How Beauty Loved the Beast Page 7

  “She needs pants and shoes, too,” Mercy added.

  Jolie kept her smile stuck on as she shot Mercy a warning with her eyes. Between her teeth she said, “I don’t have that kind of money on me.”

  Mercy shot a pointed smile right back. “They take IOUs, and I think everyone knows you’re good for it, Miss Benoit.”

  David’s expression changed to undisguised irritation. “Dragged her down to check us out, eh?”

  “No,” Mercy assured him. “I followed her here.”

  With a noise of disbelief, David pulled a measuring tape from his pocket but didn’t advance on her with it. “Usually we take measurements. We don’t typically work in sizes around here, although I can approximate if you’d rather.”

  “I already know them. Dance costumes.”

  He pocketed the tape and pulled out a pad. “Should I start you a record, or will this simply be for today?”

  Mercy started to answer for her, but Jolie stopped her with a hand. The shopkeeper’s attitude was starting to piss her off. “A record. I’m an Underlighter. I may come back down here.” She grabbed the notepad, scribbled her information and handed it back.

  “I’ll await your return with bated breath.” The shopkeeper walked away as he studied the sheet, already dismissing her.

  Jolie rolled back her shoulders, affronted. To Mercy she said, “I’m going to end up with the ugliest thing in here, aren’t I?”

  Mercy waved a hand around, looking a bit insulted herself. “Yeah, ’cause there are so many awful things in here.”

  Wait, Mercy was mad at her and not the shopkeeper? Seriously, what the hell? “That’s not what I meant. What’s going on?”

  Mercy shook her head, thick, black hair shifting around her shoulders as her brown eyes brightened. “You’re a dumbass sometimes, you know that?”

  “Okay. Sometimes. But I have no idea what I did this time.”

  “You’ve been with us nearly three months and never bothered to buy Underlight goods? Are you crazy? Everyone knows you’re loaded. I shop Goodwill most of the time so I can spend the other half of my clothing budget here. You have no excuse to not have at least tried. The artisans here make good stuff. Quality. And pretty.”

  “But everyone kinda hates me. Why would they make me clothes?”

  “Did I mention that you’re loaded?”

  “That doesn’t matter to anybody down here. They’re practically a commune.”

  Mercy rolled her eyes. “The artisans down here are still human beings who like having their work appreciated and purchased by people with good taste. And we are practically a commune. Not they. Maybe if you acted more like an Underlighter, they’d start treating you more like one. Ever think of that?”

  Jolie frowned as she took that in. Maybe Mercy had a point.

  “You’ve had doors opened for you your whole life, haven’t you, with people just begging you to come inside.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Jolie narrowed her eyes. She hated having her upbringing thrown in her face, like wealth equaled happiness.

  Mercy threw up a hand with a friendly smile. “Sorry, honey, but I grew up with seven siblings on the east side. Watching rich white girls struggle with basic human interactions fulfills something in my soul. I’m a bad person, I know.” Shaking her head, she headed for a slinky red skirt on the wall. “Hey, David, what do you think Jenny would part with this for?”

  David poked his head out of a back room. “Ah...her son wants to learn how to shoot. I bet she’d swap it, along with alterations, for a gun safety class.”

  “Done. It’s mine!”

  Was it really that easy? Jolie scanned the room, taking in unique clothing on molded forms, shelves of sweaters, a rack of funky jewelry and sturdy shoes lining the far wall. Mercy headed back her way with that same mocking smile.

  “Fine. I’m a dumbass,” Jolie said.

  Mercy nodded. “Apparently sometimes.” She shrugged. “Then again, who isn’t? Unfortunately, I have something else we need to talk about besides fixing your social life.”

  At the sudden seriousness in Mercy’s tone, Jolie straightened up. “It’s about Cassie, isn’t it.” Mercy was a detective with Austin PD.

  “Sorry, chica. You were the one to find her. I’ve got a few questions, in case you want to tell me a different story than you told my brethren in arms last night.”

  * * *

  The kitchen smelled of bacon, and Hauk thought Jolie might like some. He entered to find his best friend Brayden at the stove, looking his usual morning rumpled and rakish self but without the satisfied grin of a night well spent.

  Hauk had gotten some and Brayden hadn’t? He couldn’t help feeling smug. Brayden’s mom was Pilipino and his dad Jamaican. The asshole was not only exotic-looking but had managed to inherit the best features of both races: dark bronzed skin, black eyes, smooth hair. As far as sex was concerned, he tended to get whatever and whenever he wanted.

  Not that Hauk would admit it aloud, but after four years of trying to be stoic next to his best friend, the hook-up king, a morning reversal was salve to his embittered soul.

  Elsewhere in the kitchen, a couple cut up honeydew melons, and Tally and her boyfriend LaRoche, the teen geniuses of the Underlight, made pancakes. Her pixie blond hair and his black braids shook as they laughed over some private joke.

  “Done with the flour?” Hauk asked.

  LaRoche nodded in companionable acknowledgement. “Should we make an extra stack?” He picked up the bag and shook it, sending particles floating around the kitchen.

  Hauk shook his hands at it. “No, no. Thanks.” Flour ripped up Jolie’s insides. He didn’t get how it worked, but he knew it was bad. He put the flour bag back in the cabinet where it belonged then grabbed a rag to clean specks off the counter surfaces so none could fly into whatever he made and cause her pain.

  “Are you whistling?” Brayden asked.

  “Yup.” Hauk’s mom used to sing old Disney songs while cleaning the house. He’d sung along with her as they washed dishes or mopped floors until he’d gotten old enough to decide he was too cool for that. But they still ran through his head whenever he did chores, and sometimes, when he wasn’t remembering not to, he still whistled.

  Brayden’s voice got closer. “Let’s see...whistling a happy tune. Scouring gluten from the counters like a madman. And it’s eight-thirty in the morning.”

  Hauk turned to see his friend smirking. Standing up as straight as he could, he tried to keep a neutral expression as he held the cleaning rag in one hand and cleaner bottle in another. It was nobody’s business what he and Jolie did or didn’t do.

  But the entire kitchen had stopped their culinary efforts to stare at him.

  He shrugged, casually as he could, and dropped the rag in the laundry basket. “Just makin’ breakfast.”

  “For two?”

  He shrugged again like it wasn’t the biggest deal ever. “Yeah.”

  Brayden’s smirk brightened into a smile that was all sunshine, free of his usual cynicism. “Want some bacon to go with it?”

  Hauk couldn’t stop a small grin. Jolie did like bacon. “Sure.”

  Brayden returned to the stove with a, “Yessss.”

  “Omelet or scrambled eggs?” Tally asked as she pulled eggs out of the icebox.

  “Uh...omelet?”

  “Melon?” somebody else asked.

  “Sure?” Hauk answered.

  LaRoche handed him a knife. “Pick your fillings. We’ll get the eggs.”

  He could feel the back of his neck heating in a blush. “You guys...” don’t have to do this. But they were. Because they were his friends, and they wanted him to be happy. “Thanks.”

  Tally cracked an egg, winked at him and sang, “Just whistle while you work...”

  He provided the answering bird whistle, to the general merriment of the room, and started chopping spinach.

  * * *

  Jolie filled Mercy in on all the details of last ni
ght as she tried on clothes.

  Mercy had been right about the shopping. David had significantly warmed to her as she picked out several new additions to her wardrobe, including a green sweater, corduroy pants and a pair of new boots that all fit well enough to head to class in.

  She exited the changing room with her final stack of purchases and finished her retelling with, “You might want to talk to Hauk. While I was around the corner trying not to hyperventilate, he took a better look. I just hope LaRoche can tell us what was on that needle.”

  Mercy nodded. “Yeah. I’ll try to keep tabs at the station. It’s not my case, so...”

  “Be careful.”

  “Mercedes!” Three women in their late twenties waved on their way into the workshop behind the display room.

  Mercy nodded a friendly acknowledgement back.

  “Happy hour Friday? We’re heading topside.” The woman turned from Mercy to Jolie. “Uh, Jolie can join us. If she wants.”

  Now she was getting invitations. Jolie had to come down to the store more often. “Thanks, but I can’t Friday. I have a date.”

  The women nodded awkwardly at her.

  “With Hauk,” she added. That changed everything.

  Two of the ladies grinned, but the other widened her eyes. “He scares me.”

  “Hush, Beth, it’s not his fault.”

  She blushed, “No! Not that. He’s just so big. And he fights so viciously. Didn’t you see those videos?”

  The ringleader cleared her throat and spoke to Jolie. “Don’t listen to her. Hauk is a doll. Have fun.”

  Jolie laughed. “I’d better get back. The ‘doll’ is making breakfast.”

  A chorus of “awwws” greeted that. The ringleader put a hand on the clothing pile in Jolie’s arms, and her voice came out carefully neutral. “Are you buying these?”

  “Yeah.” Jolie set them on the counter and motioned at the new ensemble she was wearing. “These are for today.” She gave an appropriately sheepish grin, not that she felt the least bit sheepish. “I found myself in need of clothing this morning.”

  A twitter of excitement from the ladies. The ringleader nodded briskly, neutrality changing to satisfaction as she picked through the not-small stack on the counter. “We’ll get back to you when the rest are ready.”

  “And I just...walk out wearing these?”

  The woman pursed her lips in mock severity. “I’d warn that Hauk will track you down should you neglect to pay, but in this case Mercedes might be a better threat.”

  Mercy pumped a fist. “Mad, bad and dangerous to know, that’s me. And I’ll join you for happy hour. Somebody’s gotta get Beth’s tipsy derriere back home.”

  “I wasn’t drunk! I swear!”

  Jolie laughed as she headed for the exit.

  “See you tonight, Jolie!” Mercy called before turning back to the ladies. “Yeah, you just hung out in the bathroom for twenty minutes and don’t remember what you did there. That’s not the least bit drunk.”

  With a smile on her face, Jolie quickly made her way to the common area. She’d spent a little longer than she’d intended, but it was worth it to feel more like a real citizen of the Underlight. Once in the great room, she found Hauk at a table by himself in front of a feast. With that hyperawareness he had, he stood and turned before she reached him.

  She smiled and planted a kiss on his cheek before sitting next to him. “You were busy.”

  He sat and fidgeted with a napkin. “I, uh, had help.”

  “Mmm...tasty.” She reached for the bacon. “I take it everyone approves?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone. Fruit?” He held out a spoon of fruit salad—definitely not something Hauk would’ve made himself.

  “Yum!” She tapped her plate, and he dished some out. Spearing a piece of cantaloupe with her fork, she bumped shoulders with him teasingly. “But they figured it out?”

  His discomfort was strangely precious. “I apologize. Apparently, whistling is the equivalent of wearing a sign that says, ‘I had an orgasm with a woman last night.’”

  “Don’t forget this morning.”

  A choked cough sounded behind them, and Jolie craned her neck to find Travis standing there, eyes blinking. “Uh...good morning,” he said. “Apparently a really good morning for some of us.”

  Travis worked at her condo as a valet and moonlighted as a journalist for Saoirse Press, a political blog run by the Boston Underlight. He looked like a scruffy surfer-boy, but like any good journalist, he had a suspicious streak and an inquisitive mind that Jolie, the daughter of a news media mogul, appreciated.

  Hauk rubbed the back of his neck. “Fuck. I swear I tried to be discreet.”

  Jolie laughed. “Travis, join us. We have breakfast for twelve. Hauk?” She grabbed his chin. “I don’t care who knows about us.” To prove the point, she kissed him.

  He froze. When she pulled away, he darted his eyes around the room as if searching for who noticed.

  Her smile slipped. “Unless you don’t want people to know?” That would be a first. Parading her around like the latest model Maserati was usually activity number one for a new boyfriend.

  Hauk locked his eyes back on hers. “No. I’m proud to be dating you. Don’t think otherwise.”

  But there was something he wasn’t saying.

  Travis hopped up from where he’d just sat across from them. “I’ll come back later. Hauk, I need to talk to you.”

  Jolie put a hand up to stop him. “No, no. Sorry. Sit. I can’t stay long anyway. I gotta get to class, and I’d hate for all this to go to waste.”

  “Yeah, sit,” Hauk added. “What’s up?”

  Travis tentatively lowered himself back to the bench, surveyed the food and then dug in hungrily. “So, ah, I’ve been looking into that video.”

  Hauk’s jaw tightened. None of them had to ask which video Travis meant. It was the one that proved Hauk had gone berserk while serving in Afghanistan, killed the seven other men of his squad and torched their barracks. It was how he’d gotten burned and why he was a fugitive with a life sentence in military prison hanging over his head. Hauk had no memories of the night, and until that video had fallen into their hands, everyone in the Underlight, including Hauk himself, had assumed he was wrongly convicted.

  The video had also shown that Hauk and the other members of his squad had tattoos of Atropos. As a berserker, Hauk was immune to the tattoo’s magic, but the other members had been under the control of Ananke. As far as Jolie was concerned, Hauk hadn’t murdered the men as much as released them from slavery. Ananke had done the killing when their free will was stolen from them. But Hauk still hadn’t taken the news of his “guilt” well. It wasn’t like they could explain magic to a court of law either, which made any hope of getting his conviction overturned that much more dim.

  Travis avoided Hauk’s eyes by focusing on his eggs. “I’ve found some interesting things around that time and place. But it would help if I had a little more to go on. Jolie mentioned there might have been more extenuating circumstances. But she wouldn’t say more.”

  Jolie bit her lip. Before the fire, Hauk had caught his squad doing something big and bad. Out of respect for their memory, he wouldn’t say what.

  By the rigid set of his countenance, she didn’t think he was going to now, either. But he surprised her by unlocking his jaw to say, “Operation Echis.”

  “Echis?” Travis asked.

  “Deadly little bitch of a snake that lives in Afghanistan. We called it a saw-scaled viper, but I had a buddy who was into snake hunting and knew all the science-y names, which is the only reason I know what that means. But that’s all I’m going to say.”

  “More might help me—”

  Hauk cut him off with a glower. “Help you what? Satisfy your curiosity? It was five years ago on the other side of the world, and we are too late and too far away to do jack shit about it. I killed seven people who depended on me then set our house on fire. I was rightfully convicted. Nothing you
find will change that.”

  Travis nodded, but the confusion on his face said his reporter’s brain didn’t understand how Hauk could live with the mystery.

  Jolie tapped her temple against Hauk’s shoulder, unsure how best to comfort him. He nodded an acknowledgment before turning back to his food. Paused as a thoughtful look crossed his face.

  Cautiously, he put an arm around her waist. At his tug, she scooted closer. He nodded again, this time in the affirmative, apparently deciding his experiment in social touching was successful. His thumb hooked into the waistband of her new pants, as if claiming her.

  She liked it. Particularly after that weirdness when she had publicly kissed him.

  For a few minutes they ate and talked about inconsequential things—her classes, Travis’s quest to find a job in a newspaper not owned by her father, Hauk’s latest project at the forge.

  Too soon, she rose to leave. Sat back down and poked Hauk in the side. He jerked away then resettled himself with a frustrated hiss.

  Whoops. She hadn’t meant to make him uncomfortable. On the other hand, maybe if she did that sort of thing enough he’d get used to it. She’d have to ask him what was best next time they were alone. In front of Travis, though, she moved on like nothing had happened. “You got a notebook and pen I can borrow? I don’t have anything to take to class.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck in another motion of discomfort. “Check my desk. Take whatever you need.”

  “Thanks. Are you sure that’s okay?”

  “Oh yeah, yeah,” Hauk said, his usual smile smoothing back into place. “It’ll have work notes in it. Don’t pay ’em too much mind. Speaking of, I like your earrings.”

  This morning on her shopping trip she’d found them, thin pipes of silver that curved asymmetrically, matching without being identical. They were striking pieces, imaginatively designed and well crafted. “I like the artist’s style. Pretty fond of the man, too.” Despite his instructions, she’d pay a lot of mind to Hauk’s work notes.

  He lifted one of his metal eyebrows. “Artist, huh? Never been called that before. I hope whoever was keeping shop didn’t make you pay for those.”