An advantage that proved unnecessary when the man knocked again.
“Esme? Hey, it’s John Ramos.”
She stumbled to a stop and whirled around to stare at the door. Geezo freakin’ crap. John Ramos? Johnny Ramos? The name registered instantly, along with a face.
“From East High School. We graduated together.”
Totally unnecessary information. She hadn’t forgotten Johnny Ramos, oh, hell, no. Not in this lifetime, she wouldn’t.
“I, uh, heard you were working with your dad now. Thought I’d drop by and see if you could help me with a problem,” he said from outside in the hall.
Good God. Johnny freakin’ Ramos. Out in the hall.
Of course, out in the hall. Hell, he’d spent half his life out in the hall, especially at Campbell Junior High, especially during seventh-grade social studies class. She’d gotten sent out in the hall with him once, her one and only time in the hall ever, the two of them put there to “work things out,” and her poor little thirteen-year-old heart had barely survived the experience.
Ms. Trent had banished them to a pair of desks on either side of the doorway, leaving a bare three feet between them, thirty-six inches, not enough distance to insulate Esme from Johnny’s dark-eyed gaze and the heat that seemed to come out of nowhere and slam into her whenever their eyes met. There sure as hell hadn’t been any “working things out” going on. She hadn’t opened her mouth, not once. He’d been so bad, dangerously bad, even at thirteen, given the crowd he’d run with, especially his older brother, Dom Ramos, and for reasons she hadn’t understood, out of all the girls in the seventh grade, he’d chosen her to torture and tease.
Of course, eventually, she’d figured out what he was after-certainly by the time he’d asked her to the prom at the end of their junior year. Maybe even before that, like when he’d punched out Kevin Harrell in the locker bay-and for sure by the summer after graduation, when she’d ended up in the backseat of his car, a hot green, incredibly fast old-style muscle car he’d called “Roxanne.” Oh, yes, by then she’d definitely figured out what he’d wanted, and if she’d had any doubts, he’d pretty much cleared them up in between unhooking her bra and unzipping his pants. He wanted her, wanted her to be his girl, and he’d wanted it since the first time he’d laid eyes on her in Ms. Trent’s social studies class way back in seventh grade.
And he was out in the hall.
She took a breath. Roxanne. Yeah. That was right, a Dodge Challenger, 1971, very hot, very fast, and completely underappreciated by her at the time, but she’d long since learned how rare and wonderful the car had been, and exactly what Johnny Ramos had saved her from by putting himself between her and Kevin Harrell that day in the locker bay.
Kevin, a current resident of the state penitentiary in Canon City, had been twice his size, but there had been no contest in the brief, violent encounter. The older boy had shoved her up against the lockers, pressing his body against hers, talking trash and trying to jerk her skirt up to her waist, and for a few seconds, she’d been frozen in fear, the breath knocked out of her. Then someone had called him out, their voice harsh, the words insistent, spoken in gutter Spanish and full of threat.
Kevin had turned to face his challenger, and it had all been over. One punch, brick hard and lightning fast.
An iron fist, her dad had called it, being able to knock out somebody that size with one hit. Johnny had also had a tattoo, she’d discovered in Roxanne’s backseat, a tattoo with its own claim to iron.
God, that had been an experience. Definitely. Being in the backseat of a car with Johnny Ramos had been the single most educational experience of her life up to that point, and maybe even a little bit beyond.
Iron tattoo, iron fist, a reputation crossing over into misdemeanors edged in felonies, if the rumors about how he’d “acquired” the Challenger were true-and he was standing out in the hall.
Unbelievable.
And what in the hell was she going to do about it? He obviously knew she was in here-which just opened up a whole other can of worms, one she was simply going to ignore, like how maybe his was the voice she’d heard outside the door at the Oxford, like maybe she had been tailed, which made her more than a little irritated with herself, a whole lot more. It also meant he had way more information about her than she was comfortable with him having-like the whole hooker scene. Dammit. Dax had taught her better than that.
“Esme?”
Hell. She couldn’t wait him out. She had a schedule to keep, which only left her with Option
B: Play along with his “heard you were working with your dad” line, and get rid of him.
Yeah, that’s what she’d do, say her hellos, hand him one of her dad’s business cards, give him the office hours-without actually telling him she was shutting the place down-and shoo him along, back out onto the street, which is where she’d heard he’d ended up-out on the street. Someone she’d known in high school had mentioned it, about how so-and-so who worked in LoDo had seen Johnny Ramos going in and out of the alley called Steele Street. As she had recalled, the only thing in that alley was an old garage, a place that at one time had been the most notorious chop shop in Denver.
Esme’d hoped for better for him. He’d been a smart kid, far smarter than his academic record had implied, but a lot of things can go wrong when a person grows up wild-and Johnny Ramos had been running wild for as long as she’d known him. His older brother hadn’t even made it to twenty before he’d been gunned down in City Park.
God, that had been awful, she remembered, especially for Johnny. He’d been there when it happened.
“I actually could use a little help here tonight, Esme,” he said, still trying to talk his way inside, and she wondered how in the world she’d failed to recognize his voice in the Oxford, the calm edge of it, the deep, feathered undertones, the easy, measured cadence. Those hadn’t changed. For all the craziness in his life, he’d had a steadiness about him, even at thirteen.
“All right, all right,” she said, stepping over to the door, making sure her voice carried. “Hold your horses. I’m coming.”
Yeah-play along and get rid of him. That was the best plan.
Taking a deep breath, Esme pulled the door open-and got hit by a freight train.
Full speed.
No brakes.
Two engines in front, and two engines in back.
No caboose.
Diesel powered. All locomotion.
Johnny Ramos, in the flesh, all grown up and looking like the stone-cold definition of every big bad boy she’d ever known, except better, harder, and like the last thing he needed was help, with anything. Oh, hell, no. One look said it alclass="underline" This boy could take care of himself-in spades.
Criminy. Her breath was actually caught in her throat, an unprecedented reaction to a guy since… well, since the last time she’d seen him, naked in the backseat of the awesome Roxanne.
Perfect.
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was racing. He was standing in the hall, and all she could do was stand there in front of him, clutching the doorknob and praying for her brain to kick in.
CHAPTER FOUR
Oh-kay, Johnny thought, looking at the stunned expression on Esme Alden’s face. This is good…I think.
Sure. Shell shock was good. It meant he wasn’t what she’d expected, and that could only be good, considering that everyone from his parish priest on down to his guidance counselor had expected him to end up in prison before his twenty-first birthday.