Hustler_A Second Chance Romance

by Rye Hart

  I looked over at Nicole, and she held her hands up. I watched her backtrack onto the porch and catch Lily just as she was heading out the door.

  Nicole was trying to convince Lily to go inside with her so they could start cooking dinner, which I knew would result in Nicole simply ordering pizza.

  “Or something,” I said.

  I watched my neighbor nod her head as she took one last look at my car. She was new to the neighborhood. At least, new to me. I grew up here. My life with Bradley bounced me around to all sorts of places around the country.

  Base life wasn’t the most glamorous thing, but we always talked about how we wanted to raise Lily near family. I grew up in Bend, Oregon, a town of ninety-one thousand people but the feel of small-town living. It was where I’d made my life. It was where I’d first met Bradley. It was the place I’d dreamed of getting back to whenever we wanted to settle our family down.

  One more deployment.

  All we had to do was get through one more deployment.

  “You okay?”

  My neighbor’s voice pulled me from my trance as I met her gaze.

  “Oh yes I’m fine, thank you,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go inside and make up some dinner.”

  “You mean order pizza.”

  I eyed the woman carefully as I took a step back from her.

  “Your friend stepped out on the porch and asked you what kind of pizza you wanted. Went back in when you didn’t answer. You okay?” she asked again.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Well, then yes. Pizza. I should probably go.”

  “Sure. One thing, though. Your car was humming down the street. You should probably get it looked at. It’s going to kick up a fuss with the neighborhood if you don’t.”

  I had a feeling the only person who would kick up a fuss was her.

  “Yeah. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”

  I stumbled up the porch steps and shoved into the house. Nicole rushed to my side, locking the door behind me as Lily sat at the table. She was playing with her dolls and talking about how much pizza she was going to eat, and I was glad she was distracted.

  I was still very unsettled by my neighbor’s intrusion.

  “Okay, I love you. So I’m going to say this with all my heart. You need a damn security system up in the place, girl.”

  “You gonna pay for it?” I asked.

  “You need to protect yourself and your daughter. Look, I know you guys have only been back in town for a couple of months, but that woman isn’t right. She’s way too nosey for her own good. No wonder she’s had so many divorces. They probably couldn’t shut her up.”

  I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to argue about the security system in front of Lily. She didn’t need to hear anything that would cause her worry.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” I said, sighing.

  “Why don’t you keep pursuing your bed and breakfast plans?” Nicole asked.

  “Been a bit preoccupied lately,” I said.

  “You know you can do it, even on your own. Right?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Maybe, one day I will try again. But right now, there are more immediate things that need to be tended to.”

  “Like?”

  “Bills, Nicole. Those things I have to pay on a monthly basis.”

  “Bradley would’ve wanted you to—”

  I took a peek at Lily to make sure she wasn’t hearing our conversation by the front door.

  “He always encouraged you to be independent. He loved that fire about you. Seeing you chained to a job you hated would break him inside,” Nicole said.

  “He also understood a sense of duty and a need to provide for his family, Nikki. I’ve got to dig myself out from underneath this mortgage before I essentially take on another one for a bed and breakfast. It’s just going to take time.”

  “But how much time? No offense, but we’re not getting any younger babe,” Nicole said.

  “The point is, I’m working on it. Slowly, but it’s happening.”

  Knowing that arguing with me was futile, Nicole switched tactics. “You should get the guy next door to give your nosey neighbor a stern talking to.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “While you were gone, a new guy moved in next door. I came by to check him out for you. Make sure he was all right.”

  “You came over to see if he was sexy enough for you to waste your time on,” I said with a grin.

  “That too. And by the way? It’s hard to see behind all that hair of his. He’s gruff and rugged. Got a beard and all that shit.”

  “God forbid a man have body hair.”

  “Body hair. Not facial hair. Clean that shit up. He could be a serial killer,” she said.

  “Nicole. Lily’s at the table,” I said.

  “Sorry. But, you should make friends with him and get him to talk to your neighbor. I bet she’d back down.”

  “That intimidating?”

  “Yes, which is another reason you should get a security system.”

  “You want my neighbor to be an attack dog for my other neighbor while I guard myself against both of them?” I asked.

  “A woman can never be too careful,” she said with a grin.

  “So I take it you’ve dug into this guy with your super-secret spy skills?” I asked.

  “A bit. I don’t think he has a job or anything around here yet. At least, not a job anyone knows about. But he’s already ruffled a few feathers.”

  “How long has he been in town?” I asked.

  “A couple months. Was renting a place closer to town until this past weekend when he moved next door. But people are talking.”.”

  “People around here talk if you wear white after Labor Day for Christ sake.”

  “Either way, the rumors aren’t good. He’s gruff and rather unfriendly. He cussed out old man Dillard the other day, apparently.”

  “In his defense, we all want to cuss out old man Dillard,” I said.

  “Beside the point.”

  “No, exactly the point. Have you actually met this man? I mean, gone up and shaken his hand?”

  “No, but I know—”

  “Then you can’t judge him by the rumor mill. This town talks. It always does. And sometimes, it has a good reason to talk. But usually, it doesn’t. Just a bunch of bored old biddies with nothing better to do than make up some juicy stories to pass around the knitting circle,” I said.

  “You still need that security system,” Nicole said.

  “I’ll wait for that winning lottery ticket, and I’ll get one,” I said.

  “Mommy, when’s the pizza gonna get here?”

  I looked up and saw Lillian’s beautiful blue eyes staring back at me, full of her father’s spirit and calm.

  I felt my heart leap against my chest as I smiled at her.

  “Soon, booger. Soon.”

  I watched a smile spread across her cheeks as a knock came at the door.

  “Pizza delivery.”

  “Just a second!” Nicole said.

  “I can get dinner,” I said.

  “Nope. You need to save up for that security system. I’ve got dinner tonight,” she said.

  Nicole meant well.

  She always did.

  She always knew what was best for me.

  I just hoped she wasn’t right about the mysterious man from out of town.

  CHAPTER 2

  GRAHAM

  I sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring down my face.

  Another fucking nightmare.

  It was the same dreadful day that replayed like a broken record. Like a curse.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and looked at the clock on the bedside table.

  Four in the damn morning.

  I got up and walked to the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face and looked at myself in the mirror. The bags under my eyes made me look much older than my thirty-eight years. I rose to my full height o
f six three and studied my reflection. My dark brown hair was tousled from sleep, and my deep blue eyes were haunted.

  All I made time for these mornings was my therapy of hitting the weights hard to take out my frustrations. My efforts resulted in well-muscled arms and a sculpted chest that narrowed to a V at my waist. I scrubbed a hand over my beard and sighed deeply.

  It was the third time I had the nightmare in one week. Over the past year-and-a-half, the nightmare played out in my dreams and woke me from a dead sleep.

  Knowing I wouldn’t be able to go back to bed, I climbed in the shower to wash the sweat and the haunted memories from my body and mind. The soap and water cascaded down my broad chest and thick thighs, and I scrubbed myself as if I could physically remove the memories.

  It never worked.

  Nothing worked.

  I didn’t want it to work.

  I coveted the pain.

  The torment.

  Pain was my way of seeking redemption. Redemption that I knew would never come.

  I was living in my own personal hell, in the third town I’d moved to since that horrible night. I had to leave the place I’d once called home. It reeked of too many memories.

  Too much guilt.

  Too much innocence lost.

  I walked to my kitchen to brew coffee, needing to kill time before Daniel would be awake in a few hours. He’d be up by five am his time. The Agency engrained that in him, just like it had in me.

  Now, I was up before sunrise every damn day, but not because I had someplace to be. My mind was overwhelmed with memories that haunted me.

  My little boy, Kason, had been sick that morning. He’d woken with a fever and his eyes crusted shut. I was pretty certain that he’d had pink eye, and my wife, Cary, had wanted to take him to the doctor to get checked out.

  If I closed my eyes, I could still see the look of concern on her beautiful face. I could see the worry in her liquid brown eyes. I’d held her close to me and tried to tell her that everything would be fine.

  Oh, how wrong I’d been. That was the last time I held her.

  I remember sitting on the edge of my boy’s bed for a few moments, smoothing the dark blonde hair away from his flushed face. I bent down and kissed him before going to jump in the shower for work.

  Little did I know when I left the house that morning, that it would be the last time I’d ever see them alive. If I’d only taken the day off to go to the doctor with them. If I’d only done any number of things differently that day, they’d still be alive.

  I felt my heart begin to race, and I paced back and forth in my kitchen. I huffed a deep agonizing breath out into the air. It was happening again. A panic attack.

  I needed to find something to do other than replay that nightmarish day in my mind or I was going to drive myself nuts.

  Talking to Daniel would help. Daniel had become my closest friend through our years of field work at the Agency and he was the only one from my old life who I still communicated with. He’d been the only person who witnessed my downfall from start to present. Everyone else was locked out of my life for good.

  It was better for them. Safer.

  Daniel took care of most of the funeral arrangements.

  A funeral I could hardly even remember.

  I wanted to be left the hell alone.

  Isolated from the world.

  Bourbon tasted better than coffee, and the tears I should’ve been shedding came in the form of holes in my bedroom wall.

  The police department in DC was filled with half-brained idiots. They called the shootings a simple home invasion and dropped the investigation after only a few weeks due to lack of evidence. It was a fucking joke.

  The alarm system had been disabled, and the windows broken from the inside out. Nothing in the house was missing, and nothing was overturned as if someone was looking for something.

  Home invasion was the cover-up. Something was off. And because I hadn’t seen it sooner, my wife and son paid the ultimate price. In the end, it was my fault. I should have seen it coming.

  Fuck. I could have stopped it.

  After months of drinking away my guilt, I put down the bourbon and packed up my shit, leaving my badge and my gun on my desk at the Agency. I didn’t even leave a resignation letter or speak a word to any of my co-workers who tried to voice their bullshit words of sympathy. I didn’t need anyone’s fucking pity.

  I walked out on the CIA, never turning back. I changed my last name and altered my date of birth and took off for parts unknown. The agency would not be happy with my leaving, as I had not been properly debriefed.

  I knew things they didn’t want anyone else to know and, leaving in such circumstances, they figured I might have gone rogue.

  That in combination with my skills made me a threat. I could take on ten men at once and leave them all unconscious without breaking a fucking sweat.

  Fuck them. Let them feel threatened.

  Not one fucking case was opened to get to the root of my family’s killers. The Agency accepted the word of the damn police department. That told me something was wrong with the whole situation. The family of one of their highest-ranking agents was murdered in a home with the newest and best security system at the time, and they didn’t care to look farther into it? I hated everyone in that damn office for not taking it more seriously. We were trained to believe that nothing that happened around us was random or coincidental.

  That left me to do the digging myself. I went over everything that had led up to that day in my head over and over. An operation had gone south not long before. Had someone I’d put away come at me for revenge? The endless unknowns were enough to keep me up most nights.

  I wasn’t going to rest until I found out.

  God as my witness, justice would be served for my family.

  I needed to get as far away from the Agency and my former life as possible. I’d lived in two remote towns before settling into Bend, Oregon.

  I made it my mission to fit in somewhere just enough to be left the fuck alone.

  So far so good.

  ***

  GRAHAM

  I headed to my truck as a sound caught my ear. I looked over into my neighbor’s yard and saw a little girl running around on the grass. Her dark red hair was billowing around her shoulders, bouncing in small curls as she flapped her arms around. She kept yelling to her mother that she was a bird trying to take off and fly around the city so she could see the world below. I saw a woman step out of her house, tired and worn down as she heaved a heavy sigh.

  Beautiful.

  I cursed myself at the thought.

  I unlocked my truck as I watched her pile her daughter into the rust bucket vehicle she owned. By the looks of it, it was a complete piece of junk. Putting a child in that kind of car was not a good idea.

  I guess desperate times called for desperate measures.

  It would never hold up in an accident. I watched her hastily get into her car as it bounced on its chassis, rocking with every movement like the unstable piece of shit it was.

  I slipped into my truck and closed my eyes. Daniel flew into town, wanting to meet with me, probably to talk my ear off about blending in and shit. My mind flew back to that night I’d lost everything. I could hear the droning of the monitors in the ICU as a shiver ricocheted down my spine.

  I gripped the steering wheel and clenched my teeth. It was taking me longer and longer to pull myself from those visions. I cranked up my truck and lurched forward, making my way to a diner on the other side of town. Bend, Oregon, looked like a nice enough place to settle down in after the few catastrophes I’d gotten into over the past year and a half. I’d settle in places and people would get curious, ask too many questions and try to talk me in circles. People from small towns could do their research like the best of them, which was why I figured Bend would be the perfect way to go.

  Small enough to be unnoticeable but large enough to hide in.

  “Hey there, Graham.”

/>   I embraced Daniel and patted his back before we sat down in a booth.

  “Figured for a while there you weren’t coming,” Daniel said.

  “When the hell have I ever not met with you?” I asked.

  “You ditched me once in Kettle. Once in Fredericksburg. Another time in—”

  “I get your point. Sorry. I’ll try not to fuck up Bend this time.”

  “You gotta settle somewhere, Graham. Every time you kick up a storm and move, it leaves a bigger paper trail,” he said.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You’re not keeping a very low profile.”

  “I’m keeping an incredibly low one. Keeping myself afloat on bullshit jobs that don’t require official paperwork, not getting involved in business that isn’t mine. Not my fault people are curious about some asshole walking around town.”

  “Have you tried not being an asshole?” he asked with a grin.

  I looked at him, straight-faced for a moment.

  “Graham, come on. Loosen up a bit. Bend might be the place you’re looking for,” he said.

  “No place is the place I’m looking for anymore,” I said.

  “Have you been back?”

  “No,” I said. “I have a job to finish.”

  “You have a life to assimilate. But that doesn’t mean you can’t go visit their graves.”

  “They’re buried in DC, Turner. The fuck do you expect me to do?”

  “What you always did with the CIA. Go in undercover and give yourself some closure.”

  “You don’t think that’s what I’m doing? Getting closure?” I asked.

  “Not the way you should,” he said.

  “Sorry you don’t like my plans.”

  “If you’re serious about Bend, you need to remember your CIA training. It’s imperative that you blend in. And right now, you’re doing a shit job of it. People are already staring at us.”

  “Because I’m new.”

  “No. Probably because you pissed someone off,” he said.

  “Not my fault people wanna talk and I don’t.”

  “That’s the thing. You have to talk. If they want you to talk, then talk. If you don’t wanna talk, then get yourself an off-grid house and live alone.”