Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(6)

Oh my sin, that man was handsomer than a pat of butter melting on a stack of pancakes. Just being in the same room as Gideon made my pulse throb in my wrists as I set the tray down on a sideboard. It wasn’t my imagination that his eyes kept flickering from Allred to me. Gideon Fortunati was even more impressive close-up. Observing him in profile like that as he sat in an armchair with hands gripping each armrest, I admired his classical features. So what if he was clad in black leather chaps snapped tightly around each thigh? So what if I strained to see the picture displayed in a biomechanical tattoo that laced around his bare bicep? Biceps alone were a tantalizing sight in Cornucopia, but this man’s masculinity sucked the potency from each man from here to Salt Lake.

He was glancing at me. I know he was.

“I must say, I’m impressed with how you handled that, ah, that associate of yours.” It was rare that Allred praised anyone. He was flattering him for some self-serving reason, I instantly knew.

“I have to apologize for Breakiron,” said Gideon, with a slight hint of Arizona drawl. “He just blazed in through the gate when I was talking to your man.”

“Yes, my man told me something like that. You handled him like someone who’s accustomed to being in a…security position before.”

Gideon looked confused. “Security? Not really. Back home, I run a rock quarry. A small one, not like the ones I’ve seen out here. Aggregate, riprap, gravel for building materials around Bullhead City. Nothing exciting.”

“Yet you’ve been sent here.”

Gideon obviously had no forewarning of Allred’s peculiar form of drawing information from someone. “Yes, I’ve been sent here.”

“And no one’s minding the store?”

“Excuse me?”

“No one’s running your quarry.”

“Oh, I suppose my partner’s doing an all right job. Now, about this military iron. We’ve got some Grade A Russian ladies coming into the Port of San Diego from Armenia.”

It was Parley Pipkin who held up his hand. “Please. Wait until Sister Mahalia has finished serving.”

Shiz! Since when did they censor any of their boring blather in front of me? But Allred appeared to be agreeing with Parley.

“Right,” he said chummily. “We wouldn’t want to shock the lady’s sensitive ears.”

Sensitive, my bottom! But I had no choice other than to smile pleasantly while handing Gideon his coffee cup on a saucer.

“Sugar or cream?” It was almost embarrassing, how thrilled I was to be talking directly to this man. I was even justified in bending over and placing my hands on my knees as I waited for his response. What a sad world, where this was the apex of my entire month. And, quite possibly, year.

He almost looked abashed as he lowered his gaze from mine. “Black is fine.”

Wow. Was I the only one who had caught the double entendre? Or did Gideon not notice I was part black? I was a crazy mix of things from Mexican to black to Navajo. Apparently back in the mid-1800s when Mormonism was in its infancy, wives had been at a premium, so some had chosen whoever was at hand to fulfill their quota to attain the highest degree of salvation. I was zbini, the Navajo word for black, among many other things. I was such a misbegotten mish-mash of ethnicities, I was continually surprised that Allred pursued me for his wife. I wasn’t even that beautiful, with my frizzy hair that continually had to be tamed, my wide bottom. But then, Allred had many arcane desires, theories, and viewpoints.

I was chagrined he didn’t want me to do anything else for him, as now I was forced to move back to the sideboard while the men sat in uncomfortable silence.

Gideon broke it. “So your daughter here can’t keep a secret? I doubt she’d blab the business dealings of her dad.”

A giggle bubbled out of my lips. I could see Gideon in the large gilt mirror above the sideboard.

He chuckled, too. “What’s so funny? She seems perfectly discreet.”

I was way past flattered that he would consider me Allred’s daughter. And “discreet,” too! No one had flattered me like that in years. In Gideon, there were untold mysteries yet to be revealed. I wanted to know ever so much more about this man!

Parley said, “She’s not The Prophet’s daughter. Sister Mahalia is his wife.”

Oh, my squash. Now that the cat was out of the bag, he’d never talk to me again. But what was I thinking, anyway? So what if I somehow managed to finagle a moment or two alone with this rugged, tough biker? What would that accomplish? I was sealed to The Prophet, and there was no going back on that one.

Allred addressed me now, so I turned and folded my hands in front of my apron. “Mahalia is a newcomer to Cornucopia, but she’s already been made the President of the Relief Society for her skill with bookkeeping.”

I felt I was being allowed to speak. “I was a CPA on the outside.”

Allred continued. “Mahalia is my spiritual wife in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. I know some find it strange, but that’s of no concern to us.”

“No concern, indeed,” echoed Parley.

Allred said, “These practices were wrongly abandoned by the mainstream. I’m a Brighamite to the core. Plural marriage is a requirement for the exaltation that’ll allow us to live as gods and goddesses in the afterlife.”

I could tell Gideon was doing his best to hold in a guffaw. I sympathized with him. I didn’t believe I’d ever become a goddess, either. So much had been ripped from me in my thirty years. I was pragmatic. What had I seen with my own two eyes that would lead me to believe such scrud? Now I was ashamed that Gideon Fortunati knew I was sealed to a crusty, ridiculous old man such as Allred, as though I’d had any choice. The best years of my life had already passed me by. I had only decades of sameness to look forward to.