Page 18 of Luke (West Bend Saints 3)

  And she’s smart. The whole group of them are. They're smart and charming and…criminals.

  There’s Iver, dressed in a suit even though we’re out in the middle of nowhere, talking about places I’ve only seen on TV – Monte Carlo and Santorini and Crete. He should be a pretentious dick, the kind of guy with too much money that you just want to punch, except that in the next breath, he’s showing me how to scam people in card games.

  There’s Emir, who I think might be the nerdiest nerd I’ve ever met. He hardly looks up at me when I walk in, and basically spends the rest of the night hunched over computers – four of them lined up on a table, wires crisscrossing and zigzagging everywhere in a tangle – working on God knows what. Probably an algorithm involving world domination.

  And there’s Oscar. Oscar is old school, the grandfather of the group. He’s classy and British or European or something with an accent, and he’s quiet. He looks completely unassuming, a doddering old man, but then he says something and you realize that not only has he heard everything going on, but that he’s sharp as a tack.

  They make normal conversation, talking about old times, old heists, stuff I’d be interested in if it weren’t for the fact that I’m sitting here instead of at Autumn’s place. I get annoyed that we’re not talking about what we’re actually here for, the con or whatever the hell it is we’re going to do that’s going to solve everything. But then Elias is on the television, and I’m momentarily distracted. He doesn't flip me off at the awards show, although River does punch some jerk in the face who tries to talk in the middle of her acceptance speech, and I immediately like her.

  I think about what Autumn and Olivia are doing right now. They’ve eaten dinner, I’m sure. I wonder what Autumn cooked -- probably some atrocity. Olivia has had a bath by now. Autumn sits beside her on the bathroom floor, her knees tucked up to her chest, looking at a magazine while Olivia plays in the tub with her bath toys, draws on the walls with crayons made of soap. When Olivia is done playing, Autumn bathes her and then reads to her.

  I finally got to read a story to Olivia the other night.

  I palm my cell phone, wanting to look at it again, silently cursing my stupidity for being so wrapped around the axle about a girl.

  Except I know it in my gut. She’s not just any girl. She’s the girl.

  It hits me, right there, that realization crashing against me full force like a ton of bricks.

  “We’re going to grift the town,” Iver says.

  “It’s so dramatic when he says it that way,” Tempest says, rolling her eyes. “You’re always so over-the-top with these things.”

  “You need a little more flourish in your life, darling,” he says.

  “I have just enough flourish, thank you.”

  “Look, maybe we just let it go,” I say, shrugging.

  “Fuck, are you kidding?” Silas asks.

  “No, I’m not joking. I’m aggravated,” I say, the edge returning to my voice with a vengeance. I don’t want to screw around here with them. Don’t they get that? “It’s not like one of us can’t just go kick the hell out of Sherriff Easton, get his confession on tape or something. Shit, I can go wail on him myself.”

  “That doesn’t solve the issue with the town,” Iver says.

  “We’ve looked into the mining company, the one buying people off their property,” Oscar says. “These people are no good. They're the worst kind of business. They have a history of destroying towns, blowing into a place like West Bend and bribing law enforcement, stealing people’s homes out from under them. Then they strip everything from the land, make a windfall, and pull up out of a place, the town totally destroyed, residents left in the lurch."

  “So what?” I ask, feeling suddenly defensive and non-compliant. “This isn’t my fight. I’m not Robin Hood, taking from the rich and helping the poor.”

  “One of those assholes – the mayor or sheriff – killed our fucking mother and you don’t even give a shit, Luke?” Silas’ voice gets louder, and he stands close to me, looking like he wants to push me but he doesn’t.

  “You’re going to what, avenge her death, Silas?” I ask. “Make those bastards pay? Why? She didn’t do jack shit for us.”

  “You don’t want to be involved, fine,” Silas says. “Why’d you even come up here, anyway?”

  “I’m just saying, there are other options than running some complicated con scheme here,” I say. “What does that even do? Send them to prison? So does a murder confession.”

  “But a murder confession doesn’t help anyone else,” Oscar says. “Like Letty Weston, Tempest’s grandmother.”

  “Your grandmother lives in West Bend,” I say flatly.

  Tempest nods. “She’s in a retirement home, but still has her property, said no to the mining company’s offers on the place,” she says. “But the company has a real bad habit of making sure that people who say no end up saying yes.”

  Autumn has said no to the mining company, I remember, pulling up that conversation from somewhere in the back of my mind.

  “Listen to the plan," Oscar says. "Then decide if it has merit."

  So I sit and listen to the plan, and the background they have on everyone. Besides the shit about the shady mining company, Emir dug up stuff about the sheriff and the mayor, dirt that’s enough to convince us that they’re rotten to the core, corrupt and poisonous to West Bend and its residents.

  Meanwhile, I’m sitting here thinking of Autumn and Olivia and how the hell to keep them as far away from this as possible.

  Oscar lays out a map, plots of land marked with red marker. “The mining company is going after the europium on the properties, we know that,” he says. “That’s what your father had found, what he told the geology teacher at the high school about. That teacher is long gone now, paid off by the mining company to disappear or –“

  “Or, made to disappear,” Silas says.

  “Yes,” Oscar agrees. “He’s gone and no one else knows about the europium.”

  “Well, no one except the people in this room,” Tempest says. “And the mayor and the sheriff.”

  “So the mining company has been picking off people one by one,” Iver says, sipping from his champagne glass.

  “Not literally, though,” I say. “It’s not just coming in here and murdering –“

  Oscar holds up his hand. “Literally, no,” he says. “It’s buying parcels of land, mostly, which is legal. Technically. Duping residents about the value of their property isn't the worst thing a company can do.”

  “But we do think they’ve done worse,” Tempest says. “Intimidation, outright threats – there have been rumors floating around. It's not official representatives from the mining company, but they’re obviously behind it.”

  “So, what are the properties marked on the map?” I ask, stepping forward for a closer look.

  Oscar trails his finger over the paper. “These are properties we’ve marked, places we’ve been able to find out that the company is interested in,” he says. “They’re casting a wide net.”

  “How do you know they’re interested in these places?” I ask, squinting to orient myself on the map.

  “Don’t ask,” Emir says.

  “It’s best not to know,” Oscar says. “Emir’s technical prowess doesn’t always operate within the bounds of the law.”

  Iver chuckles. “Doesn’t ever, he means.”

  “None of what you do is legal,” I point out.

  “True,” Oscar says. “But what Emir does is quite illegal.”

  “Seems like there’s not much of a distinction,” I say. Then I see it. Autumn’s orchard, outlined in red marker. “What’s this?”

  Oscar leans over, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. “One of the properties the company is quite interested in,” he says. “It's one that we can consider using to our advantage.”

  “Using to your advantage how?” I ask. Thoughts are rushing through my head, one right after the other. Autumn mentioned

that there were men on the outskirts of the property. She mentioned the offer to buy her land. I clench my fists at my side, feeling the nearly-irresistible urge to walk out of here and go straight to her place.

  “We select target properties, and our rival energy company shows interest in them,” Tempest says. “Our surveyors find europium on the properties –“

  “That we ensure is there, of course,” Oscar says.

  “How?”

  “That will be my doing,” Iver says.

  “What, are you guys going to break into some top-secret lab and steal –“ I start. “Of course you are.”

  “Our company drives up the cost of the land, and we get the mining company to put in bids to buy up useless land,” Oscar says.

  “A big company like that, it’s a drop in the bucket,” I protest. “How is that useful?”

  “The mining company is going to have a problem with the company who does its extraction and testing,” Oscar says.

  “And unfortunate data leak,” Emir says, shrugging. “Can’t trust anyone these days.”

  “And you’re the new company doing the testing,” I say.

  Oscar nods. “We’ll fail to find anything of value on the properties the company has already purchased,” he says. “The mining company will want to unload the properties onto their rivals – also us – and there you have it.”

  “That doesn’t take care of the sheriff and the mayor,” I say.

  Oscar holds up his index finger. “All in good time,” he says. “You haven’t allowed me to finish.”

  “This property,” I interrupt, pointing to Autumn’s place on the map, “Is not involved. She’s not involved in any way with this. Do you understand?”

  I try to ignore the glare I can feel coming from Silas' direction. I want Autumn and Olivia kept far away from any of this shit, out of danger.

  Oscar nods. “No involvement,” he says.

  No involvement, I think.

  That’s when it hits me. Autumn can’t know about any of this. If she did, she’d be an accomplice to the hundred laws I’m sure we’re about to break. Autumn, and especially Olivia, have to be protected from this. If they’re involved, they’re even more vulnerable. If the mining company wants her land, they're going to keep trying to get it and she's going to keep saying no, which puts her in danger. And that means the mining company has to be stopped.

  But I have to keep Autumn and Olivia out of this.

  I have to stay away from them.

  If Autumn doesn’t hate me, she’ll come after me.

  So I realize what I have to do. It’s for the best. If I care at all about Autumn, I have to let her go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Autumn

  I swallow hard to try to manage the lump in my throat. “It’s no big deal, you know,” I say, my voice wavering, betraying how I really feel.

  Which is like total and complete shit.

  “It is a big deal,” June says, her voice rising briefly before she clears her throat. Even over the phone, she sounds pissed off. “Even if he was just a fling, it’s still the biggest dick move ever. And he’s working for you.”

  I laugh, the sound bitter. “Yeah, well, not anymore,” I say.

  It’s been two weeks since that cryptic as hell message from Luke. Two weeks. Over two weeks, actually. It’s been fifteen days, to be precise. Fifteen days since Luke texted me, saying something had come up and that he couldn’t come over. Fourteen days since he texted me again, saying he’d be sending someone else, another foreman to replace him. The foreman was overqualified, competent, completely on top of things. I should be pleased about that fact.

  I should be pleased to be rid of Luke, with his annoying lack of boundaries, with his showing up to my house all the time and inviting himself in.

  Inviting himself into my life.

  I’ve never been dumped by text and frankly, I should have expected as much. Luke has short term written all over him. He’s young, immature, impulsive…and hot as hell. I’m sure he’s shacking up with another girl right now, someone his age.

  Not a single mom, who’s sitting in her bathtub eating ice cream out of a pint container at ten p.m. because she got dumped via text message.

  I’m a sad case.

  But it’s not like we were dating. And he was just a fling.

  That’s what I tell myself, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Neither does the rest of the pint of Rocky Road; now I just feel sick.

  So what? I ask myself as I pull on my most comfortable pair of pajamas and climb into bed. So what if you’re climbing into bed alone? It’s better that way. My old routine is comfortable, familiar. It involves sweats and soft pajamas. It doesn't involve someone disrupting Olivia’s routine, disrupting my workday with his stupid muscles and lame grin and disrupting my evening routine with his stupid cock. And his cooking. I was going to gain twenty pounds from all that cooking anyway.

  So, it’s better this way, I think as I pull the comforter up around my chest. Totally.

  Tons better.

  So much better I could cry.

  ***

  “You’re going to spoil her,” I say, shaking my head. “You know she expects ice cream every time we come here now.”

  Connie C. laughs. “Good,” she says. “You can understand how this is a smart business move for me, then. I grow my customers from the very beginning.”

  “You’re a tricky old woman,” I say, sliding my basket up on the counter.

  “My husband tells me the same thing," she says, with a laugh. "Oh, and you were great at the town hall meeting the other night, you know. Very well-spoken, my dear."

  I wasn't going to get involved in small-town politics, but then I'd gotten another visit from a couple of guys from the mining company, wanting to make an offer on my land, do some more testing, and that was that. I decided that thinking about something bigger than myself would be the best thing right now.

  Connie helps me to the car with my bags, and I’m putting them in when I see Luke, talking to a girl right on the sidewalk not more than twenty feet in front of me. He looks up, and I stare at him, and both of the assholes look at me like I have three heads.

  I’m fuming, my hands practically shaking as I open the car door, sliding behind the steering wheel as Luke heads for me, jogging down the sidewalk. I’m putting the car in reverse, planning to get the hell out of there, when he reaches me. He knocks on the car window, and I don’t roll it down. “I’m leaving,” I say.

  “Autumn,” he says, knocking on the window. “Don’t be like this.”

  I can’t help it now. I roll the window down and look at him. “Don’t be like what, Luke?” I ask, my voice trembling. “You send me a couple of text messages and a new foreman over to my house? That’s how you quit?” I say quit, like it’s only his job I’m talking about, except I’m clearly not. Quit us is what I mean.

  Except there is no us. There never was.

  That was all in my head.

  I’m not sure if I’m more disgusted with him for how immature he is, or with myself for how stupid I obviously still am.

  “Autumn,” he says, his jaw clenched. “I – that wasn’t what it looked like. There’s not – damn it.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanation, Luke,” I say. “There’s really nothing you can say. Besides, it’s no big deal. A blip on my radar.”

  “Autumn, it was a big deal to –“

  “Save it,” I say, holding up my hand. “Out of sight, out of mind, right? At least from my perspective. Now, I need to get my child home for a nap, so if you’d kindly move out of the way so I don’t have to back over your feet with my car, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  Look straight ahead, I tell myself. And that’s what I do. I look straight ahead, ignoring him, hiding behind my sunglasses as I back out of my parking space and drive away. It’s only afterward, when I look at him in my rear view mirror, that my eyes well up with tears.

  CHAPTER THIRTY/>   Luke

  “Is that the girl?” Tempest asks.