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“Have you seen this?” Hawson shoved the mangled paper in Mateo’s direction. “You were supposed to be keeping me updated.”
Mateo didn’t bother to answer as he took the paper from the mayor’s ham-fisted grip. Creased and beat up as it was, there was still no missing the message.
HELP RAISE A GLASS FOR THE SALVATION VETERANS’ CENTER AT THE SWEET SALVATION BREWERY — ALL PROCEEDS GO TOWARD REBUILDING THE CENTER. VOLUNTEERS, EXHIBITORS AND DONATIONS NEEDED! SIGN UP TODAY.
Part of him couldn’t help but be impressed. While he’d been doing everything he could to dodge her, she’d been working her hot little ass off. There just might be more to Olivia Sweet than what looked good on a magazine cover.
He neatly folded the fundraiser flyer in half and handed it back to the mayor. “I told you I’d keep an eye on her. I did. She’s not doing anything crazy.”
Hawson sputtered for a minute before any actual words came out. “She will. Believe you me, before this is over, the whole thing will be about her.” He balled up the flyer in his hand and winged it across the porch. The blue paper rolled to a stop in the corner, the only touch of bright color in the otherwise pristine gray stone porch. “She’ll use this as a springboard for her sorry-ass excuse of a career as a D-list celebrity. I thought you were on Salvation’s side. You have to stop it.”
Only years of Marine-conditioned discipline kept Mateo from scooping up the mayor and tossing him off the porch. The smart thing was to go along with the mayor’s scheme. What did he care about Olivia’s plans as long as the veterans’ center was rebuilt like Hawson had promised? She was a thorn he’d shoved into his side to remind him of everything he couldn’t have anymore.
“And how do you propose I stop her?”
“Any means necessary,” the mayor said.
He glanced over at the bright-blue paper ball sitting in the corner and then back at the Napoleon wannabe plotting his little sabotage on Mateo’s front porch. He’d always hated bullies. He’d agreed to keep an eye on Olivia’s activities, not sabotage the fundraiser.
“No.”
Hawson’s eyebrows shot up and the vein in his temple puffed out. “What do you mean, no?”
“Do I need to go grab a dictionary?”
“I thought you were a man, a Marine, that I could depend on.” Hawson delivered the insult with the flair of a carnival sideshow barker.
It had about the same effect on Mateo as the last time someone tried to get him to play one of those crooked games at the county fair. “Seems you were wrong.”
“From the stories I’ve heard about your last deployment, I’m not the only one. Thought you would have learned the danger of disregarding an order.”
Fire of shame and guilt ate its way up from his gut as fast and hot as the roadside explosion that had killed the rest of his four-Marine fire team in Afghanistan. “Get off my property before I dropkick your ass to the highway.”
Hawson puffed up like a posturing goose. “Don’t you threaten me, boy, unless you want to be out of a job.”
Mateo laughed and leaned against the doorframe. “I don’t make threats, just deliver on promises.”
The mayor’s round cheeks went crimson and his eyes bulged. If he didn’t calm the fuck down, he was going to have a heart attack on the front porch, and there was no way Mateo would be giving the asshole mouth to mouth.
Just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, Olivia’s ridiculous yellow Fiat sped up the driveway, kicking out gravel, followed by Luciana’s minivan. Some pop diva blared from the Fiat’s speakers and out of the open windows just barely louder than Olivia’s off-tune singing and the happy yaps of that damned mutt, both of whom were about as welcome during his breakfast as a cardboard-tasting veggie omelet in an MRE. He didn’t know when his place had turned into grand fucking central but it had.
Luciana and Olivia got out of their cars and that ugly excuse for a dog sprinted past them both, bounded up the stairs and sat down on Mateo’s right shoe.
“I see how it is.” The mayor’s beady eyes narrowed and he zeroed in on Olivia as she began to saunter toward them. “Good to know what kind of foxhole you’re really interested in.”
Even though his muscles twitched with the need to smack the smug look off the mayor’s face, Mateo took a deliberate step back so he wouldn’t be in striking distance. “You have five seconds.”
Hawson opened his mouth, but clamped it right back shut before any more bile could come out. He spun on his heel and clomped down the front steps, giving Olivia and Luciana a wide berth on the stairs before getting into his Cadillac and hightailing it off Burnett’s Hill.
In a perfect world, the dictatorial mayor would never darken his doorstep again, but Mateo had seen too much of the imperfect to ever believe that would happen—especially not when the personification of trouble stood not three feet away in a short skirt and sky-high heels.
Per usual, Luciana had taken over his kitchen, unloading groceries he hadn’t asked her to buy and stuffing homemade enchiladas in the fridge that he hadn’t asked her to make. Ever since he’d gotten out of the hospital, she’d made these weekly trips out to the cabin like he couldn’t fend for himself when she knew damn well he could microwave like nobody’s business.
“Would it kill you to buy some fresh fruit instead of stocking up on protein drinks and frozen food?” Luciana shut the refrigerator door with a disgusted snort. “So what did His Highness want?”
“The usual.” If being a pain in the butt counted as the usual, which, with Tyrell Hawson, it did.
“You have a ‘usual’ with the mayor?” Olivia plopped one last fresh flower into the vase she’d brought with her from the car and stood back to admire the totally unnecessary colorful bouquet taking up residence on the oversized island in his otherwise stark, mostly stainless-steel kitchen.
