The Keeper

The bleeding, bedamned Butter Bandit.

The dairy sounded as good as any place to begin. “I’m sure that Payne has called them already, but I want to go out there and do a little poking around.”

She stood, as well. “Of course.”

“What time do you close?”

“Six.”

He nodded once. “Then I’ll be back at six.”

A fleeting look of irritation and panic raced across her fine features so fast he was almost inclined to believe he’d imagined it.

But he hadn’t. For whatever reason—insanity, probably—that gave him an irrational burst of pleasure. The whole misery-loved-company bit? he wondered. Or was it something else? Was the idea of rattling her cage the way she was rattling his the culprit? He inwardly smiled.

It was fair, if nothing else, Jack decided.

A thought struck. “Did you get any sort of look at the guy at all before he threw the dough roller?”

The mere thought of it—of her being hurt—brought on the instant urge to hit something. Preferably the asshole who threw the dough roller at her.

What the hell was wrong with people anyway? Jack thought.

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “He was tall and skinny,” she said. “He was wearing a hoodie and it was dark. I—”

“No worries,” he told her. “I’ll get him.”

And when he did he was going to think of new and unusual ways to use that damned dough roller on him.

3

BOBBY RAY BISHOP KEPT his head down and his ball cap pulled low as he made his way past Mariette Levine’s bakery, but darted a quick look through the shop window all the same. The little slow girl was there, as usual. She never failed to give him a hug when he came by with a delivery—he relished those hugs because they were the only ones he ever got. He hadn’t been given a pat on the head, much less a hug, since he was eight, so it had been a shock at first, but a pleasant one. No sign of Mariette, but another woman with shoulder-length dark hair whom he’d never seen before was behind the counter. His heart kicked into a faster rhythm.

A new person working in Mariette’s place?

Shit, shit, shit. His hands began to shake. He must have hurt her bad, Bobby Ray thought. Could have even killed her.

He hurried past and rounded the corner, then leaned against the wall of the next building and pulled long, deep breaths into his seizing lungs. Panic and nausea clawed their way up his throat and his nose poured snot, which he dashed away with the back of his hand. He felt tears burn the backs of his lids and blinked them away, determined not to cry. When had crying ever done him any good anyway? Just earned him a backhand against the face or a knock upside the head.

Or worse.

I ain’t raisin’ no sissy boy, his father had always said. You gonna cry, then I’ll give you something to cry about.

And he had.

God help him, what was he going to do? He’d been sleeping in his car for days, moving from one place to another to stay at least a step ahead of Uncle Mackie. He snorted. Uncle Mackie wasn’t his real uncle, of course. He probably wasn’t anyone’s uncle at all, but the name had come up at some point or another and stuck, and now it had the power to make him quiver with fear and practically piss himself.

Bobby Ray had lived in fear most of his life and he was sick to death of it.

Uncle Mackie was a bookie and, after a few ill-advised bets plus interest plus whatever “fee” Mackie decided he owed, Bobby Ray was into him for four grand.

It might as well be a million.

He didn’t make enough at the dairy to come anywhere near that amount and didn’t have anything of value to sell. At nineteen he had a beat-up fifteen-year-old Buick with a salvage title, and lived in a pay-by-the-week motel room. Better than foster care, which he’d ultimately aged out of, thank God, but certainly not the high life, either.

He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt and looked enviously at passersby with their fancy clothes, smartphones and gold watches. He’d bet none of these people had a clue about how people like him lived. Eating microwave mac and cheese every night for dinner, waiting for an empty dryer with a few minutes left on the timer at the Laundromat so that he could afford clean clothes.

He’d always heard that hard work was supposed to pay off, but all Bobby Ray could see in his future was more hard work and a constant, never-ending struggle. He supposed that’s why he’d turned to betting. When one five-dollar bet on the dogs had made him more money than he earned in a month, he’d imagined himself a professional gambler. His lips twisted with bitter humor.

And that was exactly what Uncle Mackie had wanted him to think.

Within two weeks he was down two grand and panicking. Mackie’s boys had roughed him up pretty good and had told him the next time they came back they wouldn’t be so “gentle.”

Bobby Ray had never been a saint and wouldn’t pretend otherwise. He’d spent more time kicked out of all the various schools he attended than in them, mostly for fighting. Kids were smarter than people typically gave them credit for and they had a talent for sniffing out the kind that was different from them.

Bobby Ray had always been different.

For starters, his eyes were two different colors. Add the Glasgow smile—twin scars that ran from his ears to the corners of his mouth and made him look as if he was always wearing an unnaturally wide grin—compliments of one of his father’s drunken rages, and he’d been an easy target. Life would have been a whole lot easier for him if he’d simply accepted the taunts and moved on, but Bobby Ray had never been able to do that.

He always fought. And he lost more often than he won.

Taking the first coin from Audwin Jefferson had been the most difficult thing Bobby Ray had ever done. Audwin hadn’t stared at his scars or his mismatched eyes and hadn’t cared if Bobby Ray hadn’t graduated high school. He’d looked at him and saw an able-bodied man willing to work and the pride that had come with that knowledge had been damned near indescribable.

He bitterly wished he’d never known about the coins, wished Audwin had never taken the little black pouch out of the drawer and laughingly called it his retirement fund. He’d shown him a variety of different coins—buffalo nickels, Confederate money, various pennies and silver dollars, even a gold piece from Nazi Germany that his grandfather had brought back from WWII.

Sweating with dread and sick to his stomach, Bobby Ray had snatched the first coin his fingers had come in contact with and, feeling more miserable by the minute, had taken it to a pawn shop on the other side of town. The broker had given him a thousand dollars for the coin and Bobby Ray had promptly turned it over to Uncle Mackie, but by that point his debt had quadrupled.

And Uncle Mackie had found another way to earn a buck.

Because he’d become irrationally terrified of getting caught, Bobby Ray had started slipping the coins into the butter molds so that they were never actually on his body and then marking the molds with a small X so he knew where to find them. When he left the dairy to make the deliveries, he’d simply pull over and retrieve the coin, then head directly to the pawn shop and then to Uncle Mackie. Every time he thought he was close to paying off his debt, Mackie would fabricate another “fee” and get him on the hook again.

Because a couple of customers had complained that he was delayed, Bobby Ray had been forced to alter his system and start making his deliveries first. And that’s when things had gone wrong. He’d set aside the mold he was certain held the coin, then belatedly discovered at the end of the day that it had somehow gotten swapped with a dud. By process of elimination he’d deduced that his coin had gone into Mariette’s shop and he’d been desperately trying to retrieve it ever since.

She’d caught him last night and he’d panicked and picked up the dough roller. He hadn’t meant to hit her with it—had only wanted to scare her away so that he could make a run for it—but she’d zigged when she should have zagged and it caught her on the back of the head.

She’d crumpled like a rag doll and he’d nearly been sick with fear. He’d dialed 911 from the shop phone, left the receiver on the kitchen counter and ran for it.

Because he needed to know how she was, Bobby Ray decided that he’d find a pay phone and start calling the local hospitals. The idea that he could have seriously wounded her—or worse—was eating him up inside. How had this happened? he wondered again, feeling the hopelessness close in around him. How had things gotten so completely out of his control? It was only a matter of time before Uncle Mackie turned up at the dairy, Bobby Ray thought.

And Audwin would fire him for sure then.

Dammit, he had to get that coin back. He had to.

“LISTEN, MARIETTE, I know that the guys have stomped in and taken over your protection and this case, but they mean well,” Charlie told her once the afternoon crowd thinned a bit. “They consider you a friend. In their own weird way they genuinely believe that they’re doing what’s best for you.”

“I know that,” Mariette said, feeling trapped and exasperated. With herself more than anyone. “And it’s not that I don’t appreciate it because I do.”

And that was true. She’d never had a father, or even a big brother for that matter, who’d had her back. It was odd having Payne insist on taking care of this problem because she’d always taken care of her own problems. Once she’d gotten over hearing so many orders fired at her regarding her house, her shop and her safety, she’d been able to stop and consider that and she’d found that, high-handedness aside, she rather liked that they wanted to protect her. That they thought enough of her to do that.

She’d just been so rattled this morning after the attack that she hadn’t been able to think clearly. Mariette had never been afraid before, especially here in her own space. To find that she was vulnerable had been more than a bit disconcerting. She’d spent three hours in the E.R. and, despite various protests from all sides, had come back to the shop to start work. She’d had to—she wasn’t just her own boss, she was also the boss of four employees and she did the bulk of the work.

If something got ruined or didn’t turn out right, it had an immediate impact on her bottom line. She couldn’t afford to just take off, not with dozens of pastries, cupcakes and cakes to make. Furthermore, if she’d gone upstairs and crawled into bed instead of continuing in her own routine … It felt too much like letting him win.

And that was simply unacceptable.

That said, despite the fact that she was equally dreading and anticipating Jack Martin taking over as her security guard tonight, Mariette had to admit that she was looking forward to being able to turn the watch over to him. She was dead on her feet and she could feel the hooks of exhaustion sinking in and tugging at her from all sides. She had a no-sleep headache on top of the headache the intruder had given her and would like nothing more than a warm cookie, a glass of milk and her bed.

With any luck, she’d be too tired by six o’clock to worry about lusting after Jack Martin.

Somehow, she doubted it.

Merely the thought of him made her nipples tingle and a heavy heat build low in her belly. She’d like to tell herself that the only reason she found him so irresistible was because she’d sworn off men for a while—sort of like the everything-looks-more-delicious-on-a-diet mentality—but she knew better.

Jack Martin was … different.

She’d felt it from the instant he’d walked into her store. A quickening, an awareness of sorts, that had tripped some sort of internal trigger, made her more conscious of him. She was equally unnerved and transfixed. Not a recipe for contentment.

“This is my brother’s first case for Ranger Security,” Charlie remarked as she straightened a tablecloth. “Since coming out of the military.” There was a strange undertone to her voice that Mariette couldn’t readily identify. Sadness, maybe? Regret, definitely.

Intrigued, she turned to look at her. “Oh?”

Charlie bit her lip. “I know that we’re not as close as you and Emma Payne are, and I really have no right to ask you this, but …” She hesitated, clearly torn.

“But what, Charlie?” Mariette wanted to know, genuinely curious.

“But could you take it easy on him, please?” she asked, her eyes softening with entreaty. “Don’t make Jack pay for Payne’s methods. My big brother has been through sheer hell the past six months and he needs to do this. He needs to help you. He needs to prove to them—and to himself—that he can.”

Wow. Mariette didn’t know what she’d expected Charlie to say, but that certainly wasn’t anything she would have imagined. Jack had been through hell? What sort of hell? What did she mean by that? Her heart immediately swelled with compassion and a matching lump inexplicably formed in her throat.

She knew from Emma that Payne, Flanagan and McCann had all come out of the military after the death of a good friend and formed their security company. Was that the sort of hell Charlie was referring to? Had Jack lost someone? A friend? Had he been injured? Had he come out because he’d wanted to? Or because he hadn’t had a choice?

Ultimately none of those questions were any of her business and yet she found herself desperately wanting to know the answers to them and so much more. It was hard to imagine a man as big and vital and alive as Jack Martin being anything other than formidable.

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