No Perfect Hero(13)

“Bress,” he says, offering me a hand, then chuckling and dropping it when I eye it wryly, my own hands overflowing. “Dennis Bress. You look like a new face around here.”

Bress.

Wasn’t that the name Warren snarled at me when he caught me in his side of the duplex?

I don’t understand. This man seems so nice.

Why would he be sending anyone after Warren, especially a hapless artist and occasional corporate slave?

I keep my thoughts to myself, though, and wiggle my fingers in a little wave in lieu of a handshake. “I’m just passing through for a few days while my car gets fixed. Staying over at Charming Inn. I’m Haley West, and this is my niece, Tara Brenley.”

Tara pipes up with a chirpy little “Hi!” and lets go of her death grip on her prizes long enough to shake Bress’ hand like the delicate little lady she likes to be. He bows over her hand, mimicking touching his forehead to it like a proper gentleman, and she giggles.

“Charmed,” he drawls, then straightens and flashes me another smile. “If you’re ready to check out, I’ll help you get all that into your car.”

I’m grateful for his help. Especially after I meet the owner of this strange little conglomeration of shops and find out that the rumors about small-town hostility aren’t at all true.

Not when Ms. Thatcher is all smiles, offering a few suggestions for getting the dirt out of the canvas with rubbing alcohol. She even gives me a discount, though it’s my fault the canvas was damaged.

Tara gets a few warm, inquisitive questions about her artistic talents without being patronizing, and then Bress helps us pile our shopping bags in the back of the car.

“Have you been to see the mechanic yet?” he asks as I climb behind the driver’s seat.

“Not yet, which is a little ironic,” I answer dryly. “He’s the one person I need to see most, but I haven’t had a chance to get into the shop yet and find out about the part I need.”

“Well...” Bress’ sigh is long and slow as he folds his elbows over the door of the Mustang and leans on them. He’s not looking at me, but instead somewhere in the distance past me, but there’s a troubled knit to his brow. “If he can’t help you, look me up. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

That’s an odd thing to say. Or maybe I’m projecting because of Warren?

I frown, but then his gaze drops back to me, and I quickly shift into a smile, hoping I don’t look as uncomfortable as I feel. “Thanks, Mr. Bress. I appreciate it.”

He doesn’t answer my smile. Just looks at me for a long, wandering moment, his gaze strange, before he straightens, pulling back with one last light tap against the car door.

“You take care, Ms. West,” he says. “And welcome to Heart’s Edge.”





*



I’m brooding over our conversation on the entire drive back to Charming Inn.

Something’s not right here. I feel like I just stepped into an Agatha Christie novel.

Small town that looks picturesque on the surface, but the people are all just a little too weird in ways you can’t quite nail down. Not until you find out there’s a dead freaking body under the floorboards of your cabin or something.

It’s just strange. Warren’s shady as hell, intent on getting me away from him – as if he’s hiding something in his side of the duplex, and he’s afraid I’ll find out.

So maybe a few of the things he’s done for me would be considered nice, if he wasn’t clearly just doing them to get me as far away from him as possible. And then this guy he mentioned, Dennis Bress, just happens to bump into me in the craft store and starts speaking cryptic, although when I compare him to Warren...

Bress seems like an angel.

At least he has manners.

He knows how to dress himself, and he doesn't give that hell-look like some kind of chest-thumping Tarzan. The look that makes me think Warren either wants me in flames or wants to throw me against the wall and kindle something far more wicked than another cursing, spitting fight.

So what’s going on here?

Is there some kind of grudge between Warren and Bress? Like a small town blood feud?

Is Bress a criminal? Hell, is Warren? A gangster, a thug, squeezing poor Bress for something he’s owed – or just for the sport of it?

My lips twist sourly, none of the options seeming quite right.

Bress is too nice. And Warren...

Well, he’s not nice. Not at all.

But there’s some kind of core of honor and morality there, or he’d have insisted on having me hauled off the property even after he’d found out Tara and I had nowhere else to go.

Or maybe I’m just dickmatized.

Maybe I'm losing my mind.

And I don’t want to believe a man who could put every LA underwear model to shame when he's in his boxers could be so awful.

I haven't forgotten Warren at his finest.

This lion of a man standing in the doorway like Hercules himself came back to earth and stopped by a tattoo shop, bed-tousled hair, the elastic band of his boxer briefs hugging up snug against that dip of flesh just below his crest.

God.

Somebody stop me.

I’m still turning it over, chewing my lower lip, completely wrapped up inside my own head when I turn off onto the little side lane leading to the back of the Charming Inn’s sprawling property and our own little private corner. I’m so preoccupied unloading the bags and closing up the Mustang that I don’t even take in the cabin as I’m mounting the steps, sorting through my keys for the new one on the ring.