7. Rusty
CHAPTER 7
RUSTY
“ Y ou’re gonna think I’ve lost my mind, but is it okay if a couple of girls stay over in your house?”
Rusty had checked the time difference, and Norway was nine hours ahead of Las Vegas. It was already Sunday over there. He’d spent the whole of Saturday considering his options, wondering whether he’d be crazy to accept Ari’s offer, but there’d been no sign of Kelsey and stress-eating French fries wasn’t helping his fitness levels.
Mav cackled. “A couple of girls? Nice work, buddy.”
“Not like that, man. This whole surveillance thing is harder than I thought, and I met a pair of PIs who said they’d help in exchange for room and board.”
“Room and board?” Another laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m not looking for a hookup.”
“If they’re really PIs, I bet you a hundred bucks they know you signed a seven-million-dollar-a-year contract with the Commanders.”
“I didn’t even tell them I played hockey.”
“You realise people watch TV, right?”
“So far, I’ve lost Kelsey four times, and I have no idea who she met with last night. Do you want to stop Silas from making a huge mistake, or don’t you?”
Rusty and Mav had met at the University of Minnesota, where they’d played for the Gophers along with Dax Rushton and Nathan Hart. Dax and Nathan had joined the Richmond Raiders after they graduated, and it was the two of them who’d had the idea to send him on this fool’s errand in Las Vegas. Rusty barely even knew Silas Armstrong.
“I want Dax and Nathan to stop whining,” Mav said.
“So is it a ‘yes’ on the PIs? The one in charge said she could provide a reference. Some sportsbook guy here in Vegas—she does work for him. And the other one says she’s Kai Kealoha’s sister.”
“The surfer?”
Mav had moved from Norway to Huntington Beach when he was three years old, and he’d been brought up on a diet of sunshine and surfing until he developed a crush on a figure skater at the grand old age of eleven. He’d talked his mom into taking him to the rink, and the rest was history, although he still visited the beach every chance he got.
“Yeah, the surfer.”
“Give her the room. Give her whatever she wants.”
“Huh?”
“She saved Zach Torres’s life last year.”
Really? The same Erin who’d gotten into a fight with a bunch of social media influencers and ended up in the hospital?
“Again: huh?”
“She ran into the ocean like a lunatic and punched a guy on live TV.”
Strangely, that did make more sense. Erin was one of those “act first, think later” chicks .
“You know what? Having her help out with surveillance might not be the best idea.”
“Wait, wait, I’ll send you the video. It’s on YouTube.”
Rusty’s phone pinged as the link arrived, and he hit “play” with some trepidation. He should have been home in Kittson County right now, helping out on the family farm, although he’d missed planting season and it wasn’t time to harvest yet. Most of the folks on his team thought he was bananas for heading home in the offseason rather than flying to Antigua, or Hawaii, or Europe. But the old saying was true—you could take the boy out of Minnesota, but you couldn’t take Minnesota out of the boy.
At least, that had been true until March of this year.
The split with Florence had been painful, but he hadn’t truly believed it was over until he heard the rumours about her and Kirk Steiner. Rusty’s own sisters had confirmed the stories were true. Savigny—pronounced Sa-vig-nee, not the French way—was a small town. Sooner or later, he’d bump into the woman he’d loved since elementary school and her new fiancé. But that was yet another item for the “tomorrow’s problem” list. Today, he had the Kelsey Dorrias mystery to solve.
On-screen, a shorter-haired Erin ran toward a guy on a jet ski, splashing through the waves as she stumbled along, and slugged him in the face. When he fell into the water, she stole the jet ski and zoomed off.
Mav was still laughing. “Feisty, right?”
“More like crazy. Why would she even do something like that?”
“That guy was up to some nasty shit, so the story goes. Get me her number?”
Crazy or not, Erin didn’t deserve to be hit on by Mav Johansen.
“Get it yourself. How’s the wedding going? ”
“The groom was ready to hook up with a stripper at his bachelor party. I was getting out my phone to record the evidence when the best man puked on the asshole’s shoes and the stripper got the hell out of there. I give it six months.”
“You’re not going to warn your cousin?”
“If I ruin her big day, she’ll hate me more than she hates Elias, and so will every other woman in my family. Besides, if she leaves him after five months but before six, I win three thousand kroner.”
“How much is that in dollars?”
“About four hundred bucks.”
“The price of happiness,” Rusty muttered, both disgusted and totally unsurprised. “You should tell her. Save her from making a big mistake.”
“At least Katherine is trying.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You haven’t looked at a woman since Flo dumped you.”
“Don’t call her Flo. She hates it.”
“Newsflash: she can’t hear us.”
Right, because she was in Savigny at this moment, no doubt in bed with Kirk, who Rusty had considered a friend until that motherfucker stole his girl. Okay, so they’d been on a break, but it would have been a temporary bump in the road if Steiner hadn’t gotten involved. “I just need some space to think things through,” Florence had said about his decision to sign a new contract with the Commanders. “I really thought you’d make the right choice.”
Rusty hadn’t realised there was a right choice. Hadn’t realised that when she said, “I’ll leave it up to you,” it had been a test.
“Well, I hate it when you call her Flo.”
“Just go follow Kelsey, and if she’s cheating, you and Silas can commiserate together.”
Mav had always been king of the ice and an asshole when it came to women, probably because he treated every girl he dated as a commodity rather than a partner. So Rusty had no hesitation in telling him where to go. It wasn’t the first time, but insults rolled off Mav like coffee cups off a car roof.
“Hang the fuck up and go get the goods on your cousin’s fiancé.”
“You really think I should get involved?”
“What if he doesn’t use protection? What if he gives her an STI? Or gets the next stripper pregnant? Or worse, what if he gets Katherine pregnant and then there’s a kid tangled up in the mess?”
“I’ll think about it, okay?”
Rusty hung up and tossed his phone onto the coffee table. Other than the mirror on the ceiling in the master bedroom, the house hadn’t been decorated by Mav, that was for sure. There was a lot of white, accented by what the interior designer had probably referred to as “jewel colours.” And velvet. Velvet was a feature.
Four thirty a.m., and a yawn crept up on Rusty. Years playing sports had taught him more about his own mind than a psychology degree ever could, and he knew if he didn’t decide on Ari’s offer one way or another, he wouldn’t sleep a wink. He picked up the phone again. Played the surfing video once more. Twice. Three times. Okay, he could see why Mav might want Erin’s number, but she was still crazy.
Crazy, but if Mav was right, she’d also saved a man’s life that day.
Before he could change his mind, he typed out a text to Ari.
Rusty
Got the okay on the room. Call me ASAP.
He didn’t expect the phone to ring thirty seconds later .
“Do you make a habit of calling people in the middle of the night?”
“You were obviously awake. If you don’t want people to call you ASAP, don’t tell them to call you ASAP. You decided you didn’t need a reference?”
“Mav saw some video of your friend punching a man on a jet ski and decided that’s the type of woman he’d like to get to know.”
“I’m afraid he’s out of luck there. Erin isn’t interested in men.”
“Relax, I wasn’t going to give him her number.” Then curiosity got the better of him. “She’s into women?”
“She doesn’t date, period. So if you think this is going to be anything other than a surveillance job for her, then we’ll call off the arrangement right now.”
Ari sounded strangely protective. Fierce, even. Boy, she really didn’t want her assistant corrupted. Or had she googled Maverick Johansen and found out about his reputation?
“I’m not interested in anyone but my girl back home, and Mav is in Norway for another three weeks.” Maybe longer if the wedding turned into a shitshow. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Does it involve any lewd suggestions?”
“I’m not that kind of guy.”
And it actually hurt that Ari thought he might be. Hadn’t he acted the perfect gentleman with Erin earlier? Okay, so his hand had strayed close to her ass, but he’d been holding her over a sink at the time.
“In that case, go ahead.”
“If you were about to get married and your fiancé cheated with a stripper, would you want to know?”
“Too damn right, but someone better remove the scissors from the house first. Why? Is this something to do with the Kelsey case? ”
“No, Mav’s at his cousin’s wedding.”
“Yikes.”
“I said he should get evidence and tell her, but he’s worried all the women in his family will hate him.”
“That’s a risk, but they’ll hate him more if they find out he knew and kept his mouth shut. So, surveillance… What time do you want Erin to meet you?”
“Kelsey’s staying at the Neptune, and she’s an early riser. She’s been going to the dining room for breakfast at seven, so I guess we should avoid going in there. I’ve been waiting in the seating area opposite for her to leave. There’s a palm tree big enough for a person to hide behind, but I’m not sure two people will fit.”
“First rule of surveillance—it’s often easier to hide in plain sight.”
“What if Kelsey sees us?”
“Just act as if you belong.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“I’ll have Erin meet you at Maverick’s place at six. Get some sleep.”
For a whole hour? Terrific.
The knock on the door came at five fifty-eight, and when Rusty opened it, Erin looked far too perky for that time in the morning.
“I would have brought coffee, but this place is fancy, so I figured you probably had a machine for that.” She hesitated for a moment, then squared her shoulders and walked in without being invited. “I’ll make the drinks while you put on a shirt.”
“You’re early,” was all he managed to get out.
“Better two minutes early than a minute late, that’s what my momma used to say. Do you take milk and sugar?”
“Milk, no sugar.”
Okay, this wasn’t normal. Erin turned her back on him and skipped to the kitchen without ogling his abs, so maybe Ari had been lying about the lesbian thing? Every woman looked at his abs, even the ones who pretended not to. Rusty returned to the bedroom, bemused, and pulled on a Nevada Storm shirt he’d found in Mav’s closet. His conscience whispered traitor, traitor, traitor , but no self-respecting Commanders player would be seen dead with a rival’s logo on his chest, so the shirt worked as a disguise of sorts.
Fully dressed, he headed for the kitchen, where he could hear Erin opening and closing cupboards.
“How are your eyes?” he asked.
“Sore, but I can see just fine. Hey, this is a neat place. The coffee machine does froth and everything.”
“Do you know how it works?”
“Oh, please. I used to work as a barista.” She gave a rueful smile. “For, like, two months.”
“Why did you quit?” Rusty asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
“I got fired for throwing a latte at a customer. It wasn’t boiling hot or anything.”
A groan escaped before Rusty could stop it. “What did they do?”
“Groped my boob. He said it was an accident, but it totally wasn’t, and I’m allowed to defend myself. Men shouldn’t do that.”
“No, they shouldn’t.” And what the hell kind of man had the audacity to grope a woman’s breast in public? “You’d better hurry with the coffee. We need to get to the Neptune.”
“Okay, but before we go, how attached are you to the beard?”
“Pretty attached. It’s growing out of my face.”
“You know what I mean. I looked at pictures of you online, and you always have the beard, so it seems to be a permanent fixture.”
“It is.”
“But you were worried about getting recognised yesterday. If you shave, I bet you’ll look totally different.”
“Wait, you looked me up online? How? I only gave you my first name.”
“First name, plus your friend’s name. Your friend is a hockey player, and you’re built like a hockey player, so if you type ‘rusty hockey player’ into Google, guess who comes up on the first page? I mean, you don’t even need a private investigator for that, just someone who’s kinda curious.” She raised an eyebrow. “Rusty Bolt? What were your parents thinking?”
“I was named after my grandpop on my momma’s side, and nobody stopped to think about what kids at school might say. Are you always this tactful?”
“Ari says I need to work on my filter.”
“You should take her advice.”
“Want me to put the coffee in travel cups?”
“I don’t know if Mav has travel cups.”
“There are two in the cupboard beside the microwave.”
“Are you always this nosy?”
“That’s part of my job.”
Yeah, okay, that was true. “Do you want to drive, or should I?”
“I don’t have a licence, so it’s probably best if you do.”
“You don’t have a licence? Then how did you get here?”
“Ari dropped me off at the end of the driveway.”
Rusty was slowly waking up. “Hold on a second… How did you get through the gates?”
“I saw the combination when you typed it into the keypad last night. You should cover your hand when you do that.”
It’s too early for this. Erin appeared to be part lunatic and part genius, either a winning combination or a nightmarish one. Only time would tell which.
“Back to the beard,” Erin continued as the coffee machine hissed. “What are your thoughts?”
“I like the beard.”
She gave him a pitying glance. “Weak chin?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do.”
“I do not have a weak chin.”
Erin just looked in his direction, her lips scrunched to one side, and even though his chin status shouldn’t matter one bit, he found that it did. Erin was the human equivalent of grit in his shoe, but somehow, her opinion mattered.
“Fine, I’ll shave the fucking beard. Happy?”
“I’m delirious. That’s a new word I learned, and it means?—”
“I know what it means.”
“Okay, Mr. I-Went-to-College. If you need scissors, they’re in the drawer to the left of the stove.”
In the bathroom, Rusty hacked away at his beard, cursing under his breath. His chin was not weak. It was a perfectly fine chin. He just spent a lot of time on the ice, that was all, plus he came from Minnesnowta, and the beard kept his face warm. Granted, the cold was less of a problem in California, and he rarely went home in the winter now, but he’d had the beard since he was in high school, and he’d almost forgotten what the bottom half of his face looked like. But he grudgingly admitted that Erin was right. Nobody would recognise him without the beard, and they’d recognise him even less if he wore the spectacles she held out to him as he was about to exit the house .
“Put these on,” she instructed. “The lenses are plain glass.”
“Do you want me to chop off a leg too? I bet nobody would recognise me with crutches.”
She tapped her watch. “Just drive. We don’t want to miss Kelsey, and I’m hungry.”
Erin had shown up for surveillance duty in tight blue jeans and a hot-pink tank top. Subtle, it wasn’t. But as Cole looked around the dining room in the Neptune, he realised half the women in there were wearing bright colours and jeans. Erin would have stood out more if she’d worn black. Kelsey was already there when they arrived, checking her phone while she picked at a bowl of fruit, and Erin chose a table several rows away, then waved Rusty into a seat with his back to their quarry. Erin sat facing her, and boy, could that woman put away food. She couldn’t have been more than five feet three with the build of a long-distance runner, but she chowed down on two eggs, bacon, toast, and hash browns, then finished with a glass of orange juice. Rusty had teammates who ate less than Erin did.
She’d even brought a guidebook with her, and while she shovelled food into her mouth, she flipped through the pages, chatting about attractions they’d never visit. At one point, she even leaned over to ask the woman at the table next to them what her favourite show on the Strip was.
When Kelsey got up to leave, she didn’t give them so much as a cursory glance. Erin quickly wrapped a spare croissant in a napkin and shoved it into her giant purse, then she rose as well.
“In case I need a snack,” she explained, grinning as she hefted the purse onto her shoulder. “We’re just two tourists doing the tourist thing. Act natural.”
Act natural? How could he do that when Erin was the first woman he’d spent time with since Florence kicked him to the kerb? The sooner this is over, the sooner I can go home. But where was home now? Savigny didn’t hold the same appeal that it once had, and he’d always viewed his rental in Fresno as temporary.
Erin snapped her fingers in his face. “Don’t your feet work?”
Rusty forced a smile of his own and followed her out of the dining room.