Julie Walker - Hell for Leather

“Sure,” she said, brow puckering. “You want some coffee?” She glanced at her watch. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but the look on Zoelner’s face told her he could maybe use something a little stronger. “Or a beer, perhaps?”

“Coffee’s fine,” Zoelner said, standing and walking with her over to the bar. He grabbed a stool while she skirted the long mahogany length. This time she took the time to lift the hinged section at the end before slipping in behind.

While she poured him a cup of joe, her uncle folded his newspaper, grabbed his crutches, and said, “I’m gonna head outside to smoke a cigar.” He shot her a meaningful look. “And I don’t want to hear a word about it.”

“The doctors say you should stop smoking those things.” She placed her hands on her hips, completely ignoring his second sentence.

He rolled his eyes. “The doctors also say I’ve got the cholesterol levels of a twenty-year-old.” He began hobbling toward the door at the back of the bar, the one leading to the alley. “So I figure I’m ahead of the curve. Besides, a man my age has to enjoy what pleasures he can.”

“And speaking of pleasures,” she called to him, “stop sharing your stogies with the agents in the surveillance cars. You’re a bad influence!”

He simply lifted a hand to wave her off.

“He’s a tough old coot,” Zoelner observed.

“And stubborn,” she agreed, smiling after her uncle. “He insists there’s no reason for the CIA to keep an eye on him even though the head honchos in that al-Qaeda group know he’s now the only living person with the exact coordinates of five missing nuclear warheads.”

“Three,” Zoelner said.

“Huh?”

“It’s only three now,” he told her. “Given this most recent development, the DOD decided it behooved them to allocate a portion of their healthy budget to the retrieval of the nukes. Two have already been raised from the sea floor. The salvage of the remaining three is underway.”

“About damn time, if you ask me,” she said, wondering, not for the first time, at the idiocy of a government that would not put the recovery of nuclear weapons at the very top of its to-do list.

Zoelner shrugged, and there was that look again. The one that made her wonder if she should renew her offer of a beer. She tilted her head. “You’re not here at the bequest of Agent Duvall, are you? Was I wrong? Did the Intel I gave them on the ghost accounts Winterfield set up in Argentina not pan out? Does she want me to—”

“I don’t want to talk about Chelsea Duvall,” Dagan spat the name like one usually spits out rancid meat. “She was a pain in the ass while I worked for The Company, and now, thanks to her spiffy new title, she’s a pain in my ass again.”

Uh-huh. Pain in the ass. Did Zoelner realize when he said that, it sounded like a euphemism for my wildest fantasy come true ? Usually she would have called him on his bullshit, but there was that look again. It was really beginning to trouble her. “So, then, um…what did you want to talk about?”

“Do you love Mac?”

“Say what?” She must have misheard him.

“Do you love Mac?” he repeated, and yeah, okay, so she hadn’t misheard him. He’d asked it. That question. The question. Her scalp began to tingle.

“I don’t know how that’s any of your—”

“Because he loves you.”

Thunk. The sentence landed with the weight of a tractor trailer. Was the room spinning, or was that just her head? Then, reality—and the words I’ll see you later, darlin’ —slammed into her. She shook herself.

“Yeah, right!” she scoffed, grabbing the coffee pot to top off his nearly full cup. She needed something to distract herself, to keep him from seeing just how much his words affected her. “The man has been avoiding me like I’m a plague carrier. If that’s how he treats someone he loves, I’d hate to see how he treats someone he hates.”

Zoelner reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photo, slapping it down on the bar. She leaned forward, examining the picture. A woman. Black hair. Blue eyes. Nice face. Curvaceous figure.

“She’s pretty,” she said, trying to stymie the wild race of her heart. Because he loves you. Zoelner couldn’t know just how much she wished that were true. “Who is she?”

“She’s the reason Mac refuses to take a chance with you,” Zoelner said. Delilah picked up the photo, examining it closer. This was the woman who’d ruined Mac? The woman he said reminded him of her? She was pretty. And there was something—

“She’s his mother,” Zoelner said, and Delilah felt her jaw fall open. It was a wonder the thing didn’t land at her feet.

“H-his mother ?”

“Yep. And I want to tell you a story. But before I do that, I have to know if you love him.”

His mother was the mystery woman? Delilah stared at the photograph. She could see it. Mac had those same eyes. That same smile… His mother ? But why did he—

“Hey.” Zoelner snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Earth to Delilah. Come in, Delilah.”

“Sorry,” she said, blinking, her brain spinning in circles the way Fido did when he got bored and caught sight of his tail.

“I have to know,” he repeated. “Do. You. Love him?”

She swallowed, a little afraid to admit it aloud for the first time. But then she took her own advice and toughened up, buttercup. Harley-riding, beer-slinging, yada, yada, yada, right? Dragging in a deep breath, she looked Zoelner square in the eye. “Yes. I love him.” God, it feels good to say it.

“Good.” He nodded. “Because, like I said, he loves you, too. And the fact that he does scares him to death.”

Could it be true? Did she dare hope? “Scares him? But why?”

“Because of Jolene.” He tapped his finger on the photo. Jolene? Mac’s mother’s name was Jolene? “Because she was a faithless cow who ran out on Mac and his father when Mac was only twelve, leaving behind nothing but a selfish, insipid farewell note that didn’t contain a single regret or apology.”

She winced. Twelve? Such an impressionable age. An age when a boy needed his mother for guidance on how to start behaving like a man. “That’s awful.” She frowned her confusion. “It really is. But I don’t understand what the hell it has to do with me.”

“Hang on a second,” Zoelner said exasperatedly. “I’m getting there.”

She made a face. “Then, by all means,” rolling her hand, “carry on.”

Zoelner lifted his mug of coffee, taking a hasty sip. “Apparently Mac’s father was devastated by Jolene’s desertion. See, the man was deeply, tragically, and, if you ask me, a little madly in love with her. Like, seriously, I think Mac’s father went a little coo-coo.” Zoelner whirled his finger in a circle next to his temple. “He spent the next seven years of his life and his very last dime—money that should have gone to running the ranch that’d been in Mac’s family for generations—trying to locate her. No luck. And, according to Mac, even on his deathbed, having finally succumbed to a broken heart and pancreatic cancer, his father was still obsessed, crying out her name.”

“Jesus,” Delilah breathed, shaking her head, chills rippling up her arms.

“Yeah.” Zoelner nodded. “But it gets worse. See, Mac adored and idolized his father. And after the banks foreclosed on the ranch, he busted his ass to get into the FBI Academy so he could finish what his father started, using every resource The Bureau afforded him in order to continue the search for Jolene.”