clear. From her glare, she got the message loud and clear. Color high on her cheeks, she shot an ugly look at the girls standing at the counter before heading for the door.
“You might want to slow down on testing your wares from the café, Pandora,” the vamp warned over her shoulder as she teetered out of the store. “Not only is that aphrodisiac crap in danger of making you sound like a slut, but you’re gaining weight.”
Caleb’s eyes cut to the women behind the counter, noting the shocked horror in the blonde’s eyes and the sneer on the redhead’s face. He grinned, liking her screw-you attitude.
“What’s she so bitchy about?” he asked, keeping his smile friendly. Nothing connected with a mark—or suspect—faster than sympathy. Besides, facts were facts … the woman had been a bitch. He wandered the store ostensibly looking at merchandise while eyeing the back wall and its bead-covered doorway.
“That’s her default personality,” the redhead said.
“Pandora, is it?”
He wondered why she was looking at him as if he was a wolf about to pounce. Sure, he’d been a troublemaker as a teen, but he’d been gone almost twelve years. Was his rep still that bad in Black Oak? He didn’t recognize her. Younger than him, she was closer to his sister’s age.
“Hello?” he said, giving her a verbal nudge as he picked up a clear rock shaped like a pyramid, pretending to inspect it. Her worried stare was starting to bug him.
“I’ll go make sure everyone’s out of the café since it’s closed now,” the blonde murmured.
“Yes, I’m Pandora,” the other woman said, grabbing the arm of the blonde before she could move away. “I’m the, um, owner. Can I help you?”
“Owner? You don’t sound so sure.”
“I’m still getting used to the idea.” Pandora’s smile was as stiff and fake as the blow-up doll Caleb had shipped off to Hunter the previous day. “What can I do for you?”
God, so many things. Let him taste those lips to see if they were as soft and delicious as they looked. Slide that silky-looking hair over his naked body. Tell him about all her favorite sexual positions and give him a chance to teach her his.
“I’m just looking around. You’ve got a nice place here.”
“Thanks. Was there anything specific you were shopping for?”
His grin said it all. A sweet pink flush colored her cheeks, but he saw the flash of reciprocated interest in her eyes. Then, for some bizarre reason, she slammed that door shut with an impersonal arch of her brow.
What the hell? Unlike his brother, Gabriel, he didn’t expect women to fall at his feet. And the hard-to-get game did have appeal sometimes. But to totally deny the attraction? What was up with that?
Focus, Black, he reminded himself. He’d come to town for a crappy reason and wanted to leave as fast as he could. So her denial was a good thing.
And maybe if he told himself that a few hundred more times, he’d believe it.
“So you have a café here, too?” he asked, poking through a basket of glossy rocks and trying to take his own advice to focus. Now that he was closer, he noted the noise and tasty scents coming through that beaded curtain. Was the back door to the alley through there?
Before he could poke his head through to see, a group of people strode out with a clatter of beads and a lot of laughter. They’d obviously been having a happy holiday lunch.
There, in the center of the group like a king surrounded by his royal court, was Tobias Black. His lion’s mane of black hair had gone gray at the temples. His face sported a few more wrinkles, adding to its austere authority. Still tall and lean, he wore jeans and biker boots, a denim work shirt and a mellow smile.
Caleb froze. Control broke for a brief second as he closed his eyes against the crashing waves of memories as they pounded through his head—and his heart. Holidays and hugs, lectures and encouraging winks. Watching his dad pull a con, then pulling his first con while his dad watched. The trip to Baskin-Robbins afterward, where Tobias let Caleb treat to hot-fudge sundaes with his ill-gotten gains, cementing the lesson that winning was sweet, but the money had to be kept in circulation.
And then his last day of college. The day when Caleb had told dear ole dad that he was bucking family tradition and basically becoming the enemy. A cop. And when he’d threatened, in cocky righteousness, that if his dad didn’t dump his new partner and go straight, Caleb was leaving the family. That’d been the point his dad had told him to get his ass out.
Good times.
Caleb took a deep breath, his eyes meeting the wide hazel gaze of the pretty redhead behind the counter. He frowned at the sympathy and concern on her face. In the past eight years, he’d faced down whacked-out drug addicts and homicidal drug lords for a living with a blank face. Why did this pretty little thing think there was anything to be sympathetic over? Something to mull over later. Right now he had to pay the piper.
Caleb slowly turned around, automatically shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocking back on his heels. He’d known this moment would come, but now that it had, he wasn’t ready. He’d walked away from his family and used that lack of emotional ties in building his career. But now he was back, face-to-face with his father.
And he had no idea how he felt about it.
Like a bull who’d suddenly hit a steel wall, Tobias slammed to a halt. His midnight-blue eyes went huge. But only for a second. Then he grinned. A charming grin that Caleb knew was hiding that shock he hadn’t meant to show.
“Well, well,” Tobias said, slowly walking forward. “What have we here? If it isn’t the prodigal son.”
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