Page 3 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
She quickly began poking her little nose into other matters, too. And, because she was clearly the smartest person he employed, Boyd let her. Why wouldn’t he? Any fool could see she was gifted at the work.
Mabel soon knew as much about the business as he did. They’d fallen into a routine, where he dealt with the hands-on, selling and violence aspects of bootlegging and she kept everything running smoothly behind the scenes. That arrangement was more successful than he ever could have dreamed.
Growing up, ten dollars was the most money Boyd could conceive of. Ten dollars had been the fantastical price of warmth and safety. A sawback a month rented you a small room, in the respectable center of town. Boyd didn’t have it. Boyd wasn’t respectable. Instead, he’d slept on the docks. For an orphan, without family or prospects, ten dollars a month had been astronomically out of reach.
Now, he had a hundred times that added to his bank accounts every day. All of it washed clean and accruing interest thanks to the efficient and sparkly-eyed Mabel Harrison.
Boyd was stuck on the woman. Tragically, pathetically and incurablystuck. He’d had to leave school after eighth grade to earn a living, so Mabel’s college education was a constant source of fascination to him. She was the cleverest, most interesting person he’d ever met.
In the past, he’d dated flapper types, with more pizazz and at least a dollop of fashion-sense. As a leader in Volstead’s underworld, he attracted his fair share of female attention. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had charm… on the surface, at least. Until six months and four days ago, he’d been hanging around with nameless vamps, who drank his booze and never asked any questions. They were fun and flirty.
Mabel askeda lotof questions. She didn’t drink much and she thought accounting was fun. She never flirted, sadly. But she was so damn pretty that he sometimes just stared at her. It was the kind of pretty that snuck up on a man and then he wondered how he ever missed it. And she was so damn clean that Boyd longed to dirty her up. And she was so damn brilliant that he respected her opinion above his own.
And her eyes had beautiful golden swirls in them.
That was therestof the reason, why he’d initially hired her. He could admit that, too. Boyd always tried to be honest with himself. Something about this serious little bookworm’s fearless gaze had captivated him from their first meeting.
Mabel had walked into his warehouse, unafraid of the docks or his reputation. With her patrician manners, she’d calmly asked to speak with him and inquired about a job. He’d thought it was a joke, at first. Once she offered to look over his books for free and show him what she could do, he was interested enough to let her through the door.
He’d always had a yen for respectable girls, but they tended to avoid bruisers from the docks. Having one waltz into his warehouse had fascinated him. Mabel had sat across from him in his office, just as she was now, and pushed back the veil of her god-awful hat. Her golden-swirled eyes met his without even a flicker of concern and Boyd had been lost. He’d hired her on the spot.
No one else on the docks had a Mabel Harrison.
Just Boyd.
Hardened sailors, dropping off shipments of booze, would take their caps off when she came into a room, a little awed by her upright presence. Boyd appreciated that. He felt it legitimized his whole operation. He wasn’t just another criminal lowlife. He was a criminal lowlife with aladybeside him.
Mabel might be a good girl, but she was no pushover. She had real moxie. Drag in a guy bleeding from a knife wound? She’d arch a brow and fetch the first aid kit. Need to jazz up your alcohol recipe? She was keen to experiment with fermenting every fruit, vegetable, and grain under the sun. Some longshoreman gets a little handsy with her? She’d rock him back on his heels with her blistering set down.
…Then, Boyd would dump that son of a bitch in the river.
Becauseeveryonein Volstead knew by now who the woman belonged to. He’d made it plenty fucking clear. Boyd had no issue with problem-solving with a bullet. If some cake-eating ladies-man wanted to try his luck, the docks had plenty of opportunities for a body to disappear.
Smart women like Mabel did not screw around with upstarts like Boyd Cassiday, of course. He’d never laid a hand on her. Never even addressed her by her first name. But his head was full of hopeless, torrid imaginings.
All other women had faded from his notice, because he was stuck on her. Helikedbeing stuck on her. He liked seeing her in his warehouse, walking around with her little clipboard and boxy shoes. He liked hearing her fancy accent, when she talked about attending that fancy university. He liked her perfect bow lips smiling up at him.
He liked everything, everything,everythingabout Mabel. Even her ugly hats.
Unfortunately, the woman he was tragically stuck on was a consummate liar.
“You didn’t tell me your cousin is Sylvester Irving.” He informed her bluntly.
Hazel eyes, loaded with golden swirls, regarded him warily. Whatever she’d expected when he’d summoned her into his warehouse office, this wasn’t it. She wasn’t denying the accusation, though. A part of him had still been hoping that this was all some kind of lie.
Instead,Mabelhad been the one lying.
Fuck.
A disproportionate swell of betrayal started in Boyd’s gut, akin to finding your girl in the arms of another man. No, worse than that, actually. Boyd had been two-timed before and he hadn’t been this angry about it, because no other woman in the world mattered to him. Just Mabel.
“Sly is my step-cousin.” Mabel adjusted herself in her seat, like she was suddenly uncomfortable. It was stifling hot in his office and her dress was a shroud, but he doubted the temperature was the reason for her shifting. “Sylvester is my stepfather’s nephew.”
“Your dead stepfather. The one you’re mourning so hard.”
“Yes.”
His jaw clenched, because he knew who that man was, now.Everyoneknew Llewellyn Irving.
