Undefeated Page 2

  The red creeping up Tucker’s neck spread full force over his cheeks as he slumped in his chair.

  “No, these are my usuals.” His voice was a whisper. “It’s pathetic, but a small part of me hopes she thinks of me with each batch she makes.”

  It was kind of pathetic, but it also made Xander pity the man. And who was he to offer pity?

  Tucker straightened, hauling his chair closer to Xander’s. “Every time I come, I have the best intentions of trying something new. She knows that. But my brain goes into lock down when she’s staring at me. I see all the choices in the world in front of me, and I can’t think of anything but how happy my usuals make me because they remind me of her. Like if I kissed her she’d taste like chocolate pecan French toast on a lazy Saturday morning.”

  Was that a normal thing for men to admit to each other? He was really out of practice with the feelings stuff. Awkwardness filled the space between them. Xander shifted, resting his forearms on his knees. “That’s really poetic, man.”

  The kitchen door opened with a whoosh. Lucy bounced into view as she rounded the counter. “All right, boys. Here’s your breakfast.”

  She plopped the tray onto a small table and dragged it in front of Xander and Tucker. “Warm bran muffin for Tuck and a cinnamon roll, omelet, and a glass of milk for Mr. Indecisive. Enjoy.” With a flip of her hand, she disappeared behind the counter again.

  They thanked her as they stared at the meal in front of Xander. The cinnamon roll was almost the size of his face, and the omelet had to be at least four jumbo eggs and half a pig.

  Xander managed three-fourths of the omelet and over half of the cinnamon roll before surrendering. Tucker eyed the food, but said nothing. Reluctance pulled at Xander’s core. Share the best meal he had in years? Or sit here until he could clear his plate?

  “Well, here’s your chance to try something new on the house,” Xander said as he nudged his omelet plate across the table. The cinnamon roll he’d get a box for.

  Tucker polished off the remainders, moaning with every bite. His vow to order the omelet next time sounded like a boy promising to not pick on his kid sister, sincere but unlikely. Thankfully, a simple “how about them Broncos?” redirected Tucker in a heartbeat. When Tucker stood to leave, Xander joined him, debating where to go next and missed Tucker’s outstretched hand until he was retracting it.

  “Oh, um, thanks for the ride,” Xander said.

  Tucker nodded. “Take care.” He called out to Lucy whose muffled response came from the back, then disappeared down the street.

  For the rest of the afternoon and evening, Xander sat on the bench outside the bakery and waited. A few people sat down next to him and attempted conversation but he shut them down with a polite nod. Each passing hour carved away a little more of his foolish hope and the rest of his leftover cinnamon roll. By nine o’clock, he’d run out of possible excuses for why his parents hadn’t arrived and no longer lifted his head at the sound of a vehicle passing.

  The venom he spewed in his mind stopped when a pair of sandaled feet sporting painted blue toenails appeared next to his shoes. What really alarmed him was that his anger had drowned out her footsteps, leaving him vulnerable. The bench creaked when she sat.

  A light flowery perfume wafted toward him. She smelled fantastic. Head down, he stayed still, hoping she’d take the hint and move on. Instead she crossed her jean-clad legs.

  Resting against the seat back, he kept his gaze on his lap. “If you’re looking for the bus, the last one for the evening left six-and-a-half minutes ago.”

  “It’s a good thing I have a car then, isn’t it?” Her voice was buttery smooth, laced with humor. “I’m Gia.”

  He glanced in her direction. Her curly black hair framed dark eyes, a straight nose, and full lips. The sunset’s failing light illuminated on her smooth, light brown skin. She was as beautiful as her voice.

  Her lips quirked. “Are you staging a protest? Or waiting for your business meeting to start tomorrow?”

  Why did people keep expecting him to share his life story? He kept silent.

  She pressed on. “You’re not very talkative for a guy who has been sitting on a ‘Happy to Chat’ bench all day.” Her fingers tapped the metal placard between them. Sure enough, sitting on this bench declared he welcomed conversation with people.

  He grunted.

  “You planning on keeping this bench company all night?”

  No one was coming for him. “Yeah, I guess I am.” He took her silence as disapproval and swallowed his pride. “I don’t really have any other options.”

  “I know a place you could stay for the night.”

  When her offer registered, he scooted a few inches to the right, putting some distance between them. “Oh, no. I’m—I’m not looking for that. I’m passing through.”

  Gia laughed, a warm, comfortable sound. “Good, because I’m not that kind of girl. And if you tried something, I’d have to put my concealed carry permit to good use.” She crossed her arms. “I’m offering you the use of the Golden city council’s humanitarian living quarters which happens to be an apartment above my detached garage.” A car rushed by and honked, prompting a wave from Gia. “The police officers of this fine town frown on attempts at overnight bench-warming. If they see it, they’ll give you a ride to the city limits in the direction of your choosing.”

  So he could be someone else’s problem. Roger that.

  Still, no psychologically stable female would offer a strange male a room even if it was charity from the city. What were his chances of meeting the town psychopath his first twelve hours here? With his luck, pretty high. “No catch?”

  She lifted her hands in surrender. “You are free to decline my offer. Say the word. Lucy said you’ve been sitting here for hours after finishing the biggest plate of food she’s ever given a man for free. Golden doesn’t have many loiterers. But if you accept, I’ll see if I can help you get where you hope to go in the morning. If it makes you feel any better, Tucker was once in this same position and is now happily employed as you can see.”

  He studied her as she smoothed her fingers through her hair, seemingly relaxed and sincere. She couldn’t be that dangerous, could she?

  Chapter 2

  When Gia Carter answered Lucy’s call around three o’clock to tell her about the handsome suited stranger who’d waited for hours on the bench, Gia had laughed at Lucy for ogling an out-of-towner waiting for the bus. But when Lucy had texted at eight forty-five saying he was still there, she’d agreed to come have a look. If the man answered to the name Bronc, Gia would relocate her entire life tonight without a backward glance.

  But this stranger on the bench was not her abusive ex-boyfriend Bronc, nor was he a dark shadow from Lucy’s past. For fifteen minutes, Gia had watched as he hadn’t gotten on the bus or acknowledged pedestrians. He hadn’t moved or looked around. He’d sat on the bench with his back to the brick wall, his gaze fixed on where his shoes met the cement sidewalk. Except for his indecision about breakfast, Lucy had said she thought the guy had his act together. If it was his intention to blend in, he’d failed miserably, but that didn’t seem to be his game.

  Despite his initial misunderstanding of her offer, he agreed to go with her. Gia wasn’t setting aside her intense distrust of dark-haired, well-put-together men, but her reputation of taking in strays preceded her. The man’s haunted blue eyes promised his story would be worth hearing.

  His tall frame stretched out in the passenger seat of her crossover SUV. His linked fingers rested in his lap, seemingly at ease. What surprised her more was that he had nothing to say. Most of the homeless men she’d put up liked having someone to talk to about their life problems—incoherent or conspiracy theorists as they were.

  Gia changed the music to rap to see if that would stir him a bit, or at least merit a reaction. It did. He tapped his finger against his leg.

  Fascinating.

  To be in a man’s presence who didn’t drill her over
her life story brought a unique sense of relief. The silence almost compelled her to ask his story instead, but she’d learned to wait people out over the years. “You never told me your name.”

  He didn’t look her way. “Xander Reinerman from Lakewood, Colorado.”

  “Gia from New Orleans, now a proud resident of Golden.” She’d respect his attempt at heading off her questions. They were almost to her house anyway. One more left turn brought them into her driveway. “The room you’ll be staying in has everything you’ll need in it except a kitchen. There is a mini-refrigerator and a basket of snacks by the desk.”

  At his sharp glance, she shrugged. “The city council is generous. Homeless people have to sleep somewhere until they get on their feet. Now in the morning, I’ll unlock the door to my house at 7:30. You’re welcome to come get some breakfast between then and 8:15. Let me park the car, and I’ll show you to your room.”

  He didn’t need to know that including her was the city council’s way of becoming more racially diverse. And their financial support of the humanitarian quarters was their response to a meeting she requested after being stopped by a police officer during her first week in Golden and asked laughingly if she planned to cause any trouble. As if it were a joke to him. It certainly wasn’t to her, so she made sure their apology did good for others, not just her.

  Xander exited the car but didn’t move from her brick-paved driveway. He stared at the ground with his hands in his pockets while she parked and closed the garage door.

  “This way, please.” At the top of the outdoor staircase, she unlocked the door. She tried to put herself in his shoes. It was no five-star hotel, but it was spacious. According to former occupants, the queen-sized bed was seven for seven in beating out the metal bench at the bus stop. She strode to the closet and opened the doors. “Clean clothes are in here. I’m sure there’ll be something that fits you. New underwear and sock packs are on the shelf. Help yourself. Toiletries are in the bathroom. Use whatever you need. If something is missing, please let me know. There’s a speaker button by the door that calls into my house.”

  In the glow of the ceiling fan light, she studied him. He stood at the side of the room taking it all in with dull eyes and a hard-set face. Life hadn’t been easy on him. Finally, they settled on her with an assessing gaze.

  “Aren’t you afraid of what I could do to you?” His deep voice settled over her like a silk robe.

  “Not at all,” Gia said. Her grin widened when surprise flickered across his face. “My house has a fantastic alarm system, and I’m always armed.” Gia patted her purse. “If you tried something, you wouldn’t get away in one piece.” She knew she sounded arrogant, but she didn’t grow up in a Brazilian household in New Orleans without learning how to protect herself. And successfully. Daddy made sure of that.

  He'd warned her that some people feared others with a different skin color and they used fear as an excuse for evil.

  Besides, Xander had at least one hundred pounds on her, and she’d wager she could move faster in quicksand than he could on concrete. “Sleep well, Xander. See you in the morning.”

  He laid his suit coat on the bed and followed her to the door. “I’m very grateful for your hospitality.”

  With a nod and smile, she escaped without having to answer any of the typical questions that were lobbed her way from her rescuees. Like why she was always armed? Protection from the unforeseen. Was she vanilla or chocolate? Best answer, swirl. Was she sure she didn’t need a warm man in her bed? Her body was the sole occupant of that bed. No exceptions.

  The questions were always personal. Her past, her stories were not something that staying in her guest room granted them access to. She did, however, leave one piece of evidence for guests to find if they were snooping. In the bedside table underneath a notepad, an article clipping reviewed her first-place win in the Junior Sharpshooting Regionals in vivid detail. Though she’d quit competing, she never stopped training. Beyond that article, her parents censored her from the public eye with the strongest team of publicists out there.

  As Gia crossed the brick path to her house, she heard Xander flip the lock into place. Good, the man had some sense. Inside, she locked her own series of bolts, armed the security system, and dropped her keys into a bowl in the mud room. Most other young women in Golden made do with a dead bolt and a porch light since the crime rate in the area was practically non-existent. But with her parents running the third largest import-export business in the country, Gia had a lot to lose. They had powerful enemies who wouldn’t mind sending Gia back to New Orleans in a cooler with a toe tag, professionally and physically.

  That wouldn’t happen if she could help it. And she could. One of the reasons she offered her room to strangers was to keep an eye on them. Although if someone were coming for her, they wouldn’t spend hours sitting on a bench in downtown Golden first. She padded down the hall to her bedroom. Xander’s silence had intrigued her. There would be a lot of satisfaction in hearing his story, if he stuck around.

  *****

  The next morning Gia’s alarm went off at seven. She showered and dressed for the day in a lightweight skirt and tank top. Colorado summers got warm, but the sun didn’t boil the water in the air first like it did in New Orleans. Aside from family, the beach and the food were the only things she missed about NOLA.

  Eggs and bacon sizzled on the stove when Xander walked in dressed in a blue t-shirt and jeans comically cinched onto his narrow hips with a brown leather belt. The suit hadn’t done him justice. That shirt stretched across his broad shoulders just right, not to mention the color highlighting the blue in his eyes.

  She grabbed a strawberry from her cutting board and popped it in her mouth. “Good morning. Hope you slept well.” She pointed to the refrigerator with her knife. “Milk and juice are in the door. Glasses are in the cupboard to the left.” She stirred the eggs and flipped the bacon as he poured himself a glass of milk. “You any good with a knife?”

  “Better than most.”

  “That’s terrifying.” With a smirk, she handed him a knife and crossed the kitchen, keeping him and the knife in her peripheral vision.

  He flipped it in his hand. “It’s dull.”

  Gia huffed. “You said you were better than most, so why would you need a sharp one?”

  The corners of Xander’s lips tilted upward. “Fair enough.”

  “If you could continue cutting the strawberries, slice thinly so they’ll taste sweeter.” Every kind of summertime strawberry tasted sweet to her, but a little extra effort would tell stories of his character. She set the bacon on a plate to be blotted before dropping the diced potatoes into the bacon grease. “Hope you’re not a vegetarian or in any danger of a heart attack. I’d hate for my breakfast to be the death of you.”

  Xander grunted. “I’m not picky. There are a number of things that will likely kill me before food does.”

  What carcasses are hanging in your smokeshed? She lifted her glass of water in the air. “Cheers to that.”

  A smile lightened his features as he raised his glass of milk. The man had dimples and perfect teeth. Lord help her. She drained her water and redirected her attention to browning the potatoes while the rest of the food was still warm. “What’s on your agenda for the day?”

  “A job search, I guess.”

  Scratch stranded businessman off the list. She shoved the potatoes around the pan in silence, waiting for any clue he’d give her. He provided nothing more.

  “The Denver Post should be out front if you want to look through the classifieds. If you would, please save me the comics and the crossword puzzle.” She dished the potatoes into a serving bowl and stuck a spoon in it. “If you’d rather use a computer, I’ll log you on.” She handed him a plate and dug the yogurt out of the refrigerator. “Have as much as you’d like.”

  “There’s a lot of food here. You trying to compete with Lucy?”

  “Definitely. Lucy gets as many marriage proposals in a week
as Jennifer Aniston gets in an hour. It gives the rest of us Golden girls inferiority complexes.”

  He shoveled food into his mouth as soon as his backside hit the barstool. “I don’t mean to insult Lucy’s kindness, but this breakfast wins the prize.”

  Gia pulled a stool out and parked herself a good distance from his left elbow. “I feel my confidence boosting already, but no need to flatter me. You can go back for more if you’d like and I won’t charge you a dime.

  He nodded and continued eating. “What do you do besides run a bed and breakfast for strangers on the council’s nickel? Because if the others are like me—” Xander scratched his head. “It didn’t sound like they’re exactly rolling in the dough.”

  “In my spare hours, I’m an architect.” She clucked when his fork paused midair. “Surprised?”

  His lips tilted upward. “Not at all. You seem well-structured.” Stepping off the stool, he grabbed his plate and refilled it without meeting her eye.

  A joke. Adorable. Gia grinned. “What kind of work are you looking for?”

  He shrugged his impossibly broad shoulders. “Anything that pays enough for me to survive.”

  Exhaling, Gia slipped her dishes into the dishwasher. That left his options wide open while revealing nothing about him. She strolled outside to grab the newspaper from the driveway. He’d cracked a joke. That was social progress for knowing someone less than twelve hours.

  If she insisted on her privacy, her guest deserved the same space. He didn’t need her rehabilitating him when she had her own personal repairs to make. But that’s what opening her spare room to strangers was about, wasn’t it? A lesson on kindness, generosity, and trust towards the less fortunate.

  It was what Uncle Angelo would have done, what he had done—giving to those who didn’t deserve an ounce of his generosity, much less his resources. Paper in hand, she grabbed the door handle and rested her forehead against the frame. Not a day went by that she didn’t regret calling him to get her and Joey from the drag races that night. They shouldn’t have been there in the first place. When Grandpa Ignatious challenged her to find her purpose and conquer her fear, getting Angelo killed was not in the plan. She’d spend every day of her life atoning for it.