Shoe Strings

mountain
man.   “Mr. Bloodworth, as in
Bloodworth Cabins?”
    He grinned and Sophie knew right away why Lita looked so
lonely since she’d come back.   “That’s my dad’s deal.”   He
cleared his throat.   “Listen, I
really need to find Angelita.   Do
you know where she is?”
    “She had some errands to run and then I think she was
heading home.”   She watched his
brows draw together and his smile fade.   “Was she expecting you?”
    “Ah…no, she wasn’t.”   He looked around the shop, rubbed his hand over his day-old stubble, and
when his eyes came back to hers she studied him curiously.   “Look, Sophie, I think she’s in
trouble.   In fact, I know she
is.   I really need to find her.”
    “Is this about her father?”
    “She told you about him?”
    “Well, she said he’d forced her into brokering our
vendors.”   Her stomach clenched in
worry.   “Is there something
else?”    The door chimed again
when two young women entered and began browsing.   “I’ll be with you in a minute,” Sophie
said over his shoulder and turned her attention back to Jesse.
    “Does she know why he wants to broker the materials?”
    “No.   We’re both
a bit stumped, but apparently he made some pretty serious threats about our
safety if we didn’t cooperate.”   Sophie reached out and clutched his arm.   “Jesse, do you know something about
Davi?”
    He pulled her over to the register when the customers came
within earshot.   “I had a friend
look into it for me.   Well, for
Angelita.   He’s under investigation
with the DEA.”
    “Oh my God, you mean…the Drug Enforcement Administration?”
Could she have sounded like more of an idiot?   “Are you sure?”
    “Yes.   Has she
signed anything or done anything to make the deal legal?”
    “No.”   She
gripped the counter before she fell over.   “We’ve got a meeting set up with him in a couple of days.   Lita wanted an attorney to look over the
contract he faxed over yesterday.”
    “Good.”   Sophie
saw his shoulders relax and then tense again when one of the women interrupted.
    “Do you have this sandal in size eight?” she asked.
    “I’ll check on that for you.”   She then looked back at Jesse.   “Lita had a meeting with an attorney
this afternoon.”   She pulled a piece
of paper from behind the register and wrote down her address.   “Here’s her home address and cell
number.   I’d give you the address to
the attorney’s office, but I don’t know it.”
    He squeezed her arm and flashed a cunning smile.   “Thanks.”   He walked briskly out the door.   She watched him stride out of the store
like a long-legged gunslinger, admired his backside, and then went into the
storeroom to look for the sandal.   She prayed Lita’s gorgeous mountain man would save them from making a
huge and potentially dangerous mistake with her father.
    ***
    Lita felt her phone vibrate in her purse and picked it up as
she sat in the reception area of McAlister, Henry, and Smith, PC.   When she didn’t recognize the number,
she ignored it and threw the phone back in her bag.   The half sandwich she’d eaten for lunch
felt like a brick in her stomach.   She’d met Barton Smith at a social function she’d attended with Sophie
and he’d hit on her throughout the night with   all the confidence of a buzzed
egomaniac.   She’d refused flatly and
hadn’t given him a second thought until Steve’s recommendation.   
    Steve had freaked out, as Sophie said he would, and then
sent her to what he termed the best corporate law firm in the city.   She’d already faxed Bart the contract,
two pages of legal mumbo jumbo that seemed too small a document to chain her to
her father forever.   Thankfully, his
pretty secretary retrieved her from the waiting area and led her to his office
before she’d drawn blood twisting her ring around her finger.
    “Lita,” Bart said, his too bright smile and thousand dollar
suit as glaring as the sun through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his
office.   “Come on in and have a
seat.”   He shook her hand in the way
some men do, all wrist and no grip, as if her dainty self would melt under
decent pressure.   The last thing she
wanted was a limp-wristed attorney.   “Can I get you something to drink?”
    “No,” she said and heard the impatience in her voice.   The million reasons she’d turned him down
flooded her with as much anxiety as the contract she hoped he