Bull
The Buck Boys Heroes Series
Deborah Bladon
FIRST ORIGINAL EDITION, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Deborah Bladon
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person’s, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781926440675
ISBN: 9798770435115
Book & cover design by Wolf & Eagle Media
deborahbladon.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Epilogue
Cruel
What Else You Got?
Also by Deborah Bladon
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About the Author
Chapter One
Trina
“We’ve met, haven’t we?”
I turn at the sound of the unfamiliar voice to my left. It’s a dark-haired woman, at least twice my age, with frown lines near the corners of her mouth and a sparkle in her green eyes.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” She leans closer. The smell of peppermint mixed with a citrus-scented perfume emanates from her. “I swear that I know you.”
Her gaze slides over me from head to toe, taking in the white blouse and black skirt I’m wearing.
“I have one of those faces.” I smile.
It’s the same line I always use when a stranger approaches me to ask if we know each other. I’ve been mistaken countless times for a salesperson at Macy’s or a first-grade elementary teacher. Once, a man was convinced that I was his server at a diner in the Theater District.
“You work at the library, don’t you?” She tilts her head. “The main branch. I was in there last week. You were behind the counter.”
A blonde with blue eyes and hair styled in a tight bun might have been, but I haven’t been to the New York Public Library in years. The last time was with my mom when I was ten or eleven years old.
My guess is that she’s been to my family’s bakery in Brooklyn. The walls are covered with framed photographs of my twelve siblings and me.
A man sprinting to catch the light to cross the street knocks my elbow in his rush to get past me. I stumble forward on the sidewalk, but I manage to stay upright with quick work of my feet.
“Watch it, asshole!” The woman I’ve been talking to yells after him. “It’s illegal to hurt a librarian.”
It’s wrong to run into anyone and not apologize.
I don’t have time to debate that. I need to get to work before my boss does, and since I’ve only made it a block from my apartment, I have to sprint to the subway so I won’t be late.
I turn to the woman who defends librarians. “I should go.”
“I’ll be at the library again soon.” She glances at her watch. “I’ll be sure to stop by and say hello.”
I’ll be behind my desk in an office far from there.
Correcting this woman would be the right thing to do, but I don’t want to embarrass her, and I don’t have an extra minute to spare.
“I’m Beth, by the way.” She offers her hand.
I take it in mine. “My name is Trina.”
That sets her back a step. “Trina. That suits you.”
I like that she thinks so, so I smile. “Thank you.”
Beth glances over my shoulder. “There’s the friend I’m meeting. I’ll see you again, Trina.”
I watch as she subtly slips the gold band from the ring finger on her left hand before she deposits it in the pocket of her jacket. Her smile widens as she lifts her now bare hand to wave at the man approaching us.
I doubt I’ll ever see Beth again, but I have to wonder if the man who put that ring on her finger knows what she’s doing this Tuesday morning. It’s just one of the many secrets the millions of people in New York City hold close.
My thoughts are interrupted when my phone starts ringing. I hunt through my purse before I pull it out.
Cringing, I see my boss’s name flash across the screen.
I answer immediately. “Good morning, Mr. Locke. How are you today, sir?”
“Busy,” he says brusquely in that toe-curling deep voice of his. “I’m stopping by the office to pick up my notes for my meeting with Mr. Tillery this morning. I expect those to be on my desk when I arrive in thirty minutes, Miss Shaw.”
Well, shit.
Hurrying to the corner, I wave my hand in the air, frantically searching for an available taxi.
“I’ll have that ready for you,” I say, hoping that I’m predicting the future.
“Fine.” He ends the call just like that because that’s how Graham Locke rolls. He’s all business, no politeness.
I silently fist pump the air when a taxi slows. I’ll beat Mr. Locke to the office with time to spare.
Opening the back passenger door of the taxi, I catch one last glimpse of Beth in the arms of the man she’s hiding her wedding ring from. I glance at my left hand. It’s void of any jewelry. One day I hope a man will slide a ring on my finger, and if our love is true and strong, it will stay there until I take my very last breath on this earth.
“What is this?”
Those three little words hold so much punch in my world.
Mr. Locke likes to fire them at me whenever I do something that isn’t up to his standards.
Case in point:
I ordered lunch for him one day last week. The mustard on the rye bread was of the regular yellow variety because the restaurant ran out of the gourmet whole grain type. Most people would be fine with that, but not my boss. Mr. Locke took one bite of the stacked ham and cheese overpriced monstrosity and spat it out into a napkin.
“What is this?” he barked at me.
I didn’t bother to reply because it was a sandwich with the wrong mustard, not the end of civilization as we know it.
Today, the question is coming at me while he’s holding
the typed minutes of yesterday’s staff meeting in his hands.
I look up at where he’s standing in front of my desk.
Good looking is a subjective term except when it comes to Graham Locke. Everyone thinks he’s firecracker hot. He’s handsome in that I-didn’t-bother-trying way some men are. Maybe it’s his blue eyes and dark brown hair. I have no idea if his custom-tailored suits add to the allure, but I do know that if I didn’t know him, I’d rate him a twelve out of ten.
When he opens his mouth, and his rudeness shines through, he drops a couple of notches on my attraction meter.
I clear my throat and speak the truth, “Those are the minutes from yesterday’s meeting, sir.”
Wrong answer.
I see that immediately in the way he tosses his ‘what the fuck?’ look in my direction. It’s a combination of a scowl and a shake of his head.
“I don’t need to reread the mundane details of what everyone did last weekend.” He throws the papers on my desk with a flick of his wrist. “I heard it once and didn’t care enough to remember any of it, including your date on Friday night.”
Well boo.
I paste a sweet smile on my face and look up at him. “All of that was part of the meeting.”
“All of that is frivolous and unnecessary,” he counters. “Rewrite the minutes without any of that included.”
I thought the details of my date were compelling. My co-workers seemed to think so too. It was a second date, so they’re invested in what’s happening between Kyle, my kind of almost-boyfriend, and me.
“I’ll work on that now,” I say, going for another overly forced smile.
“Complete it within the hour.”
I’m up for the challenge, so I put the pedal to the metal, or in my case, my fingers to the keyboard, and get to work cutting out the best parts of yesterday’s meeting so that I can hand the boring document over to the worst boss in New York City.
Chapter Two
Trina
Three Weeks Later
“Are you saying I’ll never get to meet Kyle?” My neighbor, Aurora Salik, shakes her head. “I was looking forward to checking out his ass.”
I bark out a laugh. “His ass? Why?”
“Did you not say that he had an ass that was so tight you could bounce quarters off of it?”
Still chuckling, I take a seat next to her small dining room table. “Kyle’s ass wasn’t worth talking about.”
“Oh,” she draws the word out slowly. “I bet you were talking about your boss’s ass when you said that.”
It’s likely, but I won’t admit it.
“Back to my breakup with Kyle,” I say to shift the subject away from Mr. Locke’s spectacular ass. “He wasn’t impressed that I didn’t know how to play chess.”
“Wow. You lost a keeper, didn’t you?”
I smile.
This feels good.
I’ve known Aurora for a little more than a year. She was already living in this apartment with her boyfriend, Eldon, when I moved in down the hall.
They both welcomed me with open arms.
Since then, we’ve become friends.
“I’m not crying over it,” I confess.
When Kyle told me last week that he wanted to date someone with the same interests as him, I hightailed it out of the restaurant before the server brought the check. I figured that Kyle owed me one last dinner and a drink since I sat through his retelling of every aspect of the history lesson he taught his class of eighth-graders that day.
I’m all for diving into the past, but not on a fifth date.
“Good.” Aurora pats my hand before she takes a long drink from the mug in front of her.
She works at a café, so her coffee-making skills are next level. When she texted me fifteen minutes ago to say that she made me a cup, I knocked on her apartment door seconds later.
My gaze wanders to a framed picture on the wall behind her. It’s a shot that was taken on a beach in Maryland last year on Aurora’s twenty-first birthday. Her brown hair is blowing in the breeze. One of her hands is trying to control it while the other is on her boyfriend’s shoulder as he gazes into her eyes.
“How’s Eldon?”
“Handsome as ever.” She beams. “What is it about a man in a uniform?”
I’ve seen Eldon Breckton in his NYPD uniform more than once. It’s a good look for him.
“Eldon can set you up with someone from work,” she offers with a glint in her eye. “Maybe a double date?”
I know better than to agree to go on a blind date. I’ve tried that in the past, and it’s never worked out for me. I’d love to find the man I’m destined to spend my life with, but I’m only twenty-four, so I can pace myself.
Besides, if the blind date ends badly, that’s a mark on my friendship with Aurora and Eldon that I don’t want.
“Thanks, but I’m taking a break from dating.”
The mug in her hand stops mid-air. “Because?”
“No reason in particular.” I grin. “More me time, less he time.”
“By ‘he’ you mean every available man in Manhattan?”
“Exactly.” I punctuate the word with a nod.
“I said that the day before I met Eldon.” She takes a sip from her mug. “Look how that turned out for me.”
“What do you think, Trina?”
I look up from my desk to see Kay, one of our designers, with a massive man’s silver watch on her wrist.
She’s clinging to the band tightly while she admires her workmanship.
“I think Abdons has a new bestseller on their hands.” I pause for effect. “Or should I say their wrists?”
She laughs the same way she always does when I crack that joke.
Kay has been working at Abdons for decades. She was one of the first employees when Lloyd Abdon launched his designer watch brand in a small shop on the Lower East Side.
The company has grown into a multi-million-dollar business since that day. Mr. Abdon still pops into the office whenever the urge strikes, but he handed over the day-to-day reins to Mr. Locke last year.
“Is he around?” Kay’s gaze darts to Mr. Locke’s closed office door.
He is, but he’s in a grumpy mood.
I found that out when I chirped “good morning” to my boss, and his response was a shoot of death rays from his eyes in my direction.
That’s a slight exaggeration, but it was apparent something or someone turned what could have been a good morning for him into an angry a.m., as I call it. That’s not to be confused with the pissy p.m. he has at least a few times a week.
“Mr. Locke is busy,” I lie to save Kay from his wrath. “Why don’t I check with him later to see when he’s available?”
That’s my polite way of saying that I’ll wait until that ten-minute window each day when he’s not about to cut someone’s head off with his words.
“Works for me,” she says in a tone edged with glee. “I think he’s going to love my new design.”
I think he’ll say it’s “fine” before instructing one of the new designers he hired to come up with something cutting edge with a host of bells and whistles.
Kay is still designing watches for people who only use their timepiece to well…tell time. Mr. Locke is trying to corner the market for those who want to call their business partners, book a lunch reservation, and plan their Aruba vacation from the comfort of their wrists.
“Back to the design lab for me.” She turns abruptly and stomps off.
I watch her leave, wishing I could go with her because I know my boss, and twenty-five minutes from now, he’ll swing open his office door and order me to get him a sandwich that will in no way satisfy him.
I glance at the vintage silver Abdons watch on my wrist.
Twenty-four minutes and fifty-seven seconds from now, the mid-day fun begins.
Chapter Three
Trina
I stepped out to get Mr. Locke his lunch, and he split.
He took off like a bat under the cover of darkness.
No one noticed him leave, not even Cecil at the reception desk, and he spots everything.
I look at the white paper bag in my hand.
Today’s lunch order consisted of turkey, avocado, and arugula on whole grain bread with a zesty sauce and a sprinkle of pepper.
It smells delicious, and although I was tempted to order myself one, I pushed that notion aside because there’s a bowl of macaroni salad in the fridge in the break room with my name on it.
Literally.
I wrote my name on the lid because Cecil is under the impression that the fridge is a buffet just for him. He picks and chooses his appetizer, entrée, and dessert from there almost every day.
I drop the bag on my desk and turn in a circle, looking for some inspiration.
Do I eat the sandwich or wait to hear from Locke?
The hunger gods must hear me because my phone chimes in my purse.