Czytaj książkę: «Her Perfect Hero»

Chapter One

Tony Veracruz climbed off Engine 59 pumped full of adrenaline for which there was no outlet. Around midafternoon his crew had been called to a house fire in South Dallas. But by the time they’d arrived another company had had the small blaze under control and there’d really been nothing for him to do.

Back at the station, he halted traffic on busy Jefferson Street so Lt. McCrae could back the engine into the apparatus room. He willed the alarm to buzz again, but annoyingly it remained silent.

For the past ten or so hours in the August heat he’d gone on one call after another, including the rescue of a kid stuck in a drainage ditch. All of which had, thank God, distracted him from thoughts of Daralee.

Now, with nothing to keep his brain occupied, he could think of nothing else. He wished he could banish her from his head. She was finished with him, and nothing he could do would bring her back. For the past week, ever since their breakup, the only thing that could wipe her from his mind was the sound of that alarm.

As he followed the engine into its bay and prepared to close the door, movement across the street caught his eye.

“Hey, Ethan,” he called to his fellow firefighter and lifelong best friend. “The lights are on at Brady’s.”

His announcement got the attention of everyone within earshot. The guys who’d been on the engine joined him in the open doorway to gaze at the illuminated beer signs in the front window of Brady’s Tavern. The signs had been dark for the past two weeks, ever since Brady Keller, third-generation owner of the best bar in Dallas’s Oak Cliff neighborhood, had died peacefully in his sleep.

“Maybe it’s opening back up,” Ethan said.

Tony shrugged. “We can only hope.”

Oak Cliff had once been its own town, but Dallas had swallowed it up more than a hundred years earlier. It comprised a large area across the Trinity River from downtown and came with a diverse population and plenty of character. Those who lived and worked there tended to think of themselves as different—outside the mainstream—from other Dallasites. In turn, Dallas proper didn’t think all that much of Oak Cliff.

Brady’s was an Oak Cliff institution, and Tony had frequented the bar since he’d acquired his first fake ID at age seventeen. Located just across the street from the fire station, it was a favorite hangout for cops and firefighters.

And good ole Brady Keller had been as familiar a fixture as his tavern’s sticky wood floors and antique shuffleboard table. He’d always been there, ready to listen, commiserate and even serve up an occasional beer on the house, provided your tale of woe was sad enough. Whenever Tony broke up with a girl—which happened with alarming frequency—he’d headed straight for Brady’s, where he could distract himself with a game of pool, a sporting event on TV and a cold one. Until the bar had closed its doors.

Fire Station 59 had gone into mourning at the news of Brady’s death, especially when the For Sale sign had gone up.

“Did you see who’s inside?” Ethan asked.

“I think I can see someone moving around,” said Priscilla Garner, another of Tony’s good friends. She, Ethan and Tony had gone through firefighter training together. Now they all lived on the same block, worked the same shifts and watched each other’s backs.As the three greenest rookies, they took a lot of grief from the veterans. “Maybe someone bought the place.”

“I saw who went inside,” said Otis Granger, who’d had a stool with his name on it at the bar. Otis hadn’t gone on the last call. “Two girls, and they didn’t look like bar owners to me.”

“Girls?” Tony’s interest immediately picked up.

“Well, women, if you want to be politically correct,” Otis explained. “But one of them was a teenager, I think.”

They were all hoping someone would buy the place and open it up just as it had been. Brady’s business had fallen off some in recent years as newer, trendier bars had opened in Oak Cliff, but none of his regular customers wanted to see the bar change.

“I think we should find out who they are,” Ethan said. “Brady must have family—someone to inherit. He talked about a sister.”

“Tony, go talk to them.” Priscilla gave him a little shove.

“Why me?”

“Duh…They’re female. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have a certain effect on women.”

Otis and Ethan broke out laughing, but Tony didn’t. Whatever effect he had, it never lasted. His longest romantic relationship had ended after only a couple of months.

“Just go find out who those women are,” Priscilla urged. “They must be related to Brady somehow.Ask them what their plans are. Maybe you can impress on them how important it is to sell Brady’s to someone who’ll reopen it and keep things the same.”

“Ethan, why don’t you talk to them?” Tony argued. “You’re the great persuader around here.”

“Yeah, he managed to convince Kat to marry him,” Otis said drily. “Like she couldn’t have done a lot better.”

Ethan puffed out his chest, as he did at any mention of his beautiful new bride. They’d been married less than a month. “Okay, I’ll talk to the ladies.”

Just then, the door to Brady’s opened and one of the women emerged.

Even from a distance, Tony could see she was gorgeous—tall and sleek, with golden hair that blew in the breeze. She wore snug faded jeans that molded themselves to a body made for love and a clingy cropped shirt that showed off her trim waist and breasts that bounced slightly as she strode down the sidewalk.

She stopped in front of the For Sale sign attached to the front window, then reached behind the iron burglar bars and yanked on the paper until it came loose. She pulled it free and rolled it up, tucked it under her arm, then went back inside.

“Hold it,” Tony said. “Changed my mind. I’ll talk to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Priscilla said. “Watch out, Tony’s on the prowl.”

He gave Pris a disdainful look. “Daralee and I just broke up. You don’t honestly think I’m ready to get involved with someone else, do you?”

Tony’s fellow firefighters laughed so hard at this that Otis nearly fell onto the concrete floor and Ethan had to support himself against the truck.

“What? I can’t believe you’re laughing about my messed-up love life.”

“Messed up,” Ethan agreed, “until the next girl comes along. You’ve been mooning about Daralee for, what, a week?”

“We had a good thing going,” Tony said more to himself than Ethan. “I really thought…” He stopped. No time for regrets. That woman with the gold hair was undoubtedly the new owner of Brady’s, and someone needed to talk to her before she changed anything. “Cover for me if Captain Campeon notices I’m gone.” Without any further hesitation, Tony loped out of the station, darting between cars on busy Jefferson Street, toward the gorgeous goddess of a woman who—unknowingly—waited inside Brady’s to meet him.

Brady’s Tavern occupied a two-story building that must have been close to a hundred years old, and the brick looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned since coal stoves went out of vogue. A flock of pigeons had taken up residence under the eaves and the evidence of their frequent presence covered the cracked sidewalk.

The bar’s door wasn’t locked, so Tony pushed it open. A wall of hot, stuffy air, heavy with the scent of stale beer, slapped him in the face. “Hello? Anyone home?”

A teenage girl bounded up to him like an eager puppy. “Hi. Who’re you?”

“Tony. I work at the fire station across the street. Are you the new owner of Brady’s?”

She nodded. “Well, my mom is. This place is so cool. Do you play shuffleboard?”

“Not only do I play, I was the Brady’s Tavern shuffleboard champion two years running. Where’s your mom?” Surely the woman he’d seen removing the For Sale sign wasn’t this girl’s mother.

“My mom is Brady’s sister. Was. Whatever.”

“Then Brady was your uncle. It must have been tough losing him so unexpectedly. He was a great guy.”

“Not according to Mom. She said he was a drunkard black sheep who couldn’t be trusted with a dime.” The girl rocked back on her heels, apparently not realizing she’d insulted someone Tony had considered a friend. And her mother’s information was outdated. Brady had quit drinking twenty years ago.

“Could I speak to your mom?” He looked around the bar, which seemed strangely empty without the usual smattering of cops, firefighters and “siren sisters”—the female groupies who were turned on by any man who wore a badge or wielded a hose. But he didn’t see the blond woman.

“My mom is at work. But if it’s anything to do with Brady’s, you’ll want to talk to Julie.”

“Julie?”

“My sister.”

Ah. That made a whole lot more sense.

“She’s counting the glasses or something. Trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of.”

Then he’d better talk to her right away before she did something stupid—like throw away the Daryl Jones memorial ashtray.

Tony heard some clinking going on behind the long carved-wood bar and figured that had to be where Julie had disappeared to. He made his way to the bar, his feet schlup-schlupping with every step on the sticky floor.

Ah, it was good to be back here. Brady’s was lit up like a Christmas tree, with its vintage signs. They covered almost every available bit of wall surface and illuminated the interior, which was crammed full of tables and chairs, pool tables, dartboards—guy heaven. Every corner had a TV, and when the place had been open all of them were always tuned in to a smorgasbord of sporting events.

A lonely silk ficus tree lurked forlornly in a corner, covered with dust. Supposedly one of Brady’s girlfriends had put it there one time, trying in vain to class the place up.

“Excuse me, Julie?”

She popped up from behind the bar, a pair of yellow rubber gloves on her hands. Looking startled, she stared at Tony for several seconds of charged silence. She had the most amazing amber eyes. He’d never seen eyes that color before. She reminded him of a golden fawn or an unspoiled woodland nymph.

“Yes?” she finally said. Her low, sexy voice sent shivers down his spine and a rush of blood through his veins.

Tony shook himself out of his daze. How could he be attracted to this woman when his pain over losing Daralee was still so fresh? It was just hormones playing a nasty trick on him. “Hi, I’m Tony Veracruz. I work at the fire station across the street, and we were just wondering…are you going to keep Brady’s? We saw that you removed the For Sale sign.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Do you want to buy it?”

“Believe me, we’ve talked about it. But the price tag is a bit high for us working stiffs. We just really miss the place—and Brady. He was a great guy. It was terrible losing him so suddenly. You’re his niece?”

“That’s right. Julie Polk.” She extended her hand across the bar’s polished surface, realized she still had gloves on, removed the right one hurriedly and tried again.

Tony took her hand, and rather than shake it as he would a man’s, he squeezed it. It was a lovely little hand, with perfectly manicured nails polished a pearly pink. Tony’s stomach gave a peculiar swoop.

Julie’s mask of detached politeness slipped and a flicker of awareness passed over her face. So she felt it, too?

The teenage girl, who’d come to lean against the bar resting her chin on her folded arms, cleared her throat.

Julie extracted her hand from Tony’s. “This is my sister, Belinda. I heard her talking to someone, so I assume you’ve already met.”

“I did have the pleasure, though she didn’t volunteer her name. It’s a beautiful name, too.” He’d almost named his daughter Belinda, so he wasn’t deliberately laying it on thick.

Belinda blushed furiously. Though her hair and eyes were darker, she looked much like her sister—which meant she was probably already breaking hearts in all directions.

“So your mother is the new owner of Brady’s?” Tony asked Julie.

“Yes. She and Brady owned it together, but she’s been more of a silent partner. They weren’t very close.”

“That’s too bad. It’s sad when families drift apart.” He was thinking about his own family. Due to his parents’ multiple marriages, Tony had lots of stepsiblings and half siblings, some of whom he’d lost touch with. “So your mother has decided not to sell?”

“Frankly Mom really doesn’t care. She’s asked me to deal with it for her.” Julie put the second rubber glove back on and resumed her task, which appeared to be counting beer mugs and entering the tally on a clipboard. She gave him a nice view of her denim-clad bottom in the process, which Tony fully enjoyed—until he realized Belinda was smirking at him. He diverted his gaze to the picture of the naked lady above the bar.

“But you are going to reopen?” Tony persisted.

“It would be a shame for the business to leave the family after we’ve owned it for three generations.”

That sounded promising. “Yeah, there’s a lot of history here. Who are you gonna get to run the place? Brady had a guy working for him, Alonzo. He’d be a great manager.”

“You don’t think I could run Brady’s?” she asked, challenging. She put the clipboard down and devoted her full attention to their conversation.

“Well, you’re…” Tony stopped himself before he misstepped. Some women had accused him before of being a male chauvinist pig. But it wasn’t because he didn’t think women deserved equal rights or that they weren’t as smart and capable as men. The opposite was more like it. He thought women should be treated better than men. And he didn’t think any woman as beautiful and refined as Julie Polk should have to sling beer and deal with groping, drunk customers.

“I’m what?”

“Too pretty to work at a joint like this.”

Her gaze fell, her long lashes casting shadows on her smooth cheeks. “Thanks, but I don’t have the resources to hire someone else to run the place. And since I’m currently between assignments, as they say, I’m the logical one to take on the job.”

“More power to you, then.” Tony grinned. Brady’s was coming back! The guys at the station would be over the moon. “And don’t worry,” he added, “you’ve got lots of friends in the neighborhood who’ll help you out. So when are you planning to reopen?”

“Oh, I’d say it’ll take a few weeks to refurbish the place, work out the menus….”

“Menus?” Brady had served microwave nachos, popcorn and beer nuts. You didn’t need a menu for the basics. “You’re going to change Brady’s?”

“Brady’s is not going to be Brady’s.” And a big smile spread across her face, dispelling the polite, almost icy mask she’d been wearing and transforming her into an angel. Tony was so entranced with how she looked he almost missed what she said next. “It’s going to be Belinda’s.”

“Belinda’s…Bar?” he asked warily.

“Belinda’s is going to be the coolest tearoom in all of Dallas.”

Julie gathered that sexy Tony Veracruz was not happy with her announcement. He stared, his jaw hanging open, for several seconds as he processed her news.

Lord, he was gorgeous. Those well-defined cheekbones, that smooth olive skin and brown eyes a girl could drown in. Funny, she’d always thought her ex-fiancé, with his aristocratic clean-cut blond handsomeness, was the best-looking guy around. But Tony’s earthier looks struck a chord deep inside her.

When he’d said she was pretty, the compliment had given her heart palpitations. But how silly was that? He probably told a half-dozen women a day they were pretty.

“Did you say…?” Tony’s voice trailed off.

“Yes, isn’t it great? I’m turning Brady’s into a tearoom.”

“On Jefferson Street?”

“The perfect place, don’t you think? Oak Cliff is in the middle of a renaissance. I see revitalization all around us. The historic district is right across the street. Those mansions in Kessler Park are only a mile away. Then there’s the Bishop Arts district—lots of sophisticated restaurants and bars going in there.” She was using all the same arguments she had used to convince her parents to okay this venture, though truthfully they hadn’t cared much what she did with Brady’s so long as it brought in some cash.

The moment she’d seen the place, despite its coat of grime, the thought had flashed into her mind: Julie Polk, owner and manager of the classiest tearoom in town. Wouldn’t Trey be surprised? When she’d given him back his ring, he’d told her she would never make anything of herself without his help. But she was going to show him and his whole family how wrong they were.

Besides, she also wanted to transform Brady’s into Belinda’s for herself. After her disastrous broken engagement, she needed something she could call her own; something no one could take away from her.

She resumed counting beer mugs. They were nice, heavy glass ones, and she could use them as iced-tea glasses. Almost everything else would have to go, though. She’d been doing a quick-and-dirty inventory since she and Belinda had arrived this morning, and the results were depressing.

“But Brady’s is a neighborhood institution,” Tony argued. “You can’t close it for good.”

“I don’t really have a choice,” she said practically. “I know absolutely nothing about running a bar. I do, however, know a great deal about managing a tearoom.” She’d spent a year as manager of Lochinvar’s, the oh-so-tony tearoom inside Bailey-Davidson’s, the upscale department store owned by her ex-fiancé’s family.

Belinda’s was going to be much cooler than Lochinvar’s, which had been around for fifty years and attracted mostly older matrons. Belinda’s was going to bring in the younger women, the rich hipsters who frequented Hattie’s and Caribe in Bishop Arts—the ones who knew Oak Cliff was the cool place to be, the ones who thought Deep Ellum was just a bit too grungy and Highland Park too stuffy.

“But Brady’s is a gold mine,” Tony argued, following her along his side of the bar as she moved to count the next shelf of glasses. “It’s packed most nights with hard-drinking men and women who buy lots of beer.”

“What a charming picture. Anyway, I’ve looked at the books. The place might have been crowded, but the customers weren’t spending enough money. Brady’s profits were way down. There’s almost no money in the accounts either.”

That didn’t surprise Tony. “Brady spent it as fast as he could make it. He was a soft touch. He gave money away to any hard-luck story that came his way. He even hosted free Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless.”

“He did?” Julie was surprised. According to her mother, Brady had never done anything that didn’t directly benefit Brady. “That sounds so nice.”

“You didn’t know him?”

“Not really. Anyway, the point is, the books don’t lie.” She’d been taking classes at community college with an eye toward a degree in business management. She knew a bit about accounting. “Brady’s was barely breaking even.”

“Okay, so maybe the place isn’t a gold mine. Yet. But with the right management skills…” He looked pointedly at Julie.

“I’ve done the research. The demographics are changing. A more upscale establishment on this street will be cutting-edge. Belinda’s should be extremely profitable, even with the investments I’ll have to make to refurbish the place.” Julie was counting on some quick profits. Clever Belinda, with her perfect SAT scores, was going to attend an Ivy League university. And since the Davidsons had withdrawn their pledge to finance Belinda’s education, it was up to Julie to figure out how to pay the staggering tuition by next fall, only a year away.

Even though Belinda was certain to get some sort of scholarship, there would still be huge expenses. And her parents couldn’t contribute anything. They could barely take care of their own bills.

The real-estate agent had told Julie it could take months or even years to sell Brady’s for a fair price. And all the mortgages and liens Brady had on the building would eat up the proceeds from any purchase.

Opening the tearoom was a much better idea. She could sell everything—and there were some collectibles tucked in and around Brady’s, like the cigar-store Indian and the vintage pinball machines and neon signs. With the proceeds and her own little nest egg, she could transform this place into a posh yet cozy oasis that would provide her and her family with income for years to come.

Eventually, she would have to pay off Brady’s creditors. Fortunately, however, they’d been willing to work out terms when she’d explained she wanted to get the place back in business.

Julie had done the math. She really could manage this.

“You can’t do this,” Tony said. “Please, Julie, I’m begging you. You’ll be destroying a piece of Oak Cliff history.”

Julie stopped counting beer mugs. She kept losing track, and who could blame her when this gorgeous man was distracting her? She wondered exactly what he’d be willing to do to get her to change her mind, then immediately banished the thought. She’d broken her engagement less than a month ago. She was still reeling over her fiancé’s betrayal and the astounding realization that he and his whole family had expected her to brush his indiscretion under the rug. She had no business letting sexy Tony Veracruz heat up her blood.

“Mr. Veracruz, look around you.”

He did. “Yeah?”

“This place is a dump. It’s a dive, a blight on a neighborhood that’s trying to come back. I’m going to improve it, beautify it, make it a showplace Oak Cliff can be proud of.”

“Well, I’ll admit Brady’s could use a good scrubbing.”

“What it could use is a nuclear explosion. That’s what it would take to get the dirt off these floors. Everything reeks of stale beer and cigarette smoke.”

“You could clean the place up,” Tony tried again. “We’d help you.”

“I’m sorry, Tony.” And truly she was. Brady’s had probably been the sort of place where some people felt they belonged. Like Cheers, only grittier. Finding a place to fit in, to belong, was important, and she should know. She’d been trying to figure out where she fit her whole life.

Not in Pleasant Grove, the blue-collar suburb where she’d grown up in a housing project. She’d always known there was something better for her out in the world and she’d thought she’d found her place working at Bailey-Davidson’s. She’d devoted nine years of her life to it—watching, studying, improving herself, moving up the department-store career ladder, slowly accumulating college credits so that she would eventually qualify for higher management positions.

She loved that store. She loved being around the beautiful clothes, the delicate bone china, the designer bed linens—oh, how she loved the linens department.

Most of all, she’d loved being around all those well-educated, refined, soft-spoken people. And when Trey Davidson had noticed her, accepted her, when his friends had welcomed her into their circle—even though she couldn’t claim an Ivy League affiliation or a single drop of blue blood—she’d thought she’d found her place. Up-and-coming Bailey-Davidson’s executive and wife to the store’s heir apparent.

A dream come true.

Except the dream had turned into the proverbial nightmare, and Julie had once again found herself afloat in a strange sea in which she didn’t belong, wondering what she would do with her life.

Belinda’s could be her place. Her creation, her universe. She could surround herself with beautiful things, fine foods and people who appreciated the same things she did.

Tony Veracruz, she guessed, would not be one of those people. Which was a pity. Let Marcel at the Bailey-Davidson’s salon cut Tony’s hair, then put him in an Armani suit, and he’d fit right in at any office in any glass high-rise in the city. But Julie suspected that sort of life didn’t appeal to him. She could tell he liked himself the way he was and liked where he was in life.

Which was fine. That was part of his appeal, actually—the fact that he was obviously so comfortable in his skin.

His gorgeous skin.

“How ’bout I take you out to dinner tomorrow?” Tony asked. “We could get some burgers. You could tell me more about this tearoom idea of yours.”

Oh, she was tempted. For one thing, she hadn’t been out to eat at a real restaurant in weeks because she’d been hoarding her pennies.

But she had an idea that if she let Tony take her out, even for an innocent hamburger, before long he would be telling her more about what a great place Brady’s was and how wrong she was to change it to a tearoom, and she would start to doubt herself.

She didn’t need that. She’d doubted her judgment enough after finding out the man she loved had been lying to her for months—maybe longer. She needed to surround herself with people who would encourage her and support her and help her make Belinda’s a resounding success.

Julie wouldn’t have cared so much about this venture if it was just about herself, but she would do whatever it took for Belinda. Her sweet, brilliant baby sister was going to have the chance to make something fantastic of herself, and nothing was going to prevent it. Not the miserable, self-serving Davidsons, not her parents’ apathy and certainly not a fireman who was sentimental about a run-down eyesore of a neighborhood bar. Even if he was sexy as hell.

“I’m sorry, Tony. I appreciate the invitation, but I have so much to do,” she said coolly. Which was true enough.

“Another time, then. I better get back to work.” He flashed her a dazzling grin, turned with a jaunty wave and exited out the squeaky front door.

She hoped he wasn’t serious about asking her out again. She might not have the strength to turn down his next invitation.