Harmony and High Heels

  More shrill yelling.

  “Yes, I do know the definition of evil.” Heath was trying to remain calm. “I’ll even agree that your mother is the embodiment of it on earth. But in my considerable opinion, Harm, your poisoned apple doesn’t fall far from the Livinia tree.”

  That set off a full-blown shriek on the other end of the phone, one that was loud enough to blow Dalton back in his chair. Was Heath’s sister-in-law an actual banshee? Lyric was so lovely, he had trouble imagining her twin could be anything but lovely herself.

  “You can scream at me all you want. There is no way I’m going to be okay with Lyric taking on the Andes, especially while volcanoes are erupting in the general area.” Heath was final.

  More screeching. Was she part hyena?

  “Yes, I’m sure you do have a plan. Normally, I’d be thrilled to have Lyric be a part of whatever you want to do.” His tone of voice was anything but enthusiastic. “But I’m putting my foot down on this one.”

  This time the screams were loud enough that Dalton could almost make out some of the words. Of course, they were all obscene, so maybe he was hearing wrong. Although he really doubted it.

  “Look, I don’t have time for this. I’m at work. We can talk about this more when I get home, but I’m telling you now that I’m not changing my mind … yeah, I love you too, Harm.” The sarcasm that came with that last statement told Dalton that whatever this Harmony had had to say, it wasn’t “I love you.”

  Heath shook his head, exasperated, as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Sorry about that. The Wright women tend to be a little high strung when they’re angry.”

  Dalton grinned. “Yeah, I could, uh, hear that.”

  Heath grimaced. “I bet you could. Harmony isn’t one for stony silence when she’s mad. It takes a lot to wind her up, but once she’s there …” He moved his hands apart in an explosive gesture.

  “I didn’t even know Lyric had a twin.” Dalton rarely mixed business with pleasure, so he knew little about the players’ or coaches’ personal lives. Blurring the lines of work and friendship was never a good idea.

  “Identical. Growing up, I thought I was in love with Harmony and then I bumped into Lyric and came to my senses. They couldn’t be more different if they tried.” Heath shook his head. “Now Harm is convinced that if she yells at me enough, I’ll bow to her and let Lyric go heli-skiing.”

  “You know, not to add fuel to the fire, but heli-skiing in Chile is pretty incredible. I just got back from spending two weeks down there. And I never even got close to a volcano.” Dalton might be a lot of things, but boring wasn’t one of them. He knew he seemed sedate on the outside, but inside he was an adrenaline junky.

  “You went heli-skiing?” Heath looked so incredulous that Dalton wondered if he should be insulted. Then again, it wasn’t like he advertised that adrenaline was his only major vice. Usually, he bent over backward to make sure that no one at work knew anything about his personal life. But damn it, he liked Heath, and if he could help him get around that screaming banshee on the phone, he figured he owed it to the guy. Besides, the team always ran better when the coaches were happy.

  “Yes, I know it’s hard to picture me as an actual human, but I do have a life outside of the stadium.”

  Heath went from incredulous to calculating in two seconds flat. “You should go with Harm. The last time she took Lyric skiing, my wife broke her leg … in two places. Like hell am I letting her jump out of anything, much less a helicopter onto a mountain.” Heath propped his left ankle onto his right knee. “Here’s the thing, Lyric is kind of … uncoordinated. And by kind of, I mean, if there’s even slightly uneven ground, she’s going to fall and probably take someone down with her. And there’s a good chance she’ll end up naked on the way down. Don’t get me wrong. I love my wife more than anything, but the poor thing not only trips over her own two feet on a regular basis, but anything else that might be in the way too. It’s a miracle she’s lived this long but she has, and I’ll be damned if she hurts herself on my watch.”

  Dalton knew exactly the kind of clumsy Heath was referring to. His little sister, Cat, had been that way. At five she’d been a whirlwind who never left a room in one piece. At seven, she’d been all elbows and knees and knocking things down. And at ten … at ten, she’d had so much promise. Unfortunately, she hadn’t made it to her eleventh birthday. That was on him. The same old spot under his heart started to ache, but he stopped himself before he could rub it. He liked Heath, but he didn’t show his vulnerabilities to anyone.

  Missing Cat cut deep, and he preferred to do his suffering in private.

  “I better get home to see Lyric and calm Harmony down.” Heath stood up and headed for the door. “It’s poker night at my place tonight. 8:00 p.m. I won’t take no for an answer.” He waved as he walked out of Dalton’s office.

  “Wait, poker night?” Dalton stood. He didn’t fraternize with coworkers.

  Heath was already gone.

  He started to go after him, then decided what the hell. One night wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. One poker game wasn’t going to kill him or undermine his authority. Besides, he kind of wanted to get a look at Heath’s evil sister-in-law. Anyone who could screech like that had his attention, if not his respect.

  With that thought in mind, he leaned over and hit the intercom. “Eleanor, can you get me Heath’s home address?”

  “He already had me text it to your phone.” Eleanor was all business. Then again, she was always all business.

  “Great, thanks. Also, do me a favor and order a case of those fancy Cuban cigars Jacob Bennet likes and have them delivered to him with my apologies about Heath’s boots.” Maintaining the peace was so much easier when you knew how to control people.

  “Of course.”

  He glanced out at the new practice field again, thought of the havoc Heath’s boot heels were going to wreak on it. “On second thought, make that two cases.”

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  “Your husband is an asshole.” Harmony had given up assholes as a New Year’s resolution. If it weren’t for her brother-in-law, she might actually be able to keep the resolution.

  “My husband loves me,” Lyric countered as she grabbed her suitcase out of Cherry Cherry’s trunk. “He prefers it when I’m in one piece. It makes having sex so much easier, after all.”

  Cherry Cherry was a red, 1970s-era, pimped-out Cadillac with a major crush on Neil Diamond.

  Harmony rolled her eyes as she picked up Lyric’s briefcase and purse. “Don’t even get me started. I can’t imagine why you’d even want to have sex with him.”

  Lyric fanned herself like the thought of rolling around with Heath Montgomery made her burn-in-hell hot. “Have you met my husband? The whole world wants to have sex with him.”

  Harmony raised her hand as she followed Lyric into the house. “Not me.”

  She set Lyric’s bags down on the nearest counter before throwing herself on one of the huge, oversized sofas that filled up her sister’s family room/kitchen. “He’s just so average.

  “The whole world can’t have tattoos and wear skin-tight black leather. No matter how much you want them to.” Lyric set her purse on the kitchen counter.

  “I’m not saying they can—or that they should. I’m just saying men are a little more interesting when they do.”

  “I don’t know. Nipple piercings scare me a little. Like, what if one of your boyfriends is climbing a chain-link fence and the piercing gets caught and is torn from his nipple?” Lyric was all about the practical, even when it was impractical.

  “Ouch.” Harmony covered her own nipple rings with her palms. “That’s terrible.”

  “Nipple rings are terrible.” Lyric leaned against the kitchen counter.

  Harmony dropped her hands. “That’s because you don’t know how fun they are.”

  Lyric rolled her eyes. “Your vote doesn’t count. Y
ou think genital piercings are fun.”

  “Hey. Don’t knock them ’til you try them.” Harmony waggled her eyebrows. She rather enjoyed her hood piercing.

  “That’s what I’m saying about Heath.” Lyric paused and looked like she was replaying that sentence in her head. “Not that I want you to try Heath or anything. Because that would be weird. I just meant—”

  “Don’t worry, Wonder Woman. I know what you meant.” Harmony loved the nickname that had been given to her sister by Tre, a well-meaning flight attendant on the flight where Lyric had reconnected with Heath.

  Lyric shot her a dirty look as she walked over to the fridge and pulled out a chilled bottle of wine. “I told you that story in confidence.”

  “I’ve kept that confidence. We’re the only two people here.” Besides, who would believe that a flight attendant had duct-taped a willing passenger?

  Lyric got down two glasses, then started to open the wine bottle. Since she was wielding the corkscrew the same way Norman Bates’s mother wielded a knife, Harmony felt honor bound to leave her comfortable spot on the sofa to help her twin. What had the poor cork ever done to Lyric?

  “Give me that.” Harmony finessed the cork out.

  A few minutes later and they were both settled on the couch, glasses of wine in hand. Harmony planned on letting Lyric get a little alcohol in her before she started haranguing her about the whole BASE jumping trip again, but she should have known better. They might be totally different in everything but looks, but it was rare for the two of them to be on anything but the same wavelength.

  “We could go to Hawaii on vacation.” Lyric watched her as she took a drink.

  “You lived there for years and just flew home from Hawaii. How is that a vacation? Besides, we’ve spent the last several months in Texas’s version of weather hell. I want snow. I want adventure. I want—”

  “To outrun your demons. Yeah, I know.”

  Harmony nearly choked on her wine. “That’s not what I was going to say. It’s not true. I don’t have any demons.”

  Lyric shot her a yeah-right look.

  “What?” There were some things she didn’t even share with her sister.

  Lyric continued the yeah-right look. “Why are you running so hard?”

  “I’m not running.” Harmony sprang off the couch and started to pace. “I have nothing to run from. Except our mother, who is a demon, but any sane person would run from her, so I don’t think that counts.” She finished her wine in one long swallow and poured a little more.

  Make that a lot more. She filled up the whole glass. If this was the way this heart-to-heart was going to go, she needed as much wine as she could get. Maybe they should open a second bottle? Just to be on the safe side …

  “Besides.” She drained the second glass of wine. “If we don’t go down to South America to heli-ski, how am I going to prove to Momma that I’m a total badass? Usually we hide our trips from her, but I want to rub this one in her face.”

  “If that’s your main reason for choosing heli-skiing,” Lyric took another drink, “I’m sure we can—”

  “It’s not. I’ve always wanted to ski the Andes.” She sounded whiny and like it wasn’t true, but it was. And if Momma hated it, well, more the better. “If not heli-skiing, then what do you suggest? I’m not spending two more weeks in some remote place looking at the stars. You got last year, and this year it’s my turn to pick.”

  Had Harmony complained when Lyric had taken them bird-watching in South Texas? No. Well, not too much.

  “Oh God, you’re not going to bring up the bird-watching thing again?” Lyric rolled her eyes. “In case you forgot, I got hurt there too. Who knew wood decks could be so slippery after a light rain?”

  “See, you hurt yourself bird-watching. Could there be a safer sport?” They might be twins, but Harmony hadn’t inherited her sister’s clumsiness.

  “Look, why don’t we stay here in Fort Worth and see what we can come up with to prove you’re a badass? Just think, if you’re badass enough, you’ll make the news. You can ruin that reputation that Momma is so proud of. That’s something you can’t do in Chile.” Lyric was always the logical one … damn it.

  Harmony stared at her twin for long seconds as Lyric’s words slowly sunk in. “That’s not half bad.”

  The only downside Harm could think of was that she wouldn’t be in San Angelo to see her mother’s face when her perfect daughter turned to the dark side.

  “That’s downright diabolical.” Harmony nodded. “I like that about you.”

  “I have my moments.” Lyric grabbed another bottle and the corkscrew. Harmony didn’t have the heart to watch her murder another cork, so she opened the wine herself.

  She poured her sister another glass and one for herself. Her head was spinning, but at least she had an idea of how to get her mother in line.

  Lyric saluted her twin. “Let’s figure out how to lose your reputation in ten days or less.”

  Harmony pulled out her phone to take notes. “Momma won’t even know what hit her.”

  Three hours later, the two of them were dressed to kill as Harmony pushed open the door to Dead Shot, the worst biker bar she could find on the Internet. As she did, the scents of stale beer and unwashed humans wafted out.

  Lyric stopped dead in the doorway. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Shut up and come on.” She pulled Lyric inside the dark room. “We are so doing this.”

  They stood in the bar’s entryway for long seconds, waiting for their eyes to adjust.

  “I don’t know why we couldn’t have just gotten a drink at one of the hotel bars downtown,” Lyric muttered under her breath. “There’s a nice new Chili’s right around the corner from my house. You could get into trouble there too you know. Maybe dance on the bar or something.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same.” Harmony needed a badass place to be a badass in. Bar dancing at Chili’s would have gotten some laughs, but that was it.

  “No kidding.” Lyric looked around like she was trying to recall the date of her last tetanus shot. “Your chances of catching hepatitis would be so much lower at Chili’s. But really, who wants that?”

  “Exactly,” Harmony said with satisfaction.

  “Seriously, though …” Lyric scooted a little closer to her sister as she looked around. “This place is really dirty, Harm. And dark. Did I mention dirty?”

  “You did,” Harmony growled. “Keep your voice down.”

  It was too late. Lyric’s voice tended to carry, and her last comment was perfectly timed with the ending of whatever biker bar song had just been playing. Everyone stopped and stared at them.

  Pissing off the entire clientele wasn’t the best idea in the world, but Harmony wasn’t into backing down. Not anymore. What better way to make the news than to cause a riot in a place like this?

  She rolled her shoulders back and tried to take up as much room as possible. She glanced over at Lyric, who was smiling manically at the largest man in the room.

  “Stop smiling,” Harmony said without moving her lips. “And don’t make eye contact.”

  Lyric kept on smiling.

  “Statistics show it’s harder to kill someone who’s smiling at you,” Lyric said behind her creepy smile. “You should probably smile too.”

  “I don’t smile.” Sometimes a person had to draw a line in the sand, and this was one of those times.

  The mountain of a man—who was about seven feet tall and four feet wide—stepped directly in front of Lyric. “You ladies lost?”

  He was wearing a battered, black motorcycle jacket with a large patch pronouncing him vice president of the Bastards of Hell.

  Shouldn’t it be the Bastards from Hell? God, she hoped Lyric wouldn’t point that out.

  This was exactly what she needed to give Momma an aneurism. “Not lost at all. We’re looking for a good time.”

  Screw not smiling. She plastered on her biggest, brightest smile. But it was a little bit hard
to maintain, considering her new thigh-high black leather boots were rubbing a patch of skin raw on her right inner thigh and their pointy toes were crushing her pinky-toes—but her mother needed to suffer, so she was willing to put up with a lot.

  “In that case …” He offered Harmony his left arm and Lyric his right. “Fun is my middle name. Let me buy you beautiful ladies a drink.”

  “Southern hospitality … I like that in a man,” Harmony cooed as she batted her eyelashes.

  She glanced over at Lyric, who was looking about as out of place as a Democrat at a Tea Party rally. Her big sister had on a “Nerds Do It in Space” T-shirt, baggy jeans, and sparkly pink Birks. Harmony had been hoping for something a little less virgin-geek, but in the end, she took what she could get. At least she’d managed to pry Lyric out of the house, even if it had taken half an hour of fast-talking to convince her that she should be mad at Heath for forbidding her to go to Chile.

  Harmony smoothed down her midriff-baring tank top and black leather micromini in a manner she knew would attract more than a few pairs of eyes. Tonight was about women’s liberation. It was for women everywhere. The fact that it was also a shot at their controlling mother and Lyric’s suddenly boring husband only made it better.

  “My name’s Rooster on account of my red hair,” Mountain Man said in a voice that was one pack away from lung cancer.

  Harmony glanced up at his bald head. “Nice to meet you, Rooster. I’m Harm and this is my twin sister, Lyric.”

  “Tiny, this here is Harm and Lyric. Give them whatever they’d like.” Rooster nodded at the bartender. “Ladies, I’ll be right over there playing pool if you need anything else.”