Protecting Her Heart

by Chance Carter

  "Ah, I miss you kid," I said, taking a deep draw and exhaling a plume of smoke into the thick, hot air. "How are things going, though, for real?"

  "They're fine. Same as always, really. My new roommate is a peach, and she's nearly as antisocial as I am so we're getting along like a house on fire. How's home?"

  The footsteps that I'd been ignoring for the past few minutes were now close enough that I could make out the individual footfalls. There were three guys at least, and they weren't trying to be subtle anymore. I swore under my breath without thinking.

  "What is it?" Sadie asked. Her tone went from casual to concerned in a heartbeat, but I didn't want to worry her.

  "Ah, nothing. Something just came up that I have to deal with. Can I call you tomorrow?"

  "Sure. Love you, Jack!"

  "Love you too, sis."

  I hung up the phone and spun on my heel to face the guys following me. They'd lost the element of surprise, so rushing me seemed the next best choice. In the brief moment I had to steady myself before they reached me, I recognized their faces from the fight. They were friends of Angry Angus, undoubtedly ones who'd put down a load of cash on him to win. Idiots didn't even know they'd been hustled by that piece of shit Clarence.

  I would have liked to report that I laid them all out in ten seconds flat, but that wasn't how it went down. I was a good fighter but I was only human after all, and a human can only take so much abuse. Three beefy guys with chips on their shoulders were out of my ability.

  They were quick about it, at least, laying hit after hit so furiously you'd think I nailed their mothers or some shit like that. It was probably just cause even though they outnumbered me they were still scared of me, and didn't want to risk giving me enough time to breathe and hit them back. Cowards.

  I shouldn't have expected any better conduct from rednecks whose main weeknight entertainment was watching their friend beat the shit out of whomever was brave enough to stand across from him that week, but it was disappointing nonetheless. Nobody had any scruples these days.

  They beat me to a pulp. I tried to fight back where I could, but before long the blood from my forehead blurred my vision and my muscles were too weak from their beating to land anything decent.

  I barely registered them picking me up once I collapsed onto the pavement, but understood their intent the second a pickup pulled up alongside them and they tossed me into the back of it like a sack of flour.

  They were going to dump me somewhere, probably leave me for dead along the side of the road or something equally fucked up like that.

  It wasn't the first time in my life that somewhere in my brain it registered that I should be fearing for my life, and it likely wouldn't be the last. It also wasn't the first time I ignored that little voice and all the baggage that came along with it.

  If I was going to die, I was going to do it without reliving everything I'd gone through in my life, everything I'd done, in the hopes that I could extract some kernel of peace in my final moments. I was mad and I was going to stay mad, and that was what was going to keep me alive.

  No matter what these dipshits did to me.

  It turned out that the assholes who jumped me weren't as stupid as I thought.

  Well, they were still fucking idiots, but at least they knew better than to risk going down for a murder charge by leaving me out to die somewhere. In fact, they very considerately dropped me off at a Greyhound station, and I came to with the sensation of something wet on my face and bright lights turning my eyelids pink.

  It was a wet cloth, I soon realized, and once I blinked my eyes open I saw an old woman at the end of the cloth, staring down at me compassionately as she wiped some of the blood from my face.

  My whole body ached like I'd just run a marathon and then got the shit kicked out of me afterward. It even hurt to open my eyes, and the swelling had already started on the right side of my face. I'd been worse off, but I wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants anytime soon.

  "Thank God you're alive," said the woman in a low, gravelly voice. The wrinkles around her eyes seemed to pull back as her concern ebbed from critical to minimal.

  I was on my back, spread out over a concrete bench. She was sitting beside my head, and studied me intently as I—groaning and hissing—sat up. She offered me the cloth she'd been using on my face but I waved her away. There were worse things I could be covered in than blood.

  "You must've really pissed somebody off," she observed.

  The abruptness of her comment amused me. I reached in my back pocket for my smokes and realized that my pack and the two grand in cash had mysteriously disappeared. Well, there wasn't a mystery about it. The assholes who jumped me were probably all puffing up a storm while they counted their winnings.

  The thought irritated me more than it did that I'd been jumped in the first place. Beating up a guy is one thing, and I guess I could see how their tiny brains might feel a sense of justice in that action. But stealing my money and taking my smokes? That was low. Very low. They'd left me my wallet, thankfully, so I could at least put the bus fare on my card. Just another expense in my already expensive life.

  The old woman adjusted her purse on her lap, pulling something out and handing it to me. I accepted the pack of cigarettes, but stared at her incredulously.

  She shrugged. "You look like you need one."

  "Thanks." I put one between my lips and sighed. "You got a light?"

  She delved back into her bag and came out a second later with a lighter. "I'm Glenda, by the way."

  I let out my first exhale and chuckled, staring at the row of houses just beyond the station. "Glenda the good witch."

  "If you like." She put her handbag back down by her side and ran a hand through her short, white curls. "In this situation I might just be your fairy godmother. I don't want to exaggerate my role in your recovery, but I did worry for a while there that you were going to die and I was going to have to call somebody to get you off my bench."

  I laughed, harder this time, even though I felt a sharp pain in my ribs with every exhalation. "Your bench?"

  "At least a few nights a week," she explained. "My boyfriend lives the next town over. Given the circumstances, I felt it only fair to share."

  "Well I'm glad you did, Glenda." I tried to pass the rest of the pack and the lighter back to her, but she shook her head with a small smile.

  “You keep them. We’ll call it my good deed for the year.”

  I laughed.

  She cocked her head to the side and examined me. "So...what kinda trouble are you in? I'm assuming since you're fixing to get out of town."

  I inhaled and held the smoke, letting the last few foggy hours coalesce in my brain. It was like watching a half-wrecked movie reel and I could barely even remember where the hell I'd been when they got me.

  "What town is this?" I asked. "Can't be sure I need to get out of it if I don't know where I am."

  "Cannon," Glenda replied.

  "Cannon," I repeated, trying to recall if I had ever seen it on a map. "We far from Bell Springs?"

  Glenda shook her head. "Pretty close. There's a bus that goes right there, I think. Do you have money? If you need it, I don't mind buying you a ticket."

  I finished the smoke and stomped it out on the ground, shaking my head. "I think I'd rather go get a drink," I told her. "Can you recommend me a bar?"

  She clucked. "Not in this town. Most folks seem to head down to the Alibi if they're looking' for a drink and some trouble, but I reckon you've had enough trouble tonight."

  "Ah, Glenda," I said, smiling warmly at her. "I'm always looking for a little trouble."

  She gave me a flat look. "You're gonna get it with an attitude like that. Now are you gonna tell me what happened to you or not?"

  I'd been avoiding the question, but not because I was embarrassed or upset or anything like that—I just didn't want to think about it. If I started thinking about it, all it would achieve would be me heading back over to Bell S
prings on the next bus and getting even with the assholes who'd left me here, and that was the kind of trouble I really didn't need.

  "Let's just say there's no honor among small town folk," I replied sardonically. "Can you point me in the direction of that bar you don't think I should go to?"

  Glenda gave me a final once over and gestured to the street running parallel to the station. "Turn up to the right and keep walking. It'll be the only place that's busy at this time of night."

  "You gonna be alright on your own if I head off?" I shot her a cheeky grin and Glenda rolled her eyes.

  "Honey, you just worry about yourself."

  "Thank you for the help, Glenda the Good Witch." I tipped an imaginary cap to her and rose to my feet, gritting my teeth to help manage the pain that stabbed me all over my body. Was there anywhere that didn't hurt? A single square inch of my body that didn't feel like it had been put through a meat grinder?

  Hobbling slightly for the first little while, I made my way up the street toward the next adventure.

  Chapter 4

  Melissa

  Another whoop sounded off from across the room, and I looked over the top of my taps to see Donnie’s friend Matt with his hands around his mouth, yelling something at one of the girls walking past their table. I sighed.

  The other staff here generally left Donnie alone when he came in, so it fell down to me to tell him and his friends that they needed to keep it down. I hated that. Donnie was at his worst when he was drunk, as last night's incident reminded me, and I wasn't feeling quite up to dealing with that again. Nonetheless, he was my problem.

  I passed over the drinks I'd been pouring and stepped out from behind the bar, reminding myself with every step that I had a right to tell them to shut up and if they gave me any sass I had a right to get rid of them. It alarmed me to think that it wasn't repercussions from my boss I worried about, but repercussions for Donnie himself.

  "Hey," I snapped when I reached their table.

  All four sets of drink-addled eyes turned to me. All four sets carved a path from my tits to my ass and back up. If Donnie saw any of his friends checking me out, he clearly didn't care. That got my back up too.

  "Hey baby," Donnie crooned.

  "You guys are being disruptive." I tried to sound as authoritative as possible, but I could already see how little they cared. "You need to quiet down a bit."

  "We're just having a bit of fun, Mel," said Derek.

  "Yeah, Mel," sang Andrew.

  I looked to Donnie with imploring eyes. "Please keep it down. Your uncle would ask you the same thing if he were here."

  "I didn't realize you were dating the fun police," Matt said.

  The rest of them laughed like he'd just cracked the funniest joke they'd ever heard. They were a bunch of idiots, and I was almost completely sure that if Donnie was around them less he would be less of an asshole. There was a direct correlation between how much time he spent with these idiots and how aggressive he was at home.

  Donnie must have read in my eyes how done I was with this conversation and his friends, as he waved at them to quiet down.

  "Chill, guys. We can be a little quieter. Wouldn't want to stress out my baby girl."

  It was almost sweet, except there was a distinctly mocking tone that set my teeth on edge. I would talk to him about that later. Well, not later, he'd still be drunk later. I'd talk about it with him tomorrow, and maybe I’d even suggest that he consider cooling it on the booze for a while.

  "Thanks." I scooped up a couple of the empty glasses from the table and left without offering them another drink. If they wanted one, they could either play nice with the one of the servers or come and get one themselves.

  Back at the bar, Neil Buckins tipped his head and raised his beer. "Nicely done."

  I laughed. "Wrangling my boyfriend has got to be one of my most profitable skills."

  "That and pouring the best beer in town."

  I appreciated the compliment, even if it was hardly a sterling attribute to have. Neil was a nice guy, and he was one of the more pleasant people to surround me on my shift.

  I didn’t know what it was, but something deep inside me urged me to look up from the bar and toward the front door. It was like a tug that came from the pit of my belly, shocking me in its urgency. My gaze snapped up to the door just as the most beautiful, broken man I'd ever seen walked through.

  I say broken because he looked it—one eye swollen, lip busted, a gash across his cheekbone. He'd done a fair job of cleaning up the cuts, but there was some residual blood creeping up into his hairline and I could tell the wounds were fresh.

  What really struck me was how he looked underneath all the gore. Even with all that it was easy to see he was movie star gorgeous. His sandy hair was tousled in a way that would have looked effortless if it weren't for the dark streaks of blood. He had a wide, angular jaw and full lips, with just a shadow of dark stubble on his cheeks. As he got closer, I could see that his nose was a little crooked in the middle, like it'd been broken once or twice before. Based on his current appearance, that didn't surprise me.

  The strange man took the seat next to Neil and rested his elbows on the bar top. I spent so long staring at the way his biceps bulged against the cotton of his t-shirt, and at all the tattoos snaking down to his wrists, that I forgot for a moment that I was supposed to be serving him drinks.

  I came back to myself, blinking rapidly, and met his gaze. It wasn't the hint of amusement on his lips, nor was it the intensity of his stare that made my breath catch—it was the way the room seemed to fade out of focus the moment our eyes met, and it felt like I was falling into the swirling hazel depths like Alice down the rabbit hole.

  "Pilsner, please," he said.

  "Coming right up." I moved down the bar and started pouring his pint, conscious of his gaze on me the whole time.

  Who was this guy? Why hadn't I seen him around before? And what the hell had happened to him?

  I had so many questions that I didn't even know where to start. Apparently he had a few of his own, too, because when I slid the drink down in front of him he caught my gaze again and gestured to his eye.

  "That's one hell of a shiner you've got there," he said.

  "I could say the same for you."

  The man prodded at his swollen lid and hissed. "How bad does it look?"

  "It’s pretty badass, if I'm being honest," I said. "What's the other guy look like?"

  "Other guys," he corrected. "And a lot better than they'll look if I ever see them again."

  I leaned in a little closer, almost instinctively, though I flipped a glance over the guy's shoulder to check to see if Donnie was looking. He wasn't, too caught up in whatever hilarious story he was telling to his salivating fans. Even if the flirting was completely harmless, I didn't want to see what Donnie might do if he saw me chatting up a stranger like this. He may have been fine with his friends checking me out, but he became pretty territorial when it came to anyone else.

  "I haven't seen you around before," I said. "You live in town?"

  The man shook his head, taking a long drink of his beer. I watched the level in his glass lower and figured he must've really needed that drink. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so curious about someone.

  "No, I'm from Bell Springs," he said. "Name's Jack."

  "Jack from Bell Springs," I mused. "I'm Melissa, from here. Hardly ever been anywhere else, if I'm being honest. What brings you to Cannon, Jack from Bell Springs?"

  The smile he offered made heat swell in my core. It was pure mischief, like he'd just gotten a look up my skirt and was thinking naughty thoughts about what he'd seen. I clenched my thighs together and held onto my smile like a life raft to keep from drowning in the sudden onslaught of lust.

  Christ, I hadn't felt like this about anyone since...well, ever. Donnie was my only long term relationship and though there'd been times where he'd filled my stomach with butterflies, these days it was more often moths. I sen
t an anxious glance Donnie's way again, sure that he must have felt my sudden flaming interest for this newcomer. He was still joking around with his friends, and it didn't even bother me that they were getting rowdy again.

  "I guess you could say I kinda just ended up here," Jack said. He ran his thumb over his jaw thoughtfully and I couldn't help but notice how gigantic his hands were.

  "Well I only hope the rest of your night is better than the beginning of it clearly was."

  He laughed. "You too, sweetheart."

  Okay, I was officially gone. Lost somewhere in the void. Nobody had ever called me sweetheart, or at least not like that. There was something dark and raw about every word that came from Jack's mouth, and I was utterly spellbound in his presence. Red danger lights started flashing in my head.

  "Hey, Mel?"

  I turned to see Naomi at my side, a pained expression flattening her features. This couldn't be good.

  "What is it?"

  She huffed a sigh and glared over in the direction of my boyfriend and his friends, then grabbed my arm and guided me out of earshot of the patrons. "One of Donnie's pack grabbed Anna's ass. She wants me to leave it alone but I'm sorry, this time I just can't. You're the only one those boys will listen to and I need you to go read them the riot act."

  My good mood plummeted. I couldn't have a single moment of peace, could I? I didn't blame Naomi for asking me to take care of the situation, not even a little. I felt awful, even though I wasn't responsible. More than that, I was embarrassed.

  "Please tell Anna I'm so sorry," I said. "I'll take care of it."

  "Thanks hon." Naomi let out a relieved sigh and pushed some of the dark hair that had escaped her ponytail back from her forehead. "It's been a crazy night, huh? Must be a full moon or something."

  I laughed. "Must be."

  Returning to the bar, I went down the line of drinkers to see if anybody needed anything. I didn't know how this confrontation was going to go or how long it would keep me away from the bar. Was it too much to hope that it was going to be over quickly?

  I saved Jack for last, both because I'd only just gotten him a drink and because I figured his face being the last thing I saw before I entered the battle dome was pretty ideal.