Redemption River

by Lindsay Cross

  Was she physically strong? No. Brutal? Maybe. Cunning? Absolutely.

  Forget Kill Bill. It was time to kill Marcus.

  8

  Hunter grabbed his cane and approached the table surrounded by MRG. No one rose or acknowledged him with more than a nod. They all looked to one man for guidance. C.W. Videl.

  Hunter realized two things. The people at the table weren’t all Grandpas. In fact, a few of them were closer to his age. And a few of them weren’t men.

  “Well, well. If it ain’t Evie’s very own Houdini. Get tired of the disappearin’ act, boy?” C.W.’s voice came out deep and scratchy, like he’d swallowed a bucket of rusty nails for supper.

  “Yep.”

  “What’s wrong, boy? Couldn’t handle the military?” Another man, this one with long grey hair and a handle bar mustache to rival Sam Elliot’s, asked the question.

  “Not the military, old man. Just a haji bullet.”

  “And what, you decided to come home crying? Trying to pull disability, right?” Mustache added.

  C.W. had a dip in his mouth, and he looked liable to spit it at Hunter any minute.

  Hunter kept his expression blank. The comments didn’t bother him. He knew they were a test. “I don’t need disability to handle my shit. But he sounds like he’s speaking from experience.” Hunter turned back to Mustache. “You must know your way around the system pretty good.”

  Mustache stood, his face turning dark red. Hunter let his gaze drop briefly to the MRG label on his shirt before lifting it to meet the man’s gaze once more.

  “What’re you sayin’ boy?”

  “I’m saying only weak, pansy-ass men live off the American tax dollar. And I bet you get your blue check every month.”

  Mustache kicked his chair back, sending it crashing to the floor. Before he could take a step toward Hunter, C.W. grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Hold on, Lafoy. That boy’s messing with you.” C.W. spit into the Styrofoam cup in his hand and turned back to Hunter. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to let you know I’m back. For good. And I have every intention of seeing your granddaughter.” Hunter knew C.W. from childhood. He knew the man could sniff out a lie from another town. Hunter’s best shot was honesty. Or at least part of it. He wasn’t home for good, but he would be dating Evie again. And soon.

  “Well, now, any of us can ‘see’ her.” C.W. said.

  A smattering of low laughter spread across the group. Hunter tensed, and then forced himself to relax. Play his cards right. “I want to date her. I’m just letting you know, out of respect.”

  “And hoping I’ll mind my own business and stay out of your way?” C.W.’s tone was sharp and blunt.

  “Yes. After my injury, I realized how stupid I’ve been. And how much she means to me.” Somehow, the words weren’t as bitter the second time around. They rang with honesty. An honesty he would never be ready to face.

  C.W. squinted at him, and Hunter fought the urge to hold his breath. Remember, this is just a game.

  The old man spit in his cup, and said, “Close calls make you realize a lot of things.”

  “Cyprene Willis Videl. I knew I’d find you here.”

  Hunter turned and stopped cold. Mrs. Trudy Van Meter. She’d been matriarch of the First Southern Methodist Church of Mercy for as long as Hunter could remember.

  “Trudy, what the hell’re you doin’ here?” C.W. stood, his voice a few octaves higher than it had been one minute before. His face had gone a little pale, besides.

  “Oralee Bates called me. Said she’d seen you flirting with some hussy.” Mrs. Trudy plopped her fists on her generous pale-pink clad hips. Her blazer and skirt were pressed stiffer than Hunter’s dress blues. An American flag pin sparkled on her lapel. Her short white-grey hair was sprayed into submission.

  Another man from the table spoke. This one was smaller than the rest. Scraggly. His Carhartt jacket was torn in a few places. “What’s it to ya, lady?”

  Mrs. Trudy’s already straight spine stiffened and Hunter could swear he heard wood crack. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Cyprene and I are dating. And he made promises.”

  “How the hell would Oralee know what I was doing in here unless she was here too?” C.W. resembled the proverbial boy with his hand caught in a cookie jar. Only the boy had a long grey beard and the cookie jar had alcohol in it.

  “Never you mind that. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Her tone was so sharp Hunter took a step back. He’d learned from an early age to respect his elders. But that didn’t mean he had to stand close to a grenade in the form of Trudy Van Meter.

  The people closest to where she stood had the same idea and cleared out.

  Hunter tipped his head. “C.W.”

  C.W. didn’t take his gaze from his lady. And Hunter didn’t blame him. The look in her gaze screamed kill shot and C.W. was her target.

  “Now, Trudy. I was just having some fun with the boys. I ain’t broke no promises.” C.W.’s rough voice disappeared, replaced by the smooth, dulcet tones of a Southern gentleman doing just a touch of begging.

  Hunter didn’t need to stay around to see the fall-out. He headed out onto the screened-in porch and straight into the summer heat. Darkness permeated the night, but the dingy yellow lights hanging from the ceiling provided enough illumination for him to see metal folding chairs and scuffed up wood tables. The exact place Evie had ran from him earlier this night.

  In a normal place, several weeks of rain might take the heat down a few degrees. Not in Mercy. The Mississippi Delta didn’t play around. She reached a hot hand down a man’s throat and ripped the air right out.

  He’d been on missions in the desert for the majority of the past five years. The temperature in those places could burn your skin in thirty minutes flat, melt the pads off your fingers if you grabbed a metal door handle without gloves. It didn’t hold a candle to the South’s deadly concoction of heat and humidity.

  A few die-hard smokers littered the porch, standing far enough apart so the air circling down from the fan stood a chance at reaching them. Mosquitos battled the wire mesh of the screen for entrance to the flesh-fest.

  A flash of bright pink tugged his gaze to the right. When he realized what he was looking at, all the air rushed out of his lungs and the heat on the porch kicked up twenty degrees in the space of one second.

  Holy hell.

  Evangeline Videl. All five-foot-two inches of sex on a stick. Her shirt was like a flashing neon sign through the haze of cigarette smoke, framing her perfect breasts in a way that had his hands clenching. Her navel peeked out above low-slung jeans that hugged hips made by God himself.

  Hunter’s body went on instant alert.

  He gave the men around him a get-the-hell-out-or-die stare. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The smokers took one last drag, extinguished their cigarettes, and beat it back inside. Evie pushed through the screen door and stopped.

  She stood on the other side of the long porch, clutching the back of a chair. The half-moon cast dingy light across the porch, tingeing everything a washed-out yellow. The sound of rushing water competed with the night crawlers’ croaking. Hunter took a moment to study her. And get his shit together.

  “I fucked up.” The words tasted as bitter as a hot Afghani beer. He didn’t want to be here, working this mission and pasting on a fake smile for his ex-girlfriend. She’d been the first, and only, girl he’d ever loved. And she’d torn his heart apart by cheating on him with Marcus. He wanted to be back at his forward operating base at Camp Tajik, playing cards and planning his next operation. Away from all this baggage he’d left behind.

  “The understatement of the year?” She studied him a moment and turned away, walking to the porch railing. A part of him felt the loss of her gaze and wanted it back. The other part breathed a sigh of relief. When her baby blues settled on him, he lost the ability to think.

  A breeze fanned her long hair sideways, revealing the smoo
th skin at her waist. He remembered how soft she was all over, how his hands could span her waist as he pulled her close.

  Awareness trickled through his blood, heated his veins. Frustration followed close behind. She affected him, no matter how much he wished she didn’t. Across a room. Across a country. Across a goddamn ocean.

  His plans threatened to evaporate like smoke.

  Hunter shook his head. No. This was just his body remembering how hot their sex had been. How right she had felt beneath him. There was nothing wrong with attraction, as long as it didn’t twist into something more.

  “Maybe. Maybe I’m just a little hard headed.” He moved around the tables, his leg a throbbing reminder that he hadn’t completely healed. Her gaze shot to the wounded limb, seeing more than he wanted. As much as he detested the weakness, it played into his plan.

  Her blonde brows drew together. “What happened?”

  Hunter stopped when he was a foot away and leaned a hip against the porch rail. “Gunshot. It was a through-and-through, but in a bad spot. I’m taking some time off to let it heal right before going back overseas.”

  Her blue eyes darkened with concern, despite the mask of indifference on her face. She’d always detested violence. Or so he’d thought.

  “Was anyone else hurt?”

  Hunter shrugged. He wasn’t ready to talk about Shane, and besides, he couldn’t reveal classified information. “Nah. I screwed up and took a hit. It happens in combat.” Why was she acting so concerned? “Anyway, it was bad enough for them to send me home. So here I am.”

  “Why come here now?” Evie said, her voice subdued, blending with the soft cadence of the river.

  “I told you, for the beer.” He paused, looked out at the river, not really seeing the scenery. “No. That’s not true. I came for you.”

  Evie shook her head and he could feel her disbelief. Hell, he could feel his own. He was going to have to tread carefully with his words or she would sense his insincerity.

  “Hunter, you’ve been in and out of here on leave. You’ve made it a point to bring every slut in a hundred miles to parade in front of me. Why do you suddenly want me now?”

  Because my CO threatened to send me to guard the French foreign minister if I didn’t get into your pants and get information. Even he knew that wouldn’t exactly put him in her good graces.

  He’d thought about this woman almost every day since leaving Mercy. He’d never thought he’d return home to face her. But in the end there hadn’t been a choice. “Honestly, Evie, I don’t know. All I know is, the harder I try to forget you, the more I remember. And…the more I want you.”

  *

  Evie jerked back, his words sucker-punching her in the chest. In the heart. This was the man she’d dreamed of for years, praying he would come back in one piece. The man who’d stomped on her heart harder than Marcus had stomped on her body. Now he stood right here in front of her. Not more than a foot away, wanting her.

  A stray breeze from the fan blew her hair across her face and she brushed it back, her hand shaking. Evie tucked it in her back pocket before Hunter could see how much he affected her. The last thing she could afford to do was give him ammunition to use against her.

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “You left. Not me. And you expect me to think you thought about me once? Do I look stupid?” The shaking in her hands spread upward, past her shoulders, and took over her whole body.

  Hunter’s dark brown eyes held hers, and she felt like he could see inside her. His hands cupped her shoulders and forced her to face him. “Not stupid. Scared. Just as scared as I am.”

  Evie scoffed. “You? Scared? Haven’t you been off playing Rambo or something?”

  Hunter laughed and Evie felt it all the way down to her toes. “Rambo? I’m a thirty-year-old combat veteran with a gunshot wound and what I suspect is the beginning of arthritis in my knees.”

  As he said it, Hunter leaned forward and rubbed his thigh. She cringed. What if he was telling the truth? What if he had come home to reclaim her?

  Did she still want him?

  “Maybe you should sit down?”

  “I’ve never let a few aches get in the way of my mission.”

  The breath left her in a whoosh. From the look Hunter was giving her, it was clear she was his mission.

  He closed the small gap between them and the scent of earth and raw male power flooded her senses. All she would need to do was lean forward a few inches to touch her lips to his. See if they were as soft as she remembered. As demanding.

  Lust tied her stomach into a knot a Boy Scout leader couldn’t untangle. Hunter’s gaze dropped to her lips. This time when his lips touched hers it was tender. Gentle. Brief. And he was the one who pulled away. But not before his touch unleashed a torrential downpour in her body that left her drowning in desire.

  *

  “Am I interrupting?” Ranger said.

  Hunter jerked back and pinned his brother with a deathly stare. The reaction wasn’t what he would have expected. Ranger leaned against the back door of the bar, arms crossed, his expression…worried. Awareness tugged at Hunter’s conscious. This wasn’t just some brotherly jest meant to disrupt Hunter’s chance to score with Evie.

  On the heels of that thought came another: He had completely forgotten his goal in the space of a second.

  Evie was glaring at Hunter, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wild.

  He frowned. If she left in this state of mind, he would lose all the ground he’d gained. “Stay put,” he said to her.

  “I need to talk to you,” Ranger said.

  “Not right now. We’re trying to catch up on a few things,” Hunter said.

  Evie pushed past him. “Actually, we weren’t catching up on anything. I need to get back to work.”

  He grabbed her arm, pulled her to his side, “Stay. Please.”

  She ignored him, squirming in his grasp. “You need to let me go. Now.”

  “But I’m not through talking to you.”

  “Sucks for you. I’m warning you one last time. If you don’t let go, you’re gonna regret it.”

  Hunter ignored the threat. He had no intention of letting her go now. Not when he finally had a clear head again. Not while she was still breathing hard and thrown off balance. “Don’t do this.”

  Ranger cleared his throat, but they both ignored him. Hunter knew he needed to establish control.

  Evie’s mutinous expression slackened into annoyance, but he held her stare. Her stubborn streak had grown. She held out for another minute before dropping her gaze and nodding.

  Hunter relaxed and focused on Ranger. The look on his brother’s face added new stress to the situation, but at least Evie wasn’t arguing with him anymore.

  “Ranger, give me ten minutes. Tops. I wont be much…” Hunter broke off mid-sentence, sucking in a breath as sharp pain stabbed his shin.

  “Jerk. You’re not my boyfriend. You’re not even my friend. I don’t know who you are, but you don’t control me!” Evie ducked and darted around him. Ranger stepped to the side, pulling the glass door to the bar open for her to run inside.

  Hunter rubbed his shin, anger and annoyance mixing with amusement. “I’m going to tan her ass for that.”

  “I don’t know, brother, I’m not sure she’d agree to that particular form of foreplay.”

  Hunter had been so distracted he’d let a girl get the best of him. She’d fooled him with her innocent look.

  Again.

  Fury edged out any traces of amusement. This was the last time she’d catch him off guard. His jaw clenched and the throbbing in his ears commanded his attention more than his throbbing shin.

  “You sure do know how to get under her skin.” Ranger must have sensed the dark direction of his thoughts.

  “That’s not all I plan on getting under.”

  9

  Ranger paced the gravel and grass lot underneath the bar, eyeing the chipped paint and cracks on the stilts holding The Wharf upright.
His T-shirt was soaked from running through the rain, and water dripped from his hair into his face.

  The rain poured down in a deafening roar, drowning out all other sound. The mosquitos wouldn’t even brave this kind of weather.

  Ranger loved to party and he loved being around pretty women. The women especially. But the perfume and cigarette smoke in the bar had turned his stomach three shades shy of soured milk. At first he’d been fine, dancing and flirting and relaxing with Mercy’s best. But thirty seconds into the second song, he’d caught sight of a baby-faced kid in dress blues standing by the door.

  Maybe it was the navy-blue hat he clutched in his perfect white gloves. Maybe it was the fact that the greenhorn looked about ready to piss his pants.

  The kid stood with his shoulders back, chin up, but he was still six inches shorter than everyone else around him.

  Ranger dipped his dancing partner, placed a kiss on her lips, and deposited her back with her friends. He didn’t give her time to protest. He turned and headed toward the exit. The soldier stood unmoving just a foot inside the door.

  “You looking for someone?” Ranger said, getting his first look up close. God, the military was getting desperate.

  “No, sir.” He stammered, shifting his feet. “I mean, yes, sir. I am looking for Chief Hunter James. I went to his father’s residence and was directed to this place.”

  Ranger’s old man, Hank, had about as much patience with newbies as he did for weeds growing in his fields. Hank tended to take the more direct approach of scaring the ever-living crap out of impressionable young troops.

  “Did you just graduate basic?” The light caught the kid’s brass name badge. Specialist Green. Perfect.

  Green turned red and ducked his head. Yep. He couldn’t be more than a year out. “My brother is in here. What do you need him for?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say, sir. I must speak with Chief James.”

  “If you want to find my brother you have to go through me, and he is currently occupied.” With figuring out how to get in a certain blonde beauty’s good graces. She should come with her own warning label: explosive material—handle with caution.