Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 57

"Oh?"

"I've got a car waiting."

"I see," he said, pulling a face.

He followed her down and out the front. Minami blushed and hurried into the car when she saw the 'Fire Lane - No Parking' sign, but no ticket meant n.o.body had noticed yet.

She slipped it back into gear and they were off.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I hadn't really thought about it."

"Someplace j.a.panese?"

She shot him a look. "I could eat that at home, if that was all I wanted."

"No, then?"

"Not a chance."

"Hm."

"Still open to suggestions," she said, turning the car at some arbitrary point to stop them getting out of town while they talked about dinner.

He didn't have any, and neither did she, so they ended up stopping at someplace cheap. Wes wisecracked that it must have been her first time at a place like this-he didn't know about the year she'd spent here alone, and she wasn't going to tell him. No reason to.

They ate, they went back, no problem. Minami didn't make the same mistake this time, instead slipping into one of the parking spots in the back of the building and hoping she didn't come back to find the car up on blocks with the wheels stolen.

Then again, she supposed, it might come back on her but the guys who stole those wheels would be the ones who would really regret it, so maybe it would be fine.

She let herself smile at that thought. They sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't like it one bit. No, sir. She followed Wes up to the apartment, not sure what she was going to do if he wanted to go for a second try today. They'd been f.u.c.king like rabbits already, the past few days. How long could this keep on going? And for that matter, she needed to get the Bentley back to her father's house.

Wes opened the door and stepped inside, and immediately got knocked to the floor. He let out a loud yelp as a bat came down hard on his arm, but he forced himself to turn over.

Minami pressed herself back against the opposite wall of the hallway, unable to help or do anything, but unwilling to leave him alone to his fate.

She didn't recognize the man who was holding the bat, or the one who had the thick metal rings around his hand who had caught Wes with the first blow, but she recognized Yakuza when she saw them. These weren't some local American street punks.

Her father hadn't sent them, though, which was surprising by itself. The one with the knuckle dusters seemed to recognize her, and then abruptly stopped paying attention, his attention fully used on the man below him, who had caught the bat between his hands and was trying to yank it free, but couldn't get up.

The heavy steel knuckles came down hard on Wesley's face, opening up a wicked cut above his eye that bled immediately down his face.

Wes twisted the bat out of the Yakuza's hand, and then abruptly jabbed the handle into the guy's face, sending him stumbling backwards. Another hard punch to the face, though, and Wes's face was a mask of blood that she would only barely have recognized as human if she'd seen it on the street. He took the bat in his hands and arced it up, hard, cracking the dude on his skull.

A cry of pain ripped from the Yakuza standing above him, the other one finally bringing himself back to bear as Wes pushed himself back up to his hands and knees. The guy dug the point of his shoe into Wesley's ribs and sent him flying a few inches into the wall.

If she didn't stop them somehow, Minami thought, they were going to kill him. But in spite of that, she tried to find the words to speak, to tell them to stop, to tell them that he was under her personal protection.

But the words wouldn't come. It would mean revealing her connection to the Yakuza, telling Wesley that she was from a world she hated, reviled, never wanted to be a part of. She had to tell him, had to eventually, but in the middle of a fist fight?

Wes took the decision out of her hands when he rose to his knees and took a wide swing that cracked the guy on the side of his cheek, sending him sprawling back into the kitchen once more, and from the sound of things, he wasn't getting back up any time soon.

The next hit, the one that Wesley sent for the guy with the steel knuckles, wasn't any prettier.

Sixteen.

Wes Wes forced his eyes to stay open. He'd never taken a hit half that bad, not in years, and he would spit if he didn't have a concussion. Which meant that closing his eyes more than an instant, he probably wouldn't open them again.

Minami had left. She should have left. But now it was G.o.d d.a.m.n hard to keep his eyes open. He stood up to pace around the apartment, and then sat back down. He wasn't sure how far he'd be able to walk in this condition, and he didn't want to fall asleep on his G.o.d d.a.m.ned feet. There was water in the fridge, though. That could be useful to have.

He pushed himself up on unsteady feet and used the back of the sofa as a support as long as he could, then let himself wobble his way to the far wall and around the corner into the kitchen. Which wasn't as bad as he'd expected it to be, but his knees threatened with almost every step to buckle out from under him.

The fridge came open easy and he crouched down and took a bottle out, leaned his shoulder into the edge of the fridge as he twisted off the cap and took a sip. Cool, clear water was as much as he could as for right now. It went down cold all the way to his belly, and then he set the bottle on the counter and pushed himself back up.

He closed the fridge and started the trip back. His knees already felt a little better. If he was lucky, he might even be able to walk again in another hour.

More than that, it would be nice to be able to give the girls something, even if it was only a few hundred dollars. He had a plan, one that he was hoping would provide dividends as long as he could keep fighting. One that would multiply his money quickly and painlessly-or, without any added pain. But he had to keep some money, even after that gremlin of a man had paid him extra to avoid getting clobbered.

Wes settled back into the sofa and took a long drink of water and tried to relax, without letting his eyes droop shut. They threatened to do it every few minutes, and then he'd lean forward on his elbows, or slap his face. Until then, it wasn't every five minutes, it was every ten. Then every twenty. Until he was feeling better, though it was still as dark as could be. He finished the bottle and went to get another, found that he could make the trip without holding the wall.

Which meant he couldn't justify sitting around the apartment, not any more. He grabbed the keys from the hook on the wall and started down to the elevator. It dinged open, he slid inside, and pushed his back against the wall. Better safe than sorry. He pushed the b.u.t.ton and the door closed with a loud sc.r.a.ping noise, and then the elevator started to hum as it went down.

Wes made his way to the car and settled into the seat, turned the key and brought it to life, then turned on the radio. He wasn't going anywhere in the next few minutes. Even that short trip had taken more energy than it should have out of him. He could already feel the wooziness coming back, just a little, and that meant that he should definitely wait as long as he could justify before pulling out of that parking lot. That is, unless he had a G.o.d d.a.m.ned death wish.

Wes took another deep drink from the water bottle and then set it into the pa.s.senger seat, too large to fit into the cup holders. Another sucked-in breath, and he put the car into gear and started the short trip to the Western Union.

The drive was pretty painless, aside from going a few miles under the speed limit. He didn't realize he was doing it, and then would press the gas down harder, but then after another turn or two he'd look back down, and then... five under again.

He pulled into the parking lot. Usually he had a better time to come here, but if he had to do it at 2 in the morning, then he'd do it at 2 in the morning. The lot was unlit, which was always worrying, particularly because there were two very visible lights in the middle of the lot that weren't working for some reason.

But the yellow light of the Western Union sign shone above the light inside, which all acted like some sort of beacon of hope.

Wes slipped out of the car and rubbed his face as near to where he'd been hit as he dared. It itched, the whole thing, but he couldn't touch it with even the lightest touch, or his face would explode in the worst sort of pain he'd ever felt, short of taking the hit itself.

Wes wasn't going to the hospital for it. What were they going to do? Prescribe him some painkillers, and then send him home, all for the low cost of several hundred dollars. If he needed painkillers, Bradley had his hands in all sorts of pockets. Why on earth would Wes go to the doctor when he can get the stuff straight from the source?

He almost didn't notice the guy walking up. The sound of the boots on the ground behind him blended in with all the other noises of the city, and he a.s.sumed that he was making it up.

The noise of the knife clicking open confirmed it. For a minute Wes considered just doing what he was told. Getting hit in the face with steel knuckles hurt like a son of a b.i.t.c.h, but it probably wouldn't kill you unless they really tried hard.

A knife, on the other hand, was different. It was d.a.m.n hard not to seriously hurt a guy with a knife, even if you didn't necessarily want to. You could make little surface cuts if they were holding still and you were pretty careful, but the odds of avoiding the blade as well as he would have to do in order to get away... it was a gamble.

But the day he'd had, first with those two G.o.d d.a.m.ned gorillas, and then with the Yakuza hitters, Wes realized, he wasn't in the mood to keep that trend going through to the next day.

"Give me all your money."

Wes raised his hands, knuckles all torn, up in the air and turned around. The kid couldn't have been twenty yet, and there he was, the knife extended between them. Smart kid. That knife would act as a shield, if he was quick. All he had to do was keep it between his body and the closest part of the other guy's, and eventually, the other guy would hit the knife, which was about as unpleasant as it sounded.

Wes wasn't in any mood to deal with it, though, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to give up all of his money.

"Go away, kid. Go home."

"Give me the money. Now." The kid straightened his arm to press the point of the knife into Wesley's chest. "b.i.t.c.h."

Wes's hand moved quick as a rattlesnake and his fingers snapped around the kid's wrist and twisted. The knife dropped and Wes put his heel on it. Then Wes drove his other fist into the kid's ear. The kid rocked back, but Wes had his arm caught.

"Go home."

"s.h.i.t, man, I's just-"

"Go home."

Wes let his wrist go and the kid nearly fell back on his a.s.s, scrambling with his hands to stop himself from falling even as his legs started churning to get him the h.e.l.l out of there.

If he stayed a second longer, who knew how bad things could've gotten?

Seventeen.

Minami Minami didn't love sneaking out. It wasn't smart, and it had turned out bad the last several times she'd done it, but after three days she needed to at least see if Wesley was okay. Make sure he hadn't gone and died on that floor after she left.

At least, that made for a convenient excuse. There was no way they were going to let her just go out, not after she'd lied about where she was going and when she'd be home at least twice that she could remember. They weren't exactly wrong, as much as she hated to admit it.

That didn't change that she needed to make sure he was alright, though. They had to do what they had to do, and she had to do what she had to do, and it was just that simple.

Minami called an Uber cab and had them take her straight there, and now she was standing outside again, all paid up and ready to go back inside in every sense other than how ready she was to see him again.

Every time she saw Wes, things only got more complicated in her life, and as much as she knew that he was the only one who could stand up to her father enough to get herself free of the life he was leading, she couldn't help but be afraid of what was going to happen next. When was the other shoe going to drop, and things went from bad to worse?

For him, maybe it already had. That beating wasn't the kind of thing that most people would easily recover from, never mind quickly. For all she knew he was in the hospital, where he belonged.

As soon as the thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. Knowing that man even a little bit was enough to know that he wasn't remotely interested in going to a hospital. He seemed like the sort of person who would try to sleep off a broken leg.

She pushed the front door open and started in. The place was as dingy as it had ever been. She hadn't stayed in a nice place when she was here on her own, but this place made it look like a palace by comparison. Still, everyone kept themselves to themselves, which she supposed was something. She jabbed the elevator b.u.t.ton and it opened with a ding and a metallic grinding noise, and then closed again with the same noise when she pushed the b.u.t.ton for Wesley's floor.

He answered the door a few seconds after she knocked. He didn't look nearly as bad as she'd feared. Blood vessels had busted all around his nose right after, and his face was basically a large, spider-webbing bruise. He gave the faintest hint of a smile at seeing her, and then walked away from the door wordlessly, leaving it a little ways open.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Does it hurt?"

"Does what hurt?"

"Your face, it's-"

"Oh, that? Not really."

"So you wouldn't mind if I touched it?"

"Try it."

He turned and held still for her. Minami could feel her heart starting to race a little, at the 'I dare you' tone his voice had taken. Her hand moved slowly, moving in. She could hardly believe he was even thinking about letting her do this. And then, as she was about to push her finger home in the tender, bruised flesh of his cheek, his hand came up and wrapped around hers.

"Don't."

Minami dropped her hand.

"I was thinking that we should go out. There's this place, I used to go. Before. Nice pace, I guess. You might like it, you might not, but I haven't been there in a while."

"You sure it's not closed?"

"Pretty sure. Come on."

He took her down to the car. The elevator wasn't getting any better; if anything, the noise was getting worse, but she had her doubts that it was going to get fixed.

Wes slipped into the driver's seat and reached across to open her door for her. Minami slipped in next to him and the car growled to life. He put the car in drive and started out. He didn't particularly want or need Minami's input, she knew, so she stayed quiet. It was easier that way.

By the time they pulled into the place, it was starting to get dark by degrees, but the roadhouse was lit up like a Christmas tree. Wes put the car in park and pulled the hand brake, opened his door, and waited. Minami opened hers a minute later, and the second her latch came undone he pressed the lock b.u.t.ton.

She followed him inside, unsure what to expect. She'd been living in America for a couple years now, and she was pretty confident in her English, in her ability to deal with everyday affairs... but when it came to places like this, she was on her own. She'd only heard about these sorts of places in T.V. shows.

They went inside and a woman in a t-shirt that was cut a little too low for modesty and thin enough to cling attractively to her curves took them to a table after a second.

Wes thanked her and then immediately walked off toward the bar. Minami settled into her chair, looking around and taking in the sights.

There was a band playing up on a raised stage, in front of a dance floor that only a few couples had decided was worth using. A long bar took over one side of the room, and a couple of people were playing darts near the back of the place.

Wes came back holding a couple of bottles and gla.s.ses and set one down in front of her, poured out a large gla.s.s of amber-colored beer, and then set down his own gla.s.s and filled it with his own drink. It was dark, the color of coffee, and she could smell it from all the way across the table.

"Is it how you remember it?"

"More or less. The people are different, but that'll happen. See that guy over there?"