Saturday, June 7, 2014
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
Isabella Castellari didn’t look up at her dinner date just yet. She was too busy trying to keep her seafood down.
The sleazeball.
She folded her napkin and laid it on the table. The reappearance of their waiter delayed Dirk’s response. He put his credit card back in his wallet, added a gratuity to the bill, signed it, and slipped the printout back into the guest check holder.
“I said, I know a quiet place where we can go and get to know each other…without interruption.”
“No,” she said, keeping her voice deceptively soft. “You mentioned Krissy.”
Dirk angled his head, eyeing her like a side of beef hanging in a butcher shop. “I said that I’d heard you were sisters. I just wondered if the rumor was true.”
And there it was. The reason that she drove to every first date, and the second, and the third. If they hadn’t shown their true colors by then, then shame on her.
Dirk’s “somewhere quiet” might or might not have room service, but she’d bet her last dollar that it had porn on demand.
Isabella took her purse from the empty seat to her left, pulled two twenties from her wallet, and slid them across the table.
“What?” The wolf in banker’s clothing actually managed to look surprised. Why had she hoped that he’d be any different than any other date that she’d had since she turned sixteen? Anna had warned her, but then Anna warned her about every man who asked her out.
“This should cover mine,” she said, fishing out her car keys. “Have a good evening.”
“Hey, wait!” Dirk actually had the audacity to follow her out the door. Turning to face him while they were still near the restaurant entrance, she was careful to remain beyond his arm’s reach, just in case.
“Why?” she snapped. “You don’t want to be with me. You didn’t ask one single question about what I do. What I like. You talked about your job, your boat, your portfolio, thinking that I would be impressed. I’d be more impressed if you’d shown some interest in me apart from my sister.”
“Well, God damn.” He whistled and shook his head. “Excuse me if I wanted you to be comfortable with me.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. He was so transparent, she could see right through him. “So that I’d agree to go somewhere quiet? On a third date, I might have considered it. Too bad you blew your chance to find out.”
Dirk’s face grew flushed. He was not a man used to losing.
Isabella reached in her purse.
“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry if you took it that way. Why don’t you come back inside? Order dessert, or coffee. Whatever. Let’s talk about us.”
Isabella felt one of the things that she was looking for, palmed it, and kept fishing. Pulling out her Mace and her TASER (purple to match her Kindle cover), she held them to her chest, in case he couldn’t see how serious she was because he was staring at her tits.
They were C-cups, the same size that Krissy’s had been three years ago, before she left Diamond Springs in the dust and went in search of California gold.
“There is no us.” She managed to sound more tired than pissed. “There will never be an us. I don’t do second chances.” Nor did she follow in Krissy’s footsteps. Some girls might agree to go out with their sister’s exes—hell, one of her classmates had married an old boyfriend—but that wasn’t her.
It would never be her.
“Not fair.” Dirk whined like a toddler denied his favorite toy.
“Life isn’t fair. Accept it,” she said, “and leave me the fuck alone,” she added, holding up her TASER when he started to take a step towards her. “Come any closer, and you’ll wish that you hadn’t.”
She wasn’t kidding. A jolt of electricity was one of the kinder ways that she could take him down.
“Bullshit,” he murmured under his breath. “Go on, then. Go, and good riddance. I don’t need your fucking drama.”
She remained on high alert until he’d cleared the corner of the building, headed for his car. It was early enough, he could still get lucky at one of the bars here. As for her, she was headed home, where she’d spend the rest of the evening, curled up with a book and cuddling Sophia, the cat that Krissy had left behind along with her old life.
Just another Saturday night in the life of Isabella Castellari, living vicariously through her favorite novels and counting the days until she’d be free of this town, too. The local men were too intimidated by her Uncle Giovanni. Most of her other dates had only asked her out because they’d heard the same rumor as Dirk.
Only it wasn’t a rumor. She was Krissy Kandle’s sister, and there was nothing she could do to wish it away.
Isabella unlocked the driver’s door as she approached her car, after making certain that she wasn’t being followed. Krav Maga would only go so far if someone had a gun, and she sure as hell didn’t have bullet-deflecting bracelets.
The day was warm enough to use her air conditioning, but she enjoyed the feel of summer. Twisting the length of her hair, she draped the long, black rope over her right shoulder, cranked up her car’s vent fan, opened the windows, and enjoyed the rush of wind as she headed back to Diamond Springs, taking the scenic route through the country.
She was nearly there when an already shitty day got shittier. Her car engine just stopped, with no warning and no explanation. It wasn’t like she’d hit a deer. Her car had just given up the ghost.
“No, no, no!” Isabella managed to pull onto the shoulder, clear of the traffic lane.
Stranded, she approached her problem as she did everything else, with rational thinking. On the plus side, there was still quite a bit of daylight left. This time of year, it didn’t get dark until nearly nine PM.
She had time, and a flashlight.
A flashlight, and a cell phone.
A cell phone…and no signal.
Typical Southern Illinois, fuck it all.
She heaved a sigh. So much for summoning help. Unable to call out, she was left with two options: stay in her car, or start walking. A spare pair of sensible shoes were in the trunk in a plastic tote, along with a change of clothes, a towel, garbage bags, a tire pump, a first aid kit, and a roadside emergency set. Opening the last one, she supposed that it wouldn’t hurt to put out the triangle reflector warnings. On this back road, it might well be dark before anyone came by.
Warning signs in place, she popped her umbrella, stood in its shade by her car, and prayed for help to come.
A good thirty minutes went by before she heard the unmistakable rumble of a motorcycle headed her way. Closing her umbrella, she jumped in her car, fished out her Mace and TASER, and prepared herself for whatever was coming her way.
The motorcycle slowed upon seeing her hazard triangles. She thought the driver might pass her by and kept her eyes on him as he pulled past her and stopped on the shoulder in front of her car. That height. That hair. Those tats. Even before he took off his helmet, she knew exactly who it was.
Luke “Mad Dog” McLanahan. Vice President of the Avenging Angels MC and the star of her naughtiest fantasies. Thor reincarnated, he wore denim jeans that bulged in all the right places and a tight black tee shirt peeking from the opened front of his cut.
For three years, she’d considered him the ultimate man candy. Six feet, four inches of blond-haired, blue-eyed, tattoo-labeled testosterone. Unfortunately, then and now, there wasn’t a damn thing to be done about it.
She refused to be Krissy’s second.