Fearless Rebel: A Hero Club Novel

by Eden Butler

  “Lawyer.”

  “Ah. Overachiever. Wanted you to be one too?” She got the idea, but then she would. Earlier in the day when I agreed to show her around Midland Grove, I’d already gotten the story of how she’d abandoned law school/law career for an animal shelter.

  “Well, he wanted Alex, my brother, to be a lawyer. He thought I had the temperament for medicine. But Alex never made it beyond trade school and married young. Trained with her grandfather and brother before he started his own construction company.”

  “And you obviously didn’t consider med school.”

  I waved my glass, grinning at the memory of my father’s expression when I announced I was switching my major to business. “He was supremely bummed that I wasn’t even bothering with state school. After high school I worked at a few hotels, made a little money, then I ran the B&B during the day and attended classes at night.”

  “Well, it seems to have worked out for the best.” She grinned behind her glass, shrugging. “Your B&B is so beautiful. I can tell you’ve put a lot of heart into it.”

  “I appreciate that.” I leaned forward, then glanced down at the princess cut diamond on her hand when she adjusted it. “May I?”

  “Oh, sure.” She let me take her hand, her smile widening as I examined the wedding set.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “He’s got good taste.” Aubrey touched the band, her smile twisting before she picked her glass up again, and I grinned to myself at how pleased the woman seemed. She’d mentioned being married for well over a year and still her husband managed to keep that honeymoon smile on her face.

  “And so do you,” I said. “If you don’t mind me saying so. I see the way Chance looks at you. You’re very lucky. He’s a doter.”

  “A…what?”

  I took my glass in my hand leaning back against my chair. “He dotes. Always touching you, kissing your forehead, calling you princess, making sure you have what you need. It’s sweet.” Two security guards from the credit union two blocks over came through the door, smiling at me before they moved to the booth in the back of the bar, but I kept my attention on Aubrey. “I see a lot of couples in my line of work. A whole lot of honeymooners…hear them more than see them. You tend to pick up a sense about people after a while. Some stick, some don’t. The doters, they tend to always stick.” Raising my glass, I offered Aubrey a smile. “Here’s to you and your doter, Mrs. Bateman.”

  She joined me in the small toast, giggling at my exaggerated flourish before we both drank. Then Aubrey shifted in her seat, folding her arms. “And what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Any prospects on doters?”

  I snorted behind my glass, ignoring the looks I got from the guards behind us. “Not remotely.”

  “Really?” she said, tilting her head.

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s just I thought there might be…something I picked up on the other day between you and…Ed?”

  I abandoned my drink on the table, looking toward the bar, avoiding the gaze of a couple I recognized, but Aubrey was perceptive.

  “Ah…I struck a nerve, didn’t I?”

  This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with anyone, especially a stranger. Certainly when I wasn’t sure how to explain any of it. There was still a lot of baggage between us and even though his tumble off the roof scared the hell out of me, I hadn’t released all the anger and resentment that lived in my head when I thought of Ed.

  And yet…there was that moment when I’d held his hand and didn’t realize I was doing it. And the flash of heat in his eyes when I mentioned the lavender patch at the back of the grounds. He remembered, just like I did, what had happened that night and a hundred nights after that.

  “Piper, are you alright?” Aubrey asked, reaching across the table. “You’re a little flushed.”

  “I’m…fine. It’s just…is it warm in here?” I twisted my hair off my neck, fanning the back as the woman watched me.

  “A bit chilly, actually…” Then, Aubrey motioned to the waitress, smiling as she called to her to grab, “a pitcher of water for my friend.”

  Eyebrows up, she waited, her nails against the table, patient and content, it seemed to give me all the time in the world to explain myself. It was almost as awkward as my little hand holding had been with Ed the day before, but not quite.

  Lowering my shoulders, I dropped my head, giving up as I watched her. “He’s my ex.” Aubrey moved her head, not seeming remotely surprised, her stare even, still expectant, giving me that lawyer gawk. Damn. She must have been a lion in the courtroom. “And,” I continued, “it ended very badly.”

  “Oh.” The stare relaxed, replaced by a frown of concern. “He didn’t…you know…” She waved a fist in my direction and I shook my head.

  “God, no. Ed would never, ever…” Sighing, I rubbed my neck. “There is a lot of…bad between us. A lot of resentment and anger. We’re still mad about things that messed up our families and more than just our relationship with each other.”

  “I see…” Her expression tightened and Aubrey slipped her gaze toward the door. “So you and he aren’t friends or even…on speaking terms?”

  “It’s hard to say, really.” Impossible was a better word. Ridiculous was even better. “There’s just a lot of things that haven’t been dealt with, but his sister and my brother are married and are about to have a baby. We’re stuck with each other one way or another. We have to learn to coexist.”

  “But you haven’t been…”

  “Well, he only just got back, but I try to avoid him as much as I can.” Not exactly true. That was something I’d decided last night, when I replayed the accidental unintentional touching incident. I couldn’t explain that one. Not even to myself.

  “Well, shoot…” Again Aubrey’s gaze moved to the door, this time staying, rounding as she spoke over my head. “Then I guess you’re not gonna be happy with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Afternoon, love. Miss Warren, mind if we join you?” Chance said, sitting next to Aubrey before we answered. He glanced at the chair next to me, and I stiffened unprepared when Ed slipped into it.

  “Sweetie, did you have a good time at the farm?” Aubrey asked Chance and just like that they forgot they weren’t alone in the world.

  “Sorry,” Ed said, leaning on the table. “He has a landscaping business. I mentioned Velma’s roses and the special fertilizer she used to use, and he wanted to have a look. I didn’t know we’d end up here. Wasn’t planned or anything.”

  Shrugging, I finally glanced at him, trying to ignore how different he looked with his hair in two braids at the sides, not one long one down his back. It was only then that I noticed how much shorter his hair was than it had been when he’d left Midland.

  He frowned, looking at his shoulder, I guess trying to see what I was staring at, and I shook my head, silently apologizing.

  “Why,” I paused tilting my head to lean a little closer, “did you cut your hair?”

  There were questions I had no business asking. If I was honest with myself, nothing about Ed was my business anymore at all and the second the question registered, I realized the mistake it was. Ed clenched his jaw, the large vein in his neck flexing as he swallowed before he let out a low, gruff, “I didn’t.”

  But he had. I wasn’t blind. From his attitude, and reaction, the realization hit me quick. If Ed didn’t do it then someone else had. In prison. Without his permission.

  He looked around the room, bouncing his leg like he expected a fight and was trying to figure out where the threat would come from, but stopped when I inched closer, my stomach still twisted with guilt for asking the question.

  “Hey.” He turned, that leg still bouncing. “I know it’s not your thing because of…” I nodded to my glass, catching his gaze, nodding when he did before I continued, “but it’s been a long time and we’ve both had a shitty time as of late.” Ed tilted his head, then frowned when I
glanced back at his hair. He opened his mouth, like he was itching to say something sarcastic, but I cut him off.

  “Hell, Eddie, you wanna get drunk?”

  His leg went still, and the faintest pulse moved his bottom lip as he watched me, his gaze shifting over my face for half a second to Chance and Aubrey, then back to me.

  “Why the hell not?”

  There was a nice, warm buzz fizzing my insides, and everything out of Chance’s Aussie mouth seemed to be funny. At least, it was charming. Aubrey watched her husband telling the story of how they met, the road trip from hell, their fateful run-in with a goat they called Pixy.

  “Our first baby…” Aubrey supplied, pulling out her phone to proudly flash a picture of a shaggy-looking goat practically grinning at the camera. “Esmerelda Snowflake.” She took the phone back, flicking through another picture. “Though we just call her Pixy most of the time.”

  “Or Mutton,” Chance said, and I slipped a glance at Ed, making a mental note to never tell either of them what recipe Evie and Ed’s Aunt Queenie had perfected and brought to every family gathering.

  He widened his bloodshot eyes, shaking his head before downing a shot, a silent agreement.

  “And here’s our boy,” Aubrey said, handing over the phone again for Ed and I to have a look at a toothless blond baby who looked just like Chance.

  Ed’s breath warmed my neck as he looked down at the phone. He was so close to me, I felt the slow smile working over his mouth. I straightened in my seat, leaning toward Aubrey to hand over her phone. “He’s a cutie.”

  “What about you two?” Chance asked, slipping his arm along the back of Aubrey’s chair. At his question Ed moved away from me, leaning on his elbow to give me some breathing room, but Chance continued. “How do you know each other? Not just work, is it?”

  Chance didn’t seem to notice his wife’s hand squeezing his fingers or how I took a longer sip of my drink. Instead, he leaned forward, his gaze shifting between the two of us, seeming to wait, expecting an answer. I wouldn’t volunteer a thing.

  Ed, though, didn’t seem to like the awkward silence.

  “She had a crush on me when she was a kid. It was obvious…but still cute. Kept following me around town.” He stretched a leg out, shrugging like humiliating me was no big deal, and kept it up. “I took pity on her. Threw her a wink every now and then.”

  He barely flinched when I sent my elbow into his side, head shaking. Two could play that little game. “He wishes. Ed convinced me to go on a date with him so he could break into my granny’s B&B. Tried to sweeten it with a kiss.”

  Ed choked on his drink and had to beat on his chest to sort himself out before serving me a glare. I ignored it, deciding to join in with Chance and Aubrey’s laughter.

  “That must have been one hell of a kiss,” the Aussie said, slapping the table.

  “Eh, I suppose it was okay.”

  “Okay?” Ed leaned forward, pretending to be offended. “That’s definitely not the memory I have of your reaction.”

  “You’re old now.”

  He moved closer. Too close again. Smirking.

  I held my glass to my lips, trying not to notice how hard he stared at me or that the couple across the table seemed focused on our exchange. Fussing with the ends of my hair, I took a drink, shrugging as I said, “It’s been many years. I’m sure your brain is addled.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, yázhí.”

  The last word slipped from him like “and” or “the.” Easy and eventual. Sweet and simple and utterly unexpected. I wasn’t his little one. Hadn’t been for a long time, hadn’t even been beloved enough for any of his family to call me that, but he did just the same. Ed seemed to match my surprise, but his didn’t linger. It didn’t seem to freeze his insides like it did mine. He blinked slow, wetting his bottom lip as he watched me, dipping his head once—like he made some internal confirmation he’d keep to himself.

  Overhead, the music got slow and sugary. A bluesy ballad that had Aubrey leaning close to her man. “Oh, sweetie, dance with me. It’s been forever.” She had him off his feet and on the dancefloor before he could do more than utter a swift, “anything you want, Princess.”

  They moved together with hardly any space between them. Chance held her like a man who wanted the world to know she was his and Aubrey didn’t seem to mind. She leaned against him, a small, sweet smile on her face, her nails moving against his neck. The couple swayed together like the entire universe orbited around them and they had had no time or attention for anything but each other.

  “They’re obnoxious, right?” Ed said looking at the couple, his fingers wrapped around his emptying bottleneck.

  “Totally,” I said, head tilted, burying the spark of envy inside me when Chance kissed Aubrey on the top of her head. I remembered what that was like. “But it’s sweet.”

  My confession pulled Ed’s attention to me, his gaze softening as he studied my face for a few seconds. Then, he cleared his throat, motioning for the waitress to bring us another round. He rested an elbow on the table and we both look back at Chance and Aubrey. “She asked him. She’s assertive. That’s good.”

  There was a hint of something in his voice that sounded a lot like longing. But I knew Ed. He wasn’t a jealous man. He was fishing. Likely joking, but still fishing.

  “You want me to ask you to dance?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, glancing back at me, eyebrows shooting up when I laughed.

  The memory was sweet and old and one of my favorites. He’d never let me live it down. “I was a kid and Evie dared me.”

  “You never could back down from a dare.”

  “Nope.” The waitress set down our drinks, but I kept my attention on Ed’s smile and let myself get lost in the memory of that powwow a lifetime ago. “Not even when every girl at that powwow was fighting over who was gonna ask the great Ed Mescal to do the two-step with her.”

  He cringed, rubbing his face. “Not like I had a choice or enough cash to keep turning them down.” Those were the rules. If you were a single man and a woman asked you to two-step you either said yes or gave her a piece of your regalia—something Ed prized more than anything because his grandmother had spent months making it—or you paid up. “I was holding out for Elyse Tousey.”

  “You and every guy dancing that weekend.”

  “Best jingle dress dancer in the region. Biggest set of—”

  I cleared my throat and Ed laughed, disregarding his recollection of the pretty Ojibwe girl from Ontario no boy at the Fort Mason powwow could even get a hello from.

  “But,” he said through an exhale, “you got to me early that night. I remember.”

  “Because Evie scared all those other girls off.” Ed’s laugh was quick, brightened his eyes and loosened the tension that had kept his features hard since he’d gotten home. When I reached for my drink, he hurried to grab it for me, handing over a napkin too. I swallowed, ignoring the sweet gesture. “God, I can still see the damn smoke coming out of Carmen Harjo’s ears as she watched us dance. Kept telling me no knock-kneed barrel racer could make someone as fine as Eddie Mescal happy.” His laugh got louder, smile wider, and a warm buzz radiated through my chest for a different reason. “She was so pissed at me she threw her hot fry bread at my head.”

  Mouth dropping open, he still laughed, inching closer. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. It landed in my lap. Velma saw what she’d done and nearly jerked Carmen’s arm out of her socket, then pulled her over to her mama and told the woman what a disrespectful daughter she’d raised, wasting perfectly good frybread while I shared what was left of it with Tasso.”

  Ed’s smile dropped at the mention of Velma’s name, but he didn’t frown. Instead he picked up a shot from the small collection in the center of the table and offered one to me.

  “To Piper Warren, for rescuing me from a thirsty-ass, fancy shawl dancer, who smelled like her mom’s Kool Menthols and patchouli oil.”


  “Poor Carmen, she did, didn’t she?” I took the shot, laughing at Ed’s quick nod and downed the tequila, wincing at the sharp burn that coated my throat.

  It was good to be like this with him: happy, laughing, a little drunk. There was nothing that muddied the laughter between us. No blame to assess, no heartbreak to relive. I liked being with Ed in this dark little spot of the world, away from the attention and judgments of everyone else.

  Away from the reality that waited for us outside those doors.

  There was a lot I thought of saying to him just then. Things that would make our lives run smoother. Things like “hey, let’s just be friends” or “let’s start all over” but I wasn’t sure how easily either of those would come. When you’ve loved someone with every part of yourself, how do stop when it’s all over?

  But the intention was there. The trying would come, and I meant to say I wanted that for him, for us, but the music changed. The crowd got thicker. Chance and Aubrey returned to the table, and the tequila made our heads cloudier.

  Ed’s chair got closer to mine.

  Chance’s questions got nosier, even with Aubrey jabbing him in the side, and then, the music shifted a final time, to something I’d know even if I were half-dead and could make out the gossamer outline of harps, clouds, and St. Peter waving me over to the Pearly Gates.

  Buzzed as we were, Ed stiffened beside me, looking toward the DJ booth, then right at me, his expression making him look worried and sweet and almost sorry all at once.

  I knew what he’d ask, and I couldn’t do it. Was about to tell him as much. Shook my head. Opened my mouth. It was too much and even after five years, too soon.

  “No, Ed…”

  “It’s a good song.”

  I’d never deny that.

  We’d danced to it that last night. Made a game of it. Using Mrs. Dolly’s lyrics and all her heartbroken melancholy to switch the narrative.

  “You wanna dance to a heartbreak song?”

  “It’s not a heartbreak song when we dance to it.”

  The grass is blue.

  “My life would be better if I didn’t know you…” It was a sweet lie he spoke with a smile, kissing me hard. “And God, how much I don’t love you.”