Obviously, Andy hadn’t told her family the whole story behind why he’d left. If she had, it wouldn’t have been him they were angry with. If she’d told everyone the truth, that she’d cheated on him, she wouldn’t still be the town’s Golden Girl. That she was still so revered did nothing to temper his residual anger.
“Nice to see you too, Spence,” Owen answered coolly.
“I said, you aren’t welcome here,” Spencer repeated.
“Spencer,” Andy said quietly from behind him. As Owen turned, he saw Andy give her brother a look and a small shake of her head.
Andy and Spencer both walked away and left him sitting at the bar alone with his beer, which suited him just fine.
Twelve years ago, he’d run from everything he knew in life. He’d gone into the navy, as planned, his service ending after a dozen years with a hip injury that had put him on the desk-duty track. He wasn’t cut out for that, navy or no, so, he’d said goodbye and headed back to the home he’d once known, but had left without a word.
After his parents died in a car accident at the beginning of his senior year of high school, the house had been left to him. He would have hated to see it neglected and was glad that everything was in working order, well cared for by the maintenance company he’d hired.
“Holy shit! Owen Monroe?” Someone slapped him on the back as they slid into the seat next to him.
He turned to see a couple of guys he’d gone to high school with and to his surprise, seemed happy to see him. He asked what they’d been doing in the years he’d been gone and they asked the same of him. He told them about some of his time in the navy and they told him that they still lived and worked in town and were regulars at Walker’s. He was tempted to ask about Andy, but stopped himself by reminding himself that he didn’t give a flying rip.
“You want another?” Andy asked as he placed his empty pint glass on the old, scarred bar. He looked up from the spot he’d placed his glass only to see that Andy wasn’t Andy at all.
Her hair was long, but pin-straight and she had a small freckle above her lip on the right side. She wasn’t ambivalent and ignoring him, either. She was angry. He could see it in the set of her shoulders and the way her lips pursed. If he remembered her temper correctly, those were both sure signs that she was holding back and trying to reign in her Irish temper.
“Alexa,” he said, greeting Andy’s twin the same way he’d done with the rest of the family.
“Do you want another?” she repeated.
Owen could practically see the steam coming out of her ears. Oh, she was pissed. Strip his hide, rip him a new one, pissed.
“Sure.”
When she turned around to pour the beer, he surreptitiously checked the rest of the bar.
He was seated by the end of the bar. There was a pool table and only a few tables on this side. Walker’s was long though, and the right side of the room had a lot more tables and people. It was crowded, being one of the only bars in town.
“You can stop looking. She left,” Alex said into the mirror above her head as she looked back at him.
He didn’t bother denying that he’d been looking for Andy. To be honest, he’d been looking for her since he rolled into town that afternoon. There was no denying he was still angry and hurt about the way things had ended before. He’d been telling himself for years she didn’t matter and she was just another insignificant person from his past.
But the bottom line was he’d been comparing every woman he got involved with to Andy. No one he’d ever bothered with came close to comparing and he was afraid no one ever would.
Logan Hallowell, his best friend, had been telling him for years that he would never have a meaningful relationship until he either let go of his past or confronted it head-on. He saw the pattern. He saw that he ignored any woman with half a brain in favor of fluff. That way he could avoid getting too involved. It was easier than admitting the truth.
That Andy had been ‘The One’ and she’d ruined him.
“How’ve you been, Alex?” he asked, needing to fill the void between them.
Alex just looked at him as she set his beer on the bar. She studied him with eyes so familiar, yet so different.
Andy had always been gentle and kindhearted, where Alex had been more sarcastic. Some people had a hard time telling them apart, but that had never been a problem for him. One look at Andy, the first day of sophomore year in high school, and he was a goner. It had been like being hit with a brick. He’d been dumbfounded. He’d known Andy and Alex his whole life and had never looked at either of them with anything other than friendship. But that first day of school, Andy had shown up wearing a jean skirt and tank top, newly blossomed perky breasts underneath, shiny lip gloss and windswept hair.
Jesus, it made his heart beat a little faster just remembering her that way.
He would know her anywhere.
She ignored his question, sighing as she wiped the counter, and picked up a few empty bottles in one hand. “What are you doing here, Owen?”
“Visiting.”
“Doesn’t that imply you would be here to visit someone?” She cocked her head to the side and seemed to think for a moment, then poised her finger to her chin, mocking him. “Nope. You left all us nobodies here a long, long time ago. Haven’t been back to visit since.”
The bottles made a loud crashing sound as she unceremoniously dumped them in the trash under the bar, all the while staring at him, and waiting for his answer.
“EAOS. Expiration of Active Obligated Service,” he explained. “I’m done with the navy, so I came home.”
“Home?” she exclaimed heatedly and pointed her finger at his chest. “Make no mistake, Owen, this is not your home. You left your home a long time ago. All you have left here is a house and an empty one at that.”
She turned on her heel and stalked to the other end of the bar.
“That went well,” he mumbled to himself.
Owen finished his beer, stood from his stool, and walked out the door into the cold February night.
Everything in Freehope seemed the same on the outside. The buildings still seemed old-fashioned when you took a good look at them. The Town Hall still stood proudly in the center of town across from where he stood. The lights invitingly shone from homes that ran along the rotary in the center of town or the apartments above the store fronts.
It all seemed the same, but really, everything had changed.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected in coming back to Freehope. Clearly, a welcoming party was out of the question. Was moving back to the town he’d run from so long ago really worth it? Would he ever be able to make a home for himself in Freehope again?
Alex wanted to strangle Owen. Not only for having the balls to even come back to town, but for being so callous about coming into Walker’s. He may not have known Andy worked at the bar, but he certainly knew it was family owned—and he had to know he wasn’t welcome. If he didn’t at least know that after the shit he’d pulled all those years ago, he was a bigger dope than she thought.
Never, in all their years of working at the bar, had Andy ever called in the middle of a shift to go home. Andy was one of the strongest and steadiest people Alex knew, so when the call came, it was clear that whatever had been going on was major.
“Can you believe that asshole?” Her brother Spencer growled next to her as he threw his rag on the bar.
What she couldn’t believe was that asshole had shown up and thrown their whole world askew, and everything still seemed so normal. All the regulars were still laughing and talking. They were still playing darts and carrying on, like nothing had happened.
Andy didn’t have that luxury.
“No, I can’t,” Alex agreed grimly.
“He has some goddamn nerve coming in here. I have half a mind to track his ass down and grind his face into the pavement.”
“I’d be right behind you, Spencer,” Alex told him, her straight black hair swinging over her shoulder as
she turned to look at him. “You know Andy wouldn’t like that.”
“Well, she must be more mature than me.” Spencer was the oldest of the Walker kids, but Alex thought he might have a point. Boys did mature slower, she mused. Andy was the mature one, the one who’d grown up, held a steady job and, oh yeah, raised a baby on her own.
“Who are we trying to kid? She’s more mature than all of us put together,” Alex joked.
“Ah, c’mon, Lex, we’re upstanding citizens here. More than we can say for Owen.”
He had a point. “Freehope must have a very low scale if a bar owner and an out-of-work pastry chef are high-class citizens.”
Spencer looked affronted, which at six feet five inches was mildly comical. “That’s all you see me as? A bar owner? How about brewmaster? Second generation business owner?”
She considered his argument. He had another point, not that she wanted to admit it to him. It was basic law of sibling-hood that one could never admit when another was right—especially a younger sister to an older brother. It went against all the laws of nature.
Reluctantly she nodded her agreement. “I’ll give you that. Although, brewmaster is a little pompous, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged as he poured a few beers and she cleaned the counter. “And you’re not out of work, Lex. You work here. And you’re trying to start your own business. It takes time.”
All true, again. Spencer was getting smart in his old age.
“So, what happens with Owen now, do you think?” he asked after a few minutes.
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted, trying to put herself in Andy’s place, but it was next to impossible, and she had no idea what her twin sister would do. She had ideas what she would do, but no clue as to what Andy would decide to do. “All I know is, if he hurts her again, I’ll have to maim him.” When he looked like he was going to interrupt she kept going, “I mean, literally hunt him down like the lying, skunk-faced, weasel prick he is and cut his balls off.”
Spencer’s eyes widened for a split second before he took a step back. “Oooo-kay,” he said before turning around and walking away.
She shrugged, even when she saw a few patrons may have overheard her.
Oh well, she thought. The jerk deserved it.
Also by Jenni M Rose
The Chasing Happy Series
Dead and Buried: Chasing Happy Book 1
Chasing Happy
The Freehope Series
Forgiving History (Freehope Book 1)
Forgiving History: A Wedding Novella (Freehope Book 2). You can BUY IT or GET IT FREE for joining my mailing list)
Confessing History (Freehope Book 3)
Delivering History (Freehope Book 4)
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The Williams Brothers
Elliot: The Williams Brothers
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About the Author
Jenni M Rose is a sometimes writer with an all the time imagination.
Jenni can usually be found at the grocery store or driving her kids from place to place. More often than not, she can be seen typing away in the waiting rooms of local gymnastics gyms or dance studios.
Married mom, business owner, writer, taxi driver, accidental chicken lady.
No Love Left Behind (Boston Billionaire's Club Book 1) Page 25
