The Promise
Page 146

I smiled at him.
He waited.
I kept smiling at him so he’d know that was all the answer he was going to get.
“Shit,” he muttered and reached into his back pocket to get the phone.
Gus licked my foot.
I called, “Sal, you want some coffee and a day-old donut?”
Sal turned and grinned at me.
* * * * *
We walked into Frank’s restaurant at two thirty that afternoon, the meeting pushed back so the Luke Stark guy could land at Indianapolis International Airport, get his rental, and meet us. A change in plans I understood, from listening to Benny’s side of the conversation, Lee Nightingale didn’t like all that much. A change in plans we discovered, from the instant we entered the restaurant, Lee Nightingale didn’t inform Herb of.
And Herb brought company.
We knew this when we walked in and heard a woman’s voice call out, “Yoo-hoo! Are you Frankie and Benny?”
I looked to a back table and saw an older woman with her arm up in the air, waving at us. Sitting beside her, staring at her like she was crazy, was an older, red-haired man.
Sal was with us. He had two men stationed outside the restaurant and one in a car across the street. For some reason, he was prepared for an ambush.
I really hoped Lee Nightingale truly was on the up-and-up since I didn’t want an old-fashioned café, which looked like it hadn’t changed since the early ’60s (not to mention its patrons), caught in the crossfire of whatever Sal’s brand of protection would be.
“This doesn’t give me good feelings,” Sal muttered, eyes on the waving woman as we made our way to the back table, Benny leading at the same time hauling me with him since his hand was in mine, Sal following us.
Benny stopped us by the table and declared without greeting, “It was our understanding we were meeting a Luke Stark here.”
“You are,” the red-haired man replied. “Lee told me I was out.” He jerked a thumb at the woman at his side. “But she wanted to come anyway.” He looked to her. “Just sayin’, you’re explainin’ this shit to Lee.”
She turned narrow eyes to him and admonished, “Herb, don’t say ‘shit.’”
“Woman, I’m a grown man. I’ll say ‘shit’ if I wanna say ‘shit,’” he shot back.
“It’s uncouth,” she retorted and swung a hand toward us. “We barely know these people.”
“Barely know them?” Herb returned. “We don’t know them at all.” He then looked to Benny and asked, “Do you say ‘shit?’”
Benny didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “Where’s Stark?”
Herb didn’t answer that. He looked to Sal and asked, “Do you say ‘shit?’”
“We’re done here,” Sal decreed.
Shit.
I wanted this to work. I wanted professionals to sort all this out so no one else got hurt, and I wanted it done quickly so Benny could go home, I could go with him, and we could start a normal life (or as normal as I could be).
Therefore, I quickly stuck a hand toward the woman. “Hey. I’m Frankie.”
She smiled at me, took my hand, and replied, “I’m Trish. Roxie’s mom. Do you know Roxie?”
“No,” I told her, giving her hand a squeeze.
She looked confused, muttering, “I thought you knew Roxie.”
I pulled my hand away as Herb stated, “Not everyone on the planet knows Roxie.”
She turned her gaze to him. “Well, Herb, they know Lee. If they know Lee, they might know Hank, and if they know Hank, they’ll know Roxie.”
“Did I say we’re done here, or did I go temporarily invisible?” Sal asked.
“This is Benny, my boyfriend,” I swiftly told Herb and Trish. “And this is Sal, my, uh…uncle.”
“Howdy!” Trish cried on a wave that took in the entire front of her body.
“Someone kill me,” Herb muttered.
“This is my husband, Herb,” Trish said, jerking her head to Herb. “He’s in a bad mood because he doesn’t wanna be here. He wants to be fishing.”
“Do you wanna be here?” Herb asked Benny. “Or would you rather be fishing?”
“If by ‘fishing’ you mean being anywhere but here, then yeah,” Benny answered.
“See?” Herb asked his wife.
She ignored him and invited, “Sit down. We’ll order you some of Frank’s world famous pancakes.”
I leaned into Benny and murmured, “I could eat some pancakes.”
He didn’t even look at me as he sighed heavily, then pulled out a chair for me to plant my ass in. So I did, Benny claiming the chair next to mine.
“This is unbelievable,” Sal muttered, moving to another seat.
“You’re tellin’ me,” Herb stated. “Me and my big mouth. Tell her I got somethin’ Lee wants me to do, she thinks it’s about our daughter, Roxie. How Lee translates to Roxie, I do not know. Then she horns in, even when I say Lee doesn’t need me anymore. If God didn’t frown on it, honest to Christ, I’d consider divorce.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Trish snapped.
“Are you sittin’ somewhere you don’t wanna be with people you don’t know?” Herb snapped back.
“We do know them. It’s Frankie, Benny, and Sal,” she fired back.
Herb looked at Benny. “Pay close attention. She’s beautiful, your girl. So was Trish when I met her. She ain’t hard on the eyes now, but she’s a pain in my ass.”
“Herb!” Trish cried.
“What the f**k is goin’ on here?” a deep, rough voice sounded from behind us. I turned and caught sight of lean h*ps and a flat stomach barely disguised by a tight black t-shirt.
I looked up and up and up and stopped breathing.
That was because there was black-haired, kick-ass-mustached man standing behind me who could be nothing but a commando.
The hottest one in the universe.
And the scariest one.
He was scowling at Herb, saying, “I thought Lee relieved you of duty.”
“He did. Trish wanted pancakes,” Herb replied.
The commando tipped his head back and looked to the ceiling. My breath returned but only to come erratically, mostly because I could see his muscled throat and the underside of his strong jaw.
Yummy.
Then he told the ceiling, “Fuck me.”
“Lucas Stark! What would your mother say?” Trish remonstrated.