What You See (Sons of the Survivalist #3) - Cherise Sinclair Page 0,131
on his ass.
The glass mug shattered on the floor.
Che palle! Frankie scowled as she looked around.
Bull stood off to one side, two men at his feet. He’d probably thumped their heads together. At least, he’d been tidy about it. He smiled sweetly at her.
She stomped through the battlegrounds, seeing how the regulars had simply moved their tables and chairs away, treating the fight like the best entertainment ever.
Alaskans.
The bald fisherman with a knife in his shoulder tried to stand.
She grabbed his ear and twisted. “Sit. Back. Down.”
When Caz pulled out another knife, she pointed her finger at him. “Basta.” Enough was enough. “You got blood all over my clean floor.”
Caz sighed, and the knife disappeared.
“Jesus.” The idiot whose ear she had grabbed shuddered and held his hands up. “You sound like my mama.”
“I am far meaner than your mama.” Releasing him, she said without bothering to look. “Felix, the first aid kit, please.”
“Yes’m, boss lady, ma’am,” he answered from beside her.
“Tonto.” She slapped the back of his head affectionately, and he laughed.
Felix wasn’t the only idiot—they abounded in this place. She eyed the shattered glass on the floor.
Someone had thrown it. Someone with particularly good aim.
Turning in the direction from which the mug had flown, she spotted Hawk at the hostess station with Aric in his arms. Whatever he was whispering in the boy’s ear made the child smile.
“You’re a good boy, Aric,” Frankie called, then gave Hawk her meanest frown. “If it’s glass, it does not get thrown.”
The bastardo grinned at her.
She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the miscreants. “Who broke the chair and stool?”
“He busted the stool.” The groggy chinless fishermen pointed to his stocky friend who sat beside the broken furniture.
Gabe raised his hand like a grade schooler. “The chair.”
The Chief of Police broke her chair? “Che schifo, that is absolutely disgusting. You are the law in this town, not some…some hoodlum. And those chairs and stools come out of my budget.”
She heard a laugh, Bull’s very deep, resonant laugh. He’d been very tidy—and took two out. She would claim a kiss from her hero…later.
“Right,” Gabe said. “I’ll pay for the chair. Bull can add the stool to the asshole’s bar bill.”
The stocky asshole scowled at Gabe, then Frankie. “No fucking way. I’m not gonna pay for—”
“Vai a farti fottere,” Frankie gritted out and glared at the man.
His eyes widened, and he scooted back several inches. “Uh… Right. On my card. Sure thing.”
She huffed in satisfaction. Men were so fragile. Tell them to fuck themselves, and they caved immediately…even if they couldn’t speak the language.
Although Nonna would be horrified that her granddaughter sounded like a fish wife.
Well, the fight was over, at least. She sighed, her anger cooling. “Do I even want to know what the problem was?”
“We just stepped in to break the fight up, actually,” JJ said as she righted chairs and tables. “That one”—she pointed to the bulldog-jawed one Hawk had nailed with a mug—“he started it because the others said he hadn’t caught the biggest salmon.”
“Seriously?” They messed up her bar for a fish? Frankie threw her hands in the air, then glared at the instigator. “Ficcati una barca in culo con i remi aperti.”
“Dios,” Caz’s eyes widened.
Gabe and Bull both edged closer to him. Bull asked in a whisper, “What’d she say?”
“She told him to insert a boat…anally…with the oars out. Medically speaking, that is very…unhealthy.” Caz shook his head. “I think I’ll just do a bit of first aid now.” He knelt by the man with the knife in him.
“Fuck,” Gabe muttered.
And Bull, her Bull, started laughing—that infectious booming sound that had everyone in the place smiling.
He walked over and put his arms around her. “I love you, New York. You fit in here like you were made for us.” He looked around at the room. “Yeah?”
Cazzo, the entire bar was listening to them now, and the room roared back, “Yeah!”
“But…see what they broke,” she protested.
“Sweetheart, we can live without chairs and barstools. Beer, now that’s a necessity.”
There was another chorus of, “Yeah!”
Bull leaned down. “Have I mentioned how much I love you?”
The last traces of her anger disappeared under the warmest of waves. “I love you, too, orsacchiotto.” Wrapping her arms around his neck, she went up on tiptoes and kissed him until hoots and whistles filled the room.
“Go, Frankie!”
“Atta-girl, New York!”
Home is the place where you’re loved for simply being yourself.