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  Originally, I’d planned on going home to my apartment that I was subletting from Kayla. Once I knew whether I wanted to stay in this place or not—which, as I stared at June across the bar, was starting to look like a mighty fine idea—I’d either rent it in my own name or look for a house.

  After I had the discussion with my parents that I was moving down here permanently, that was.

  They were still under the impression that I just ‘needed to get away.’ They thought I was coming back.

  I wasn’t.

  I wasn’t necessarily going to stay here, but I sure the hell wasn’t going home.

  Especially not when my father was still so fucking disappointed in me that I didn’t join the fire department and basically become his mini-me in every way.

  “What put that sour look on your face, Officer Grumpy?”

  I blinked, then moved my eyes upward to find June standing beside my stool.

  Her friend from the other night, Amanda I remembered her name being, was standing next to her, looking wide-eyed and wild. She swallowed convulsively and kept eyeing the exit.

  What the hell?

  “I was thinking about my dad, and his plans for me to follow in his footsteps,” I admitted, my eyes going back to her friend. “Are you okay?”

  She jumped, startled, and nodded quickly. “Great. Fine. Couldn’t be better. Why? Should I not be?”

  I blinked at her sudden burst of words. She was so nervous. Why?

  My automatic sense of suspicion started to kick in, something that wasn’t just because I was a cop or that I had been in the military. It was because, at one point in time, I was a cagey person, too. I hid stuff from everyone in my younger years. I didn’t know what prompted me to do it, but it started in my teen years and then extended into my time in the military.

  After I was medically discharged, I slid into this weird sort of depressed state, and I didn’t want to be around anybody—family, friend or stranger. I didn’t want to do anything. I pretty much stayed holed up in my garage apartment while I healed, and then, once I was better, I started shunning everything my father tried to offer me—like the job at the fire department in their apprenticeship program.

  And when he’d tried to push me, I’d gone a step farther and found something that I knew would piss him off. Becoming a police officer was the final F-U to him for trying to force me to do something at a time when I wanted nothing to do with anything at all if it didn’t happen to end with me being back where I belonged—with my squad.

  When he’d learned I’d received my certification as a law enforcement officer, he’d then pulled a few strings on the Benton Police Department and got me an interview—which had been the final nail in the coffin.

  That’d also been the day of the Dixie Warden MC—the motorcycle club my father belonged to—party where Janie had tossed the carrot for me to follow her.

  I’d grasped onto it with both hands and had left the next day without even a mention to my parents.

  I’d left them a note and hadn’t talked to them since.

  I was being childish, I knew.

  But fuck, why was it so bad to want to earn a life on my own? Why did my father always have to try to dictate what I should and shouldn’t do? Last I heard, this was my life I was living, not his.

  “Johnny?”

  I looked over at June, who looked like she was about to get me a cold glass of water based on the concerned look taking over her face.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” she pushed.

  I shrugged. “Honestly? I’m not the best company right now…I’ve had a bad day.”

  That bad day had started out with me having a bad day at work and had finished with me getting an email from one of the men in my squad—Barnes—and it’d gone to complete shit.

  According to Barnes, they were heading back home in three weeks, and they wanted to meet me for a drink.

  I wanted that, too.

  But with my new job, I wouldn’t be able to go to meet them because I couldn’t leave quite yet. They’d have to come to me.

  And, he’d agreed.

  Only after all of that had happened had he told me about Roland.

  After my accident, Roland, or Rosie—not to be confused with the girl Rosie I’d once dated— as we called him, another man in our squad, had suffered injuries that had seen him medically discharged as well.

  It’d been something small and stupid—like my injuries as of right now—and he hadn’t handled it anywhere near as well as I had—and that was saying something since I hadn’t handled it well at all.

  Now he was facing jail time because he’d gotten drunk off his ass and then had proceeded to beat the shit out of the cop that had tried to arrest him.

  “Amanda, why don’t you go get us a bottle of the good stuff? Then leave.”

  I snorted. That wasn’t very nice, but Amanda didn’t seem to care.

  The moment that June had issued those orders, she’d jumped to her bidding.

  But, as I had noticed when they were together earlier in the week working the bar, I knew that there were no hard feelings. Amanda and June had a true friendship. Just like I had with the guys in my squad. I knew that they’d always have my back, no matter what.

  “What part of ‘I’m not good company’ did you not understand?” I muttered, my mood souring by the minute. Without waiting for a reply, I picked up my drink and downed what was left in the glass—which inevitably wasn’t much.

  Dammit.

  A bottle was plopped down in front of me, this time not scotch, but whiskey.

  I didn’t even hesitate. I took the bottle, poured my glass up until it was about to spill over, and took a healthy sip.

  The taste of whiskey was much different from scotch, but it burned just the same—and would do for now.

  I’d probably get drunk faster, but since I didn’t have to work until the evening shift tomorrow, I’d be happy to drink what was provided.

  Amanda and June pulled up a stool on either side of me, and neither one of them said a word.

  That was good, right?

  Chapter 9

  I’m not the type of person you should put on speakerphone.

  -T-shirt

  June

  My mind wouldn’t stop wandering to the man who had spent the entire night last night drinking, and then had walked out of there so steadily that had I not been drinking with him, I wouldn’t have known he was drunk.

  The man could hold his liquor, that was for sure.

  As a reluctant bartender, I should have seen the signs that he needed to be cut off.

  He’d been quiet. Broody. But he’d been holding himself upright, and wasn’t causing a scene. He didn’t raise his voice.

  Honestly, he was a model drunk. I wished all drunks were like him.

  He hadn’t tried to feel me up. He hadn’t even looked at Amanda.

  Hell, the only words I’d heard him say over the course of those four hours was ‘more, please.’

  And, when he realized he was getting to the point that he needed to stop, he did.

  It was all quite eerie, to be honest.

  I swear, he was the most well-behaved drunk in Texas last night.

  “You can go home now, June,” Coke said as he came into the office. “Thank you for staying late and helping me input all that info. That would’ve been a bitch for me with the hunt and peck routine I have going on.”

  I grinned at my boss. “Anytime. Although, you could’ve given it to me about an hour and a half earlier, and we both would’ve been out of here on time.”

  He flipped me off.

  I giggled and gathered my belongings.

  “Can I leave this here? Do you care?” I asked, gesturing to my bag that had an extra set of clothes in it. “After yesterday, I might need to make sure I always have a set here, just in case.”

  Yesterday had been…enlight
ening.

  I didn’t know that a car emitted so much liquid when it was crushed, but boy did I know now.

  He grunted. “There’s a shelf in the bathroom. Feel free to leave whatever the fuck you want here…unless it’s food. I’m fairly sure I won’t stop myself from eating it if you leave food here. Unless it’s chick food.”

  I gave him a dry look. “Do I look like I eat chick food?”

  He gave me the once-over. “You look like you don’t eat at all, to be honest. I think my sixteen-year-old weighs more than you.”

  I shrugged. “Good genes, I guess. I had a chili cheese dog and fries from the gas station for lunch. And I had a couple of Snickers bars. Not to mention I had a forty-four-ounce Dr. Pepper to wash it down with.”

  It was so good I was considering having it all over again for dinner.

  “If I did that, I’d have heartburn for eight hours and wouldn’t sleep through the night. Then I’d have to wake up the next morning at the ass crack of dawn and go run when all I’d want to do is take that extra hour to catch up on sleep.” He paused. “This getting old shit is for the birds.”

  “You’re not really all that old, Coke. Forty is the new thirty for men. Now, if a woman was forty? That wouldn’t work. Men are like whiskey. The more they age, the better they get.”

  He grinned at my assessment.

  “And what are women like?” he questioned.

  “They’re more like bread. When they are younger, they’re really soft and perfect, but the longer they sit, the moldier and less tasty they get.” I burst out laughing at that.

  “Tasty. I don’t think I’ve heard someone use the word ‘tasty’ since I was a kid.” He shook his head. “It might go down for some women like that, but definitely not all of them. Older women know what they want. They’ve probably already had something that they didn’t want and now they know better than to settle for anything less than they deserve.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?” I questioned.

  He shrugged. “No. I only know one woman my age intimately—and that’s my ex-wife.” He scooped his keys out of his pocket and tossed them in the air once before catching them. “And she wasn’t like a fine wine. She was like one of those Cokes. Good when you first open it—or marry her—and flat if you don’t drink her all up in the first couple of hours.”

  I snorted. “I like my bread comparison better.”

  He grunted and walked to the door. “One of these days, you’ll find yourself a man who’ll be head over heels for you, girl. You’re pretty, nice, considerate and down to earth. All things that a man is looking for in a woman.” He gave me an inscrutable look. “But, I’m not sure if you’re going to find that in any of the men here. They’ve already made up their mind about you like they have me—thanks to Beatrice always playing the victim card and your parents’ reputation tarnishing yours. Maybe we should just both pack up and leave.”

  With that, he gestured for me to proceed him out the door, which I did.

  The moment he locked it, I looked at him with more courage than I’d ever felt before.

  “I feel like leaving here is giving in to it.” I paused. “They’re all assholes—or at least most of them are. And the ones that aren’t are so cliquish that I’ll never get in there. But…I’m not going to let them win, and you shouldn’t either.”

  Coke had nothing to say to that as he watched me get into my truck. Once he saw me in safely, he got into his own, and we each pulled out of the lot together. Me turning right, and him taking a left.

  I contemplated running by the gas station again for something to eat but decided that I wasn’t up for another chili dog just yet. Instead, I decided to run by the grocery store and grab a loaf of bread and some sandwich meat. That way, I’d have enough to make myself lunch tomorrow, too.

  Coke was right, though. Eating like that all the time wasn’t the healthiest of options, and just because it wasn’t hurting me, at least visually right now, didn’t mean that one day my bad eating habits wouldn’t catch up to me.

  I reached the parking lot of the store just as it got too hard to see without lights.

  With the darkness starting to blanket Hostel, I flipped on my headlights, but my eyes narrowed when they lit on something deep in the parking lot of the grocery store.

  At first, I wasn’t too sure what I was seeing.

  To be honest, I’d sort of zoned out after the day that I’d had, and I’d gone to the grocery store sort of on auto-pilot.

  Normally I parked in the back, but today I was just too tired after last night—and staying up late on top of drinking when I knew I had to get up early—so I’d opted for a closer parking spot near the side of the building.

  And in doing so, I’d inadvertently pulled in at just the perfect time to see a man with what looked to be a piece of wood rear back and slam it into Johnny’s head.

  Johnny went down hard and then there were five men on him.

  Hitting, kicking and ultimately beating the shit out of him while he laid on the ground in a fetal position.

  I started to honk my horn as I reached for my phone, but I couldn’t drive and dial at the same time since I had a standard.

  Meaning I had to choose what to do…and what I chose was something that hit me like a battering ram.

  Upon hearing my honks, three men broke off almost as if it was choreographed and headed in my direction. The other two continued to kick and punch.

  I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly I was just so freakin’ pissed!

  That’s why when three of the five were far enough away from Johnny that I wouldn’t hurt him, I gunned the engine and plowed through all three of them, narrowly missing running over Johnny’s left hand by less than a foot. I also hit one of the men still beating

  Johnny when I got just a little too close.

  The men hit the truck’s front end so hard that they bounced off and went flying. I don’t know what I expected to happen when the idea came over me, but it didn’t include them flying eight feet into the air and then landing on the concrete so hard that their entire bodies looked broken.

  That’s when the fifth and final man who I hadn’t been able to take out realized that the situation he now found himself in wasn’t nearly as controlled as it had been about fifteen seconds prior.

  I sat in my truck, heart pounding, wondering what he was going to do.

  And apparently, that was run.

  He took off, and he didn’t even pause to check on his companions.

  Thank. God.

  That’s when I reached for my phone and dialed 9-1-1 like I probably should’ve done a minute or two ago.

  ***

  “He has a severe concussion. I recommend that he stay overnight—” The doctor was interrupted by Johnny’s adamancy that he wasn’t going to stay the night.

  “Not happening,” Johnny interjected, his face swollen and bruised. “I’m not staying here. To be honest, I have no desire to stay overnight, and you can’t force me. I’m going home. No discussion.”

  The finality in his tone rang out clear as a bell, and I knew he’d walk right out of here AMA—against medical advice—if the doctor didn’t discharge him.

  “But, sir,” the doctor tried to reason with him.

  There was no reasoning with him on this. Even I could tell it wasn’t going to happen. I could read it plain as day in his pain-filled eyes.

  “What if someone stayed with him?” I blurted.

  “That’s not happening,” Tyler Cree said as he came in at the same time that the doctor said, “That would work.”

  “Sold.” Johnny swung his legs over the bed and catching my gaze. “I’m ready to go when you’re ready to take me home.”

  I bit my lip, trying not to look at the scarily pissed off cop at my side, and instead kept my eyes focused ahead.

  Tyler Cree had already scared me once tonight. I wasn’t going to say or do anything else that might
bring his attention to me again.

  “Johnny…” Tyler started to say.

  “Listen, Cree.” Johnny stood. “Frankly, you don’t know me well enough to know that I don’t do hospitals or why…so let’s just leave it at that.”

  Tyler stared at Johnny, and Johnny must’ve shown him something that made him agree, because Cree was now nodding his head. “Okay, fine. Just make sure you check in with me every couple of hours.”

  “I’ll check in with you in the morning,” Johnny countered. “That’s why I’m going home with her.”

  Johnny gestured toward me, and I had to bite my lip to keep from squirming under both men’s stares.

  “Fine,” Cree said as he continued to stare at me. “But you’ll keep me updated.”

  “I…I don’t have your number to update you,” I sputtered.

  I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Like…I really had no clue.

  I mean, one minute I was driving to the grocery store, and the next thing I knew, I had hit four men with my truck.

  Now, I was standing in the hospital, three doors down from the men I’d hit with my truck while arguing with the chief of police.

  This was not a good idea.

  I should tell Johnny no.

  But when I turned my head to do just that, I saw that Johnny wasn’t watching me with scrutiny, but with concern. He was the one who was injured after getting beat up, and he was concerned about me?

  What the hell?

  “Johnny has it.” He paused. “Are you up for making a statement on the Facebook page, or do you want me to do that?”

  Johnny grunted. “I’ll do it. Why not?”

  Cree grunted. “Don’t be stupid tonight, and don’t come back to work for at least the next four days. If you’re still experiencing dizziness then, just let me know, and I’ll get next week covered for you as well.”

  With that Cree walked out of Johnny’s exam room, then turned into one three down from us—where I knew one of the men were.

  “I’m ready when you are,” Johnny said, ignoring the doctor’s sigh.

  I looked at the doctor. “Anything special I should do or need to watch out for?”

  The doctor shook his head in resignation. “Wake him every two to three hours, and if you can’t wake him up or he’s confused when you wake him, get him back here right away.”