Gage, Ronna - The Search is Over (Siren Publishing Classic) Read Free Page A

finally got the answer to the question that had plagued him for months. “I still got it.”
    Jack cocked an eyebrow and fished in his back pocket for his wallet. “Well, call me so we can use that power of persuasion over women for our own selfish and dark needs.” Jack handed him a business card.
    Rafe looked at it. “Not bad, you own your own home repair and improvement business.”
    “Handyman extraordinaire.” Jack bowed slightly.
    “Come on, Jack, I’m bored,” Crystal complained, pulling him in the direction of the doorway.
    “I guess we’ll see you later.” Jack led the two women through the house.
    Rafe could hear the good-byes that followed the three of them out the front door. He looked around the room. Boys from the neighborhood had turned to men. The girls had turned into women. Couples sat together on chairs, or other furniture. Men were in the corner bullshitting about various defeats, or just reminiscing about high school. Rafe realized that the kids of the neighborhood had turned the legal age to drink and party , but they still partied like they were sixteen. And the topics of conversation were pretty much the same. Jobs, school, extreme sports, and power drinking. He had that familiar feeling of home. He pumped the keg for another cup of beer.
    Here’s to the ageless neighborhood kids.

Chapter Two

    Rafe looked around the darkened room and sighed with relief. The afternoon hours peacefully slipped by in the quiet calm inside the notorious gentleman’s club known as Desert Illusions . The lunch crowd came and went an hour ago, and the dancers wouldn’t perform for another three hours. So the practical ghost town gave Rafe the quiet place he needed to think about his next move. He looked around. Two waitresses tended to the small assortment of patrons that stopped by for a quiet drink or the leftover lunch buffet. Rafe liked the costume attire of black body leotard, tan-colored hose, and spiked high heels. There’s something about a woman in high heels that demands attention.
    You have to find a place to live, his conscience reminded him.
    Living with his parents’ rules seemed to close in on him. They insisted he be in at a certain time. His mom yelled at him for leaving his stuff all around.
    “ You need to pick up after yourself, and clean house ,” she said more than once.
    I feel like a kid again.
    Sometime during the last two weeks, he came to a difference of opinion regarding his old neighborhood. No one grew up. They may have grown to adulthood, but they aren’t adults. The youthful antics of power-drinking all night were over. Maybe, at some point in his marriage, he stumbled into maturity. On the other hand, the restless boredom could be the persona of the notorious Rafe Sines’s return to the neighborhood. He didn’t want to meet the expectations of that reputation any longer. Either way, this wasn’t the life he wanted. But what do I want? As he wondered, pondered, and theorized all the levels of his living experiences, one thing became abundantly clear. If I don’t stop acting like a kid, I’ll be in a lot of trouble, or possibly dead, soon.
    “Hey, Rafe, long time no see,” Jack greeted, interrupting his thoughts. He mounted the stool next to him.
    The bar door had opened and closed so many times throughout the afternoon that Rafe had tuned it out to concentrate on the problem at hand. He didn’t notice that someone had approached him.
      “Hey, man, how are you doing?” They shook hands in greeting. Rafe looked at the clock on the counter. “What brings you here so early?”
    The bartendress sat a beer down in front of him. Jack gave her a simple chin up in greeting. “I’m just looking for something to do. I just left Kelly’s house. Man, she pissed me off.” Jack’s frustration shone in his eyes, but when he gulped down half of the beer in the mug, they sparkled with that same old mischief.
    “I’m confused. I thought her name was Crystal ?” Rafe said