Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) Read online

  But he wore a kutte—that was what it was called, she remembered—and not just any kutte. He was Horde. She knew enough about them to know that that was not a world her daughter belonged in.

  And Lucie came first. In all things. Her daughter hadn’t been part of her plan, but she was the lynchpin of her life now.

  Trick finished the call and smiled at her daughter. “It’ll be here in about twenty minutes. You want to help me get dishes ready, Lucie?”

  Lucie set the book aside and scooted off the chair. As she and Trick went to the kitchen—hand in hand, no less—Juliana understood that she had to get control of what was happening here.

  They couldn’t be friends with Trick.

  She sighed and picked The Hobbit up from the arm of the chair. Scanning the books to find the place it belonged, she let herself lament the spiral she seemed to be in. They’d just moved here. She’d been looking for a safe place. But all she’d found was a different kind of danger.

  And now she’d signed a lease, and Trick lived within sight of their front door. How was she supposed to separate him from Lucie and her?

  Juliana found an empty space on a low shelf, just to the left of The Lord of the Rings series, and slid the book where it obviously belonged. A casual scan of the spines of his books indicated that Trick’s reading tastes were wide-ranging and eclectic: fantasy, mystery, science fiction, classic literature, military, philosophy, history, biography, religion—and that was just what she’d noticed.

  Yeah, she really liked him. She wanted to sit down with him over a nice meal—just the two of them—and talk. But she knew that friends wouldn’t be enough. Knowing him better would only make that more true. So, then, they couldn’t even be friends.

  She’d have to be forthright with him, she decided. Since they wouldn’t be able to avoid him, she’d simply tell him that they couldn’t be friends. Lucie had only just met him. If they didn’t go out of their way to see him, or vice versa, it wouldn’t be long before he was just another neighbor to her in this large complex full of strangers.

  So she’d tell him. After dinner.

  Which she’d pay him back for.

  ~oOo~

  They’d had a lovely dinner, during which Lucie, after tasting Trick’s curry, had announced that tofu was her favorite food. After they’d all three cleaned up, Juliana said, “Well, mija, it’s time to go. We have to do our Sunday things.”

  They spent Sunday evenings getting ready for their week—figuring out their outfits and planning their meals. Weekdays were busy from dawn to dusk and sometimes into the night, and Juliana had figured out early on that the only way to manage it all on her own was to be highly organized. Her adult life had begun in a chaotic vortex; now she kept everything in tight control. As much as she possibly could.

  “Well,” Trick broke into her thoughts, “Thank you both. It was nice to have company tonight.” He’d spoken as they’d all walked into the living room, toward the front door. Something seemed to occur to him, and he said, “One sec,” and turned to his books. He pulled one out and brought it over: a slim, tattered paperback titled The Phantom Tollbooth. He handed it to Lucie. “Do you know this book?”

  Lucie took it and studied the cover. “The Puh-puh-hantom…” She looked up at Trick. “These words are bigger than me.”

  Juliana crouched to Lucie’s level and took the book from her hands. “It’s a PH like in Stephanie’s name. It makes an F sound.”

  “Phan-tom. Phantom. Oh! Like a ghost!”

  “That’s right,” Trick said. “Phantom Tollbooth. A tollbooth is a little building where people pay money so they can take a trip. It’s the first book I remember really liking. I was older than you. I wasn’t as good a reader as you when I was little. But you can have it if you’d like to try it.”

  “Okay, thank you,” Lucie said, politely. She was too young to be touched by the depth of Trick’s gesture, and the book was tattered. Not especially appealing to a four-year-old, not even one so precocious as her little girl.

  But Juliana was touched by the gesture. Too touched. She kept hold of the book and stood up. “Mija, why don’t you go sit on the steps for two minutes. I need to have grownup talk with Trick. Okay?”

  “Not loud like with Papi, though.” Lucie frowned.

  She hoped not. “No. Not like with Papi. Go on. Say goodbye to Trick.”

  Lucie hugged his legs. “Bye Trick!”

  He put his hand gently on her head. “Bye, Luce.”

  When Lucie was sitting at the top step, about fifteen feet away, Juliana left the door ajar and then turned to Trick. He was frowning. Before she could say anything, he asked, “Do you have trouble with your ex?”

  Yes, but nothing she would share with Trick. “No. Just…normal ex stuff.” Getting back on track, she handed his book back to him. “Thank you. But we can’t accept this.”

  Instead of taking the book from her, his frown deepening, he asked, “Why not?”

  Now for the hard part. Without time to let him down gently, she had no choice but to be blunt. “I’ve told you I’m not interested in pursuing anything with you. That’s still true. I don’t want…my daughter getting wrapped up, and I can see it happening. It’s better if we just stay out of each other’s way before she feels too much.”

  He blinked, and that was the only indication that what she’d said had affected him. But it was enough. In his deep, gentle voice he said, “I wasn’t going to make a move on you. I just enjoy your company.”

  She believed him, but it didn’t matter. “I’m sorry. I’m so grateful for how you helped us—truly. But I don’t think even friends is a good idea.”

  Now he took the book from her. He also took a step back. His face was perfectly expressionless—no anger or hurt or any emotion at all was present, and Juliana sensed that she’d hurt him far more than he would, or maybe could, express. A lump rose in her throat. It would be nice to be with a man like this, who was interesting and smart, who was calm and controlled, who cared about her girl as well as her.

  Why couldn’t he have had a normal life?

  “Can I ask why?” His voice was as flat as his expression.

  “It’s…” She was lost for words. “It’s…it’s who you are.”

  He laughed harshly, and with that sound came a look of hurt surprise. “Well, okay, then.”

  God, she’d said that so wrong. “No, I’m sorry. I meant…”

  “I get it. You should go.”

  “Trick—”

  He reached around her and pulled the door open wide. “Have a good night.”

  She left without saying anything else.

  ~oOo~

  Lucie pulled a pair of tall black boots out of Juliana’s closet. “These, Mami.”

  “Yeah? With which outfit?”

  Still holding a boot in each hand, Lucie crossed to Juliana’s bed and considered the outfits laid out there. “Wednesday.”

  Wednesday was a slate grey sleeveless column dress. “Oh, yes. With the wide black belt.” She sorted through a drawer for the belt in question.

  “Uh huh.” Lucie nodded and returned to the closet for the next selection.

  Juliana adored this Sunday evening ritual, where she and her daughter assembled their ensembles for the week. Lucie wasn’t very girly in most things—her favorite color was midnight blue, and she preferred plastic dinosaurs to Barbie dolls—but she shared her mother’s love of clothes.

  Before her life had been turned upside down, Juliana had dreamed of being a fashion designer. Starting while she was young enough that crayons were her primary art supply, she’d filled dozens and dozens of notebooks with her sketches of pretty ladies in pretty clothes. Her mother had taught her how to sew when she was ten, and by the time she was in high school, she was designing and making her own wardrobe—and her mother’s, too. For her sixteenth birthday, her parents had scraped and saved and had given her a state-of-the-art sewing machine. She used it to this day, sixteen years later.

&nb
sp; She still designed and made most of her and Lucie’s clothes, though time constraints had her designing from scratch less and scouring thrift shops more for clothes she could remake. She could buy an outdated sack of a dress for four dollars and, with a couple of dollars’ worth of supplies, turn it into a fashion-forward party dress that would have cost hundreds at a boutique shop.

  Thrift shops were Juliana’s vice—and her saving grace. She had a home she was proud of and a fashionista wardrobe for herself and her daughter because she knew how to shop thrift, and because she knew how to turn a plain bolt of cloth into something beautiful.

  They’d made their meals and frozen what could be frozen. They’d chosen Lucie’s outfits for the week. And they were almost done with her own. Next was bath time, story time, and bed. Once Lucie was down, she could do her homework—no, wait. Summer session had ended last week. She had no homework until the fall session started up at the end of August.

  That should have been a relief—a rare few hours on Sunday that were just her own. But on this Sunday, Juliana would have welcomed the work that would keep her mind focused. She didn’t want the luxury of an unoccupied mind, because she didn’t want to think about Trick.

  She was right. She knew she was. A safe, stable life for herself and her daughter. She’d been working toward that for years. She couldn’t sabotage that.

  But she’d hurt him, and that hurt her. It shouldn’t, though; they barely knew each other.

  “Mami!”

  Juliana had been staring at the outfits arranged on her bed, her mind elsewhere. Shaking that off, she said, “Sorry, Lulu. What’s up?”

  “These for Friday.” Her daughter held up a pair of cognac sandals. She always picked those shoes to go with the dress they’d picked for Friday.

  “Those look great with the blue. Good choice!” Juliana refocused on her daughter and their routine. She’d have hours later to tear herself up over Trick.

  ~oOo~

  Half-past noon on Wednesday, Juliana went into the lunchroom at Shepard & Grohl and got her lunch from the refrigerator. Though it was the lunch hour, the room was empty; there weren’t many in the office who did more than run into this room to refresh their coffee throughout the day or to snag a doughnut or bagel in the morning. There was a food court on the first floor of the building, and most people ate down there.

  But Juliana ate here almost every day. She earned a decent income for a paralegal, but she was paying for college without student loans, and she was paying for a good preschool for Lucie and a decent babysitter on her school nights. And she was saving as much as she could—a college fund for Lucie, a mortgage fund for them both, a retirement fund for herself.

  Trying to be responsible, trying to make the right choices. Trying to be sure she could take care of herself and her little girl.

  So she shopped thrift and made their clothes; she cooked in bulk and packed their lunches. She drove a ten-year-old car.

  While she sat alone in the lunchroom, eating her reheated tamales, drinking a glass of ice water, and scanning the internet on her phone, her boss, Emily Garcia, leaned around the side of the open door.

  “Are the Dubrovs coming in this afternoon? They were on my calendar for one, and now they’re not.”

  Juliana shook her head, letting that be her answer while she finished chewing and swallowing. There was only one administrative assistant for the three attorneys in their division, so Emily expected Juliana to keep her calendar as well as do her case prep. “No, sorry. Mr. Dubrov called and cancelled while you were in the partners’ meeting.”

  “Did he reschedule? Their court date is Monday, and I’m in court the rest of this week.”

  “I reminded him of that. But he was calling himself, not his son, so understanding each other was tough.”

  Emily huffed. “Dammit, you should have texted me in the meeting. Call Andy. Tell him he has to get his parents here—today.”

  “After two, you’re booked solid the rest of the day.” The Dubrovs would be coming from too far away to make it in that timeframe.

  “Then we’ll stay late.”

  She couldn’t stay late; the preschool closed at six, which was when she was scheduled to pick Lucie up. Rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand—headaches had been pestering her since she’d fallen—she began, “Emily…”

  Emily cut her off with another huff. “Fine. You can go pick up the kid and bring her back here. Just keep her quiet. Get the Dubrovs in here by seven.” With that, her boss disappeared from the doorway.

  Oh, joy. Juliana supposed she should get used to this; being an attorney was not a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday job. Emily had given over every other aspect of her life to her work, and she had given over all of her sympathy and empathy to her clients. She was one of the best immigration attorneys in California, and she had amassed a mountain of wins in a game stacked heavily against the people she represented.

  But she had no patience for anything or anyone who got in the way of her work.

  Juliana intended to find a way to balance being a good and attentive mother and a decent human being with being a committed, effective immigration attorney.

  Lucie enjoyed coming to the office; she liked to play ‘business.’ So that was a kind of balance, Juliana supposed.

  ~oOo~

  It was almost ten o’clock when Juliana pulled her old Nissan Versa into its spot in their new apartment complex’s communal carport. She was exhausted, and Lucie was unconscious, lolling in her booster seat, clutching the ‘file’ she’d made at the office. Her mouth was open, and her little leopard-print dress had hiked up. Peering at her daughter’s reflection in the rearview mirror, her little bare legs, her tiny red Converses and lacy anklets, Juliana thought she looked impossibly young and vulnerable. She took a minute or so and let herself feel nothing but love—no worry, no stress. Just love.

  Then she got out and went to the other side. Pulling her bag from the front, she slung it across her chest and then shrugged Lucie’s little backpack over her shoulders.

  Lucie hadn’t stirred, so it appeared that Juliana was going to have to carry her to the apartment. She weighed thirty-five pounds, and Juliana was wearing boots with four-inch heels. Boots she’d had on since seven that morning.

  As she leaned into the car, she heard the rumble of a motorcycle behind her. She didn’t look; Trick wasn’t the only resident who rode one, so maybe it was somebody else. Either way, it didn’t matter. They’d managed to avoid each other since Sunday, and she would just make sure they kept managing it.

  “Lulu,” she cooed, hopefully. “Hey, niña. Can you walk for Mami?”

  Lucie moaned and tried to curl up. Nope. No walking. Juliana put the little ‘file’ in her own bag, then unfastened the restraint and collected her daughter. She got her settled with her arms over her shoulders and her legs around her waist, and then she hipped the door closed and wrangled the fob to lock the car.

  As she headed out of the carport toward the building, struggling on her stilts and with her sleeping daughter’s hair in her face, she found herself—of course—meeting Trick head on.

  They pulled up short at the same time, and for a second they just stared at each other. He looked good, in his kutte and a white t-shirt with a v-neck, a style he seemed to prefer. His hair looked windblown, though he must have been wearing a helmet on his bike.

  His eyes flicked up and down, taking her state in, and she thought he was going to offer his help. She tried to decide whether she would let him. She wanted to let him.