Quiet Man (Dream Man)

Chapter One

Call A Commando

Smithie

“I’m getting a breast reduction.”

Smithie took his attention from the piece of paper he held

in his hand, looked across his desk and all the way across his office to the

woman striding through the room.

The woman who was the subject of the words written on the

paper in his hand.

His throat was tight.

“I’m going natural,” she finished her announcement.

Charlotte McAlister.

Lottie.

Known far and pretty damned wide as Lottie Mac.

Lottie Mac, Queen of the Corvette Calendar.

Though Smithie just called her Mac.

He’d been wrong. She wasn’t done finishing her announcement.

Mac stopped at the front of his desk and proclaimed, “And

you can’t talk me out of it.”

It took Smithie a minute to force his mouth to regain the

ability of speech.

“I don’t care what you do to your body. It’s not my body. I

don’t know why you think I’d have a say in it.”

Lottie gawked at him.

He got this.

He was a strip club owner and she was a stripper. His

premier stripper. He had velvet ropes to contain the people who lined up,

wanting to watch her dance. It wasn’t a stretch she’d think he’d have a problem

with her getting rid of her implants.

Forcibly pulling his mind from the paper in his hand, he

turned it over and laid it on the desk, giving his full attention to Mac.

And what she was saying.

Mostly, why she was probably saying it.

Before he could dig into that with her, she kept speaking.

“I interviewed seven plastic surgeons in the Denver area.

I’ve chosen one. I’m doing it next month.”

“Why?” Smithie asked.

“Why?” Mac asked back.

“Not heard a thing about you doin’

this, now you’re not only doin’ it, you did all the

research into it,” he pointed out. “So what’s the deal and what’s the rush?”

He knew both.

He just wanted to have the conversation.

“There’s no rush,” Mac lied.

When these women would learn that they couldn’t get away

with lying to him, he did not know. He was in a variety of relationships with

several women of his own, had kids with them, and he’d run a strip club for

decades. He could spot a lie before the person even spoke the words.

Hell, his bouncers were the worst culprits. They thought

they had that, “you’re a man and I’m a man” thing going on when no man was any

kind of man if he lied through his teeth.

“Mac,” he stated warningly.

She didn’t answer his question.

She said, “People will still come watch me dance.”

“I know people will watch you dance. Had Joaquim do a head

count coupla months ago for a few nights. Thirty-five

percent of the people through the door were female. They say ten percent of the

population is gay. So we can assume ten percent of that were lesbians who might

have another reason they’re here to see you. But that means twenty-five percent

of those females were here just to get a drink, but mostly to watch you dance.

And you’re probably the only time a man can get away with saying he comes to a

strip club to take in the talent of a dancer’s moves. You got big tits, you got

regular tits, it’s not gonna affect your line at the

rope. So let’s stop with the bullshit. Now, tell me why?”

Mac lifted her chin and stated, “I’m also looking into sperm

donors.”

There it was.

Smithie sat back in his chair.

“Mac—” he began.

“I’m not getting any younger, Smithie,” she snapped.

As noted, he was in a relationship with several women. They

knew about each other. Mostly, they shared because he was a lot to take and

they didn’t mind the break.

But often, it was a juggling act and he was the juggler.

One thing he learned that helped him not drop a ball was

never to field it when a woman lobbed that at him.

Though, he didn’t field it right then not just because of

that.

“It’s your sister,” he noted.

She shook her head. “It isn’t my sister.”

“How many has she pushed out for Eddie so far?” Smithie

asked a question the answer to which he already knew.

“Jet doesn’t make babies for Eddie,” Mac shot back.

Smithie sighed.

“I’m just ready,” she stated.

“You are not ready,” he returned.

Her face turned from confrontational to pissed.

“You think I haven’t thought about this for a long time?”

“I think, when you decide to bring a kid in the world, once

you think you’ve thought about it long enough, you should think even longer

about it. Then you should talk to people in your life about it. Then you should

think on what they say about it. And only when you’re super, double, extra

sure do you do it.”

“I’ve got the money—”

Smithie shook his head. “It isn’t the money, Mac. But even

if you think you got the money, you don’t got the money. It’s not about the

food in their bellies or the roof over their heads. It isn’t about keepin’ up with all the latest phones and kicks. It isn’t

even about saving for college tuition. It’s all the shit times in life that are

gonna rise up and bite you in the ass that you didn’t

count on. They’re your kid. They’re gonna roll with

the punches. But are you ready to say you’re in the spot you’re good to make

them do that if that shit happens?”

Mac said nothing, looked to the side, then took a step that

way and sat her ass down in one of the two chairs in front of his desk.

She was not ready.

At all.

She was something else.

And Smithie needed to get to the bottom of it and not to

save her fantastic tits.

To save her from jumping too soon into something for which

she was not ready.

He leaned forward in his chair and dropped his voice.

“There’s gonna be a mean kid in

class that gets in their face. There’s gonna be a

health situation that’s probably the croup or a flu that you’re not gonna understand and it’s gonna

scare you shitless. Girls’ll get their hearts broken by an asshole. Boys need

to learn not to be assholes. You gotta have

it together, Mac. No one can be fully prepared for being a parent. But you gotta know you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.”

She held his eyes and said, “I’m ready, Smithie.”

“You’re watchin’ your sister and

her man make babies and you’re so in love with your nephews you can’t see

straight so you’re feelin’ the time tick by and doin’ that, the itch is comin’ on

to one you can’t help but scratch,” he returned.

“This has nothing to do with Jet and Eddie,” she returned.

“Okay, then, how often does Jet go out with those Rock

Chicks? Answer me that, Mac. How often?”

“She sees her crew all the time,” Mac told him.

“Right, and she can do that because her husband is home, lookin’ after their boys.”

She got his point.

This was why she shut her mouth before opening it and

saying, “Or Blanca looks after them.”

“Blanca looks after them when Jet and Eddie are out

together. Unless he’s workin’, no one looks after his

boys but him if their momma ain’t around to do it.”

Mac turned her head and studied the wall.

It wasn’t that interesting.

But she kept doing it.

“Mac, look at me,” he ordered.

She did, that stubborn lift in her chin.

Smithie took his voice to soft. “You’re gonna

find him, darlin’.”

She got his point on that too.

“I don’t need a man,” she bit out.

“No. But you want one and you’re gonna

find him. You just need to be patient.”

She was losing patience sitting right there. “This is not

about finding a man, Smithie.”

“How many of the Rock Chicks don’t got a warm body in their

bed?” he pushed.

“I can get a man whenever I want.”

She absolutely could do that.

She wasn’t beautiful. But she was pretty. Crazy pretty.

Her sister, Jet, had the quiet, shy, girl-next-door vibe

going for her.

Mac couldn’t be more different.

She lived life large and loud. She was sexy, but not brash,

instead ballsy. She had an opinion, she stated it. She loved you, she showed

it. You were toxic, she scraped you off. She identified a goal, she worked to

it.

If she wanted it, she got it.

Except a man.

She was a serial dater, not because she liked to play the

field, but because most men were motherfuckers and she had zero tolerance for

that.

Not that she should.

She just didn’t.

As far as Smithie was concerned, that Rock Chick posse had

lucked out. Found the best men there were in Denver. Claimed them (or got

claimed, whatever). Game over.

Then again, Lee Nightingale had essentially vetted them for

his woman’s friends, so he’d already taken the guesswork out of it.

“Havin’ a kid is a lot easier when you got someone to help,”

he pointed out.

“Havin’ a kid is all on the woman,” she retorted.

“Okay then, smart girl, raisin’ a kid is a lot

easier, you got someone to help,” he revised, and before she could get anything

out of her mouth, he went on, “and you can’t argue that. You had a single

parent home and who raised you?”

That mouth closed.

“Your sister ’cause your mom was

working,” he answered for her. “Now what’s your sister got?” He again answered

for her. “Pointin’ out the obvious, I didn’t wanna hear this shit, but I heard it when you bitches were gabbin’, and from the first, if he wasn’t workin’ a case, Eddie got up with Jet for every feeding.

Every damned one. Went and got his boy and brought him to his wife.

Took him back and laid him down. Same with the next one that came along. And so

on. Jet didn’t even have to get out of bed.”

He had a point to make but he took that too far and he knew

it when her chin wobbled before she got control of it.

“Mac—”

“I want a baby,” she whispered.

He believed her.

She also wanted an Eddie.

“Give it time,” he whispered back.

She threw up both hands. “How much?”

“As much as it takes.”

“Sadly, I can’t Mick Jagger this sitch

and make a baby when I’m seventy.”

Jagger shouldn’t even be doing that shit.

“Honey, you’re still in your thirties,” he reminded her.

“They’re all gone,” she declared.

Now he had no idea what the woman was talking about.

“Who?” he asked.

She bopped forward on her seat with agitation. “Them.

The good ones. The Hot Bunch. The only ones left are Roam and Sniff and they’re

too young for me. Not to mention, if Shirleen thought I’d even spoke their