he leaves too.”

The intercom buzzed before Simons’s voice sounded. “Hey Chief, don’t forget you’ve got that meeting with Olivia Sweet at the veterans’ center in a few.”

Of course he did, because his days just kept getting better and better since the model he couldn’t stop picturing naked had jumped off a magazine cover and onto Salvation’s Main Street.

Twenty minutes early for her meeting with Mateo at the county’s wrecked veterans’ center, Olivia parked her still mud-caked Fiat in front of the building. She didn’t have a plan, but she had a goal and that’s all that mattered. Exactly how she’d get Mateo on her side she wasn’t sure of yet, but she’d figure out. She always did.

She shielded her eyes against the morning sun and squinted up at the veterans’ center. A bright-blue tarp covered most of the gaping hole in the roof, with one corner flapping in the warm spring breeze. Otherwise the rest of the building looks unharmed, if not older than the dirt that made up the sorry excuse for a lawn in front of the squat one-story building.

Okay, this is doable
.

How much could it cost to replace a roof? She’d never owned a house or had any home maintenance costs to deal with but surely they could raise the money for a roof during an afternoon beer crawl. Her heels clicked on the cracked sidewalk leading from the street to the front door. She jiggled the knob, opened the door and took a single tentative step inside the abandoned building.

A puff of stale, putrid air slapped her in the face, making her eyes water and her stomach roil. She slapped her hand over her mouth and nose and stumbled back out the door and straight into something hard and immovable that sent a delicious shiver right down her spine.

“Finally coming to your senses and giving up?” Mateo’s fingers curled around her elbows, steadying her.

“You showed up.” Until that moment, she wasn’t sure he would. The fact that he had, made her as nervous as she’d been the first time she’d strutted down the runway in five-inch heels, lingerie and a giant pair of wings. She stepped forward and turned around to face him.

Thank God he wasn’t in full uniform or her panties might have melted.

Who was she kidding? The strap of silk covering the good china was already toast just looking at him in his form-fitting jeans and a black polo with the Salvation Police Department logo. The morning sun reflected off his aviator sunglasses, the bottom of which touched the scar twisting its way up the left side of his face.

As if he knew she was looking, he turned his head and stared at the center’s leaf-stuffed gutters, blocking her view of that side of his face. “I told you I’d be here.”

For somebody who told her the other night to look her fill, he sure didn’t like anyone actually doing so. She didn’t blame him—staring strangers were never fun—but it pissed her off that he felt the need to hide part of himself.

“And you always keep your word.”

That brought his focus back to her. “Always.”

Simple and succinct, there was enough cocky self-assurance in that single word to make Olivia realize she needed to regain control of the conversation. The veterans’ center. Fundraiser. Hot guy.

No! Not that last one.

She inhaled a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Some of the funk from inside the building clung to her clothes. “I think something died in there.”

He poked his head in the center’s door and sniffed. “That’s urine, not decomposition.”

Okay, if she had to pick between the two, she’d go with pee but still… “How can you be sure?”

He took off his sunglasses and quirked an eyebrow. “So are you determined to do this?”

“Yes. Photos will help get people talking.” Pulling her phone out of her cross-body purse, she walked to the door.

“Like folks have trouble with that around here.” He didn’t move from the doorway.

He wasn’t completely blocking her entry, but to get in, she’d have to squeeze through the narrow pocket between his biceps and the doorframe. That wasn’t gonna happen. She pushed against his arm with one finger, ignoring the electricity that sizzled up her own.

“True, but now they’ll be talking about the center and how it needs to be fixed. We’ll include the pictures on the fliers for the fundraiser.”

Mateo pivoted, giving her just enough space to walk through the door. “Nothing like a little exploitation, huh?”

Her step faltered, but she tamped down her annoyance. The idea was to charm Grumps Garcia into coming over to her side. Telling him to fuck off wouldn’t help her cause.