Page 298 of Hell Hath No Fury

“Real nice, guys,” I snapped, glaring. Jason just stared at me, but Pete, at least, had the decency to look sheepish.

Blowing out a breath, Murray dropped his hands and shook his head. “I’ll sign whatever the hell you need me to sign to finish off your apprenticeship, but I think we both know this was never gonna be a good fit, Ricki. Gotta think about my business and my boys.” He jerked his head to Pete and Jason behind him, both nodding silently, the little dick suckers.

“Sure,” I said, laughing humorlessly. “Of course. Because God forbid anyone tries to infiltrate your brotherhood, right? You know, for a bunch of guys who spend ninety percent of your day talking about getting laid, you sure are scared of a little pussy.”

“Fuck you, Ricki. You fuckin’ tricked me into taking you on and you know it.”

“Tricked you? How in the hell did I trick you?”

“Sending in your application with your work, usin’ a man’s name. How the fuck was I supposed to know I was taking on a female.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course, this guy would use the wordfemale.

“Never woulda signed you on if I’d have known,” he continued, as though his blatant misogynistic discrimination was perfectly reasonable.

“Well, thanks for that wonderfully enlightening look into your stellar personality, Murray,” I said sarcastically, just because I enjoyed watching his face get all red and angry looking. “I continue to be surprised by the fact that none of you can keep a woman around for longer than it takes to disappoint her in bed.”

“Just get the fuck out, Ricki,” Jason spat, stepping forward when it looked like Murray and I would just keep spitting insults at each other all night. “Go spread your poison somewhere else. Everyone’s tired of your shit.”

“Not as tired as I am of being here,” I said, stomping my Docs back over to the window and stepping through the mess and out on to the street. “Thanks for a fuckload of nothing, guys. Meant the world to me. Really.”

Then I tossed them the bird and headed back to the subway, leaving three years of disappointment behind me.

CHAPTER SIX

Ricki

Exiting the subway car, I tried my best to ignore the itchy sensation that seemed to live between my shoulder blades lately. I’d felt it the moment I’d stormed away from Murray’s shop, but my anger was riding me hard at the time, so I’d chalked it up to the burning embers of my righteous feminine rage and kept walking.

But when the itch began again as I sat in the rickety subway car, the sounds and smells of New York assaulting my senses, I started to wonder if I maybe should have been paying more attention to my surroundings.

I mean, my “prickly bitch” vibe was only so threatening. Eventually, someone may try me, and I needed to keep my head up and my eyes open.

Unfortunately for me, sometime after I’d boarded the subway to Queens, the sky had opened up, the fat clouds graciously deciding that my day hadn’t been shittastic enough, they had to go ahead and ruin my hair, too.

The walk from the train station to my building wasn’t long, but the rain was coming down so hard, it didn’t matter anyway; I was soaked in no time.

I trudged past the little grocery store on the corner, the soles of my boots squishing through the puddles that seemed to have formed across the sidewalk like chicken pox, pausing when I heard a low voice call my name. Looking up, I narrowed my eyes at Ernest and Phil, the two old men who seemed to alwaysbe parked under the awning outside the store, their bony asses sitting on the bench like it was there just for them.

“You’re gettin’ wet, girl,” Ernest called helpfully, his bushy white eyebrows pulled low over his rheumy eyes.

“I hadn’t noticed,” I grumbled, causing Phil to chuckle. Shoving my sopping hair out of my face, I offered Ernest a very disingenuous smile. “Thank you so much for pointing that out. I suppose next you’ll tell me that the sun rises in the east, yes?”

“Sassy,” Ernest replied, shaking his head in disappointment. “You’re never gonna catch you a man with an attitude like that.”

“How will I ever survive?” I tossed back, and this time Phil slapped his knee, but still offered no commentary.

Leaving the two nosy neighbors behind, I hoofed it the rest of the way to my building, pausing out front when I noticed for the first time that one of the two empty storefronts actually had a light on inside. I’d been so focused on getting to work earlier, I’d forgotten all about the construction that Violet had mentioned.

The afternoon storm had swallowed enough of the sunlight to make mid-day appear more like dusk, so seeing in through the window was easier than usual. Gazing inside the shop, I was able to see that the place had been gutted, and whatever had previously inhabited it was now gone, leaving the whole place nearly empty, the walls having been painted in shades of cream and brown. There was what looked like a heavy wooden bar along one side near the back, and a series of shelves that were being hung on the wall directly across from where I stood.

And hanging those shelves was a man. A large, broad man wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans that hugged his ass deliciously while he hammered away at whatever he was using to hang those shelves.

Frozen for a moment, despite the rain, I found myself mesmerized by the rhythmic swing of his arm, the corded muscles straining under the woefully thin sleeves of his shirt.Letting my gaze roam over his impressive biceps, all I could think about was how much I’d like to get him in my chair, my machine buzzing as I poured magic onto those tanned muscles.

My delicious daydream was brought to a screeching halt when I realized I no longer had a chair to putanyonein, never mind the hammering hottie with the nice ass. Thinking of Murray and the bullshit he’d pulled today had me pissed off all over again, the thick throb of anger that had slowed to a simmer on my rainy walk was suddenly back to boiling. I ground my teeth, hating that now, over an hour later, I was suddenly full of clever and intelligent things to say in rebuttal to the crap Murray and the guys had thrown at me while we stood among the wreckage of their business.

I guessed that was always going to be the key, wasn’t it?