Charged

by Jay Crownover

  I had the cab drop me off at the bar and barely noticed that the driver was giving my tear-streaked face a very concerned look in the rearview mirror for the entire ride. I took a deep breath and pushed through the doors like I was walking into an old Western gunfight completely unarmed. I had to blink to let my eyes adjust to the dimmer light inside the bar, and as I was getting reacquainted with a place that had always been in my blood, a deep and gravelly voice colored with tones from the deep south rumbled my name and drew my attention.

  Dash Churchill, or Church as he was more commonly known, had been hired as security for the bar right about the time I lost my job. He was a strikingly attractive man. He was also the man that had stood up for me with Jared even though he hardly knew me and what he did know was nothing to write home about. I had a soft spot a mile wide for the beautiful former soldier and it had very little to do with the fact that he also had hazel eyes that were a crazy swirl of blue, brown and yellow that stood out like beacons in his golden-skinned face. Church never said much of anything to anyone so I wasn’t sure where he was from other than someplace down south and I had no clue what his heritage was, but wherever his parents had come from they sure as hell had succeeded in making one amazing-looking son. He was unforgettable and that was saying something because all my dad’s boys were pretty impressive in their own way.

  “Hey, Church. Is Rome in his office? I want to talk to him real quick.”

  “Long time no see, kiddo.” I could listen to him talk all day with his Johnny Cash–style rumble and that twang that wouldn’t quit, but I was on a mission and I needed to accomplish it before I chickened out.

  “I know. I wasn’t sure about my welcome and, well … I need to make sure the boss knows how sorry I am for everything. He might not want to hear it, but I need to tell him anyway.”

  For a big man Church moved quick and light on his feet. That was one of the reasons he was an asset to the bar; he could be in the middle of a fight or disagreement and have it broken up before the combatants knew what hit them. He was also stoic and seemingly immune to any and all the womanly charms that were constantly being shoved in his direction, but I secretly thought that had more to do with the adorable Dixie Carmichael than it did with any actual disinterest in women on his part. Dixie had worked at the bar for as long as I could remember. She was as much a part of the place as my dad was, and for as long as I had known her she had been unlucky in love. She and Church danced around one another, which had been both entertaining and frustrating to watch.

  I jolted when his heavy arm landed on my shoulders and sucked in a surprised breath when I was folded into a chest that felt like it was carved of stone for a rib-cracking hug. Church wasn’t the most affectionate man I had ever met, so the hug not only caught me off guard, but it tugged on the heartstrings that were currently tied in knots and frayed at the ends because of Quaid.

  “The boss knows this place is as much yours as it is his. You’ve always been welcome and you’ve been missed. He’ll listen to what you have to say and then you’ll listen to what he has to say and that’ll be the end of it.” He tilted his head in the direction of the back and gave me a hint of a grin, which was as close to a smile as I had ever seen him come. “He was working on invoices and bills for the month so I’m sure you’ll be a welcome distraction.”

  I nodded briskly and stiffened my spine as I pulled out of the hug and headed across the battered wood floors towards the closed office door. I knocked and it felt like an eternity before a gruff “Come in” was issued. I pushed the door open and expected a scowl or a glower when Rome looked up from the messy desk in order to see who was behind the interruption. What I got was a smile that showed pearly white teeth and turned his harshly handsome face with the fierce scar that bisected one of his eyebrows and his forehead into something that was breathtaking and hard to look away from.

  “Avett. What brings you by? Is your dad here?” Rome spoke a lot like he was still in the military. He didn’t waste words or time and his laser-like baby blues pinned me to the spot with almost no effort on his part. He cocked his shaved head to the side and gave me a narrow-eyed look when I didn’t immediately answer him. “Have you been crying?”

  I laughed nervously and made my way over to one of the shabby chairs that sat across from his desk. I flopped down into the worn fabric and met his curious stare with an unfiltered one of my own. I was feeling raw, open, and stripped down to my most basic elements after that horrible confrontation with Quaid outside of the courthouse and there was no way to hold back the flood of honesty and admission as it rushed out of me.

  “I came by because I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was a shitty employee. I’m sorry that I didn’t respect you or what you did with this place, and I’m so, so sorry I didn’t say no when Jared asked me to take the money from the cash register. I hate that I put you in a position where you had to fire me and it makes me so mad at myself that I purposely did things that made it impossible for me to ever come back here. You’re a good man, Rome. My dad wouldn’t have done what he did with the bar if you weren’t. I spent a lot of time ruining everything that was good in my life, which is why I self-sabotaged every opportunity you offered me. I can give you the long explanation as to why I felt like I deserved to be kicked around and why I kept inflicting wounds on myself to bleed from, but the moral of the story is that I know now that punishing myself never got me anywhere, and those actions hurt other people far worse than they ever hurt me.” I blinked at him and bit my lip. “Like you, and Asa.”

  He tossed the pen he was holding onto the desk and leaned forward on his forearms so that he was peering intently into my eyes.

  “You know, when you come home from a war zone and have to settle into a normal, everyday kind of existence, no one ever tells you how to deal with all the things that you bring back with you. When you’re in a situation that calls for you to make life and death choices, you do so knowing those decisions affect so many more than just yourself.” I was mesmerized by his words and by the sincerity and depth with which he gave them to me. “When you come home you’re full of things like regret and doubt. You can’t sleep some nights because you wonder what-if, and guilt feels like it’s going to bury you alive. But eventually you realize all you can do is come to terms with the choices you had to make, for whatever reasons you had to make them. You can’t take those choices back, but you can learn from them and let them make you a better person. I’m almost jealous that you get the opportunity to apologize, Avett. There are some days I feel like I would give everything I have to be able to say I’m sorry for the things I may have done wrong. And I’m not talking about when I was overseas.”

  I exhaled and felt some of the dread and trepidation that was fueling this little meeting fade away. I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed them over my messy eyes. “Thank you for understanding. I also plan on paying you back every single cent that I took from you.”

  “I understood before you walked in here. I have a little brother that was all about self-destruction for a while. You actually pulled yourself out of it much sooner than he did.”

  I wrinkled my nose and sighed. “That’s because girls mature faster than boys.”

  Rome chuckled. “That’s true, and just so you know, you always have a place here. That kitchen belongs to your mother, not to me, so if you ever want to come back, she’s the one you need to make amends with.”

  “We’re good … well, better than we were. There’s been a lot of apologizing and accountability since I got out of jail. Realizing you’re on a crash course with prison is surprisingly enlightening.”

  “Are you sure that enlightenment didn’t come from the guy that kept you out of prison? After Brite finished bitching about the fact the guy rides a crotch rocket, he had nothing but good things to say about him. It sounded like he was shipping you and the lawyer pretty hard.”

  I lifted my eyebrows at him. “Shipping?”

  He rolled his eyes a
nd I grinned when I noticed he had pink heat filling his cheeks. “Blame Cora. She watches all that stuff on the CW Network and is always shipping this and shipping that. She’s corrupted me.”

  Cora was his pint-sized, very pregnant, soon-to-be wife. The two had an adorable daughter that was proving to be as much of a handful as her mother was. Cora was also the only person fierce enough and stubborn enough to put up with the moody former soldier on a permanent basis. On the outside the two of them were as different as night and day but when anyone saw them together it was obvious that they were perfectly matched and deeply in love. They were the epitome of relationship goals in my book.

  I laughed for real this time and let it drift into a sigh. “The lawyer may have had something to do with the enlightenment and he most definitely had everything to do with this.” I pointed to my tear-streaked and makeup-smeared face. “Some things aren’t meant to be.”

  “And some things are meant to be even if they seem like they shouldn’t be.” He sounded so much like my dad that it was eerie and I told him as much. He gave me that heart-stopping smile again and replied with a firm, “Good.”

  I rose to my feet and couldn’t stop myself from circling the desk so that I could wrap my arms around his neck for a quick squeeze.

  “I’m glad this bar and my dad found you, Rome. I really am.”

  He patted my arm awkwardly and stood so that I really had to crane my neck back to look up at him. “I’m glad you finally found you, Avett.”

  I swallowed back the emotion that crawled up my throat and threatened more tears. I’d never been so weepy or quick to cry but all this being in touch with my emotions was wreaking havoc on my well-worn barriers.

  “The trick is staying found, I think. It’s easy to get lost when your life is constantly in a state of disarray. The right path gets obscured as quickly as you make it.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder and told me solemnly, “That’s why you find something or someone that guides you, someone that won’t lose you, and someone that you don’t mind getting lost with when that inevitably happens.”

  I winced involuntarily because I’d walked away from the guy that I was pretty sure was my magnetic north, the guy that hadn’t let me wander or get off track since the moment I met him. Quaid didn’t lose his way in the storm; he rode it out.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, big guy. Thank you for making this easy on me. We both know you didn’t have to.” My voice was scratchy and I could feel the tears threatening again because I couldn’t pull my mind away from my legal eagle.

  He didn’t reply as he followed me out of the office and back into the mostly empty bar. Church was leaning against the long bar top talking to one of the regular daytime patrons and a bartender I didn’t recognize.

  “Where’s your dad?” It took me a minute to realize he was looking around for whoever was supposed to be on Avett babysitting duty for the day.

  “I had a meeting at the courthouse about Jared’s trial. I went alone because I wasn’t sure how long it was going to last. He’s at home waiting for me to check in with my mom. I should call them and let them know where I’m at. I need to call a cab and head that way before they worry.”

  Rome grunted and crossed his arms over his muscular chest, which was covered in a faded Eagles T-shirt. “It’s slow. I can run you home since Church is here to keep an eye on things.”

  I was getting ready to agree when my phone flashed and I saw my dad’s number on the screen. I held up a finger and told Rome to hold on as I put the phone to my ear.

  “Hey, Dad. Sorry I didn’t call sooner. That lawyer Jared hired was a real piece of work, a total slimeball. I needed a minute. I’m at the bar with Rome. He offered to run me home.”

  “Tell him you have a ride waiting for you outside.” The voice definitely wasn’t my father’s. I didn’t recognize it at all, and before I could ask who in the hell had my dad’s phone the person on the end snapped, “You better make whoever you’re with think everything is okay or your parents are going to experience what it’s like to lose everything from the inside.”

  Rome was looking at me curiously, so I forced a shaky smile and took a few steps away from him. I put a hand to my churning stomach and whispered, “I understand.” I had to lock my knees because they felt like they were going to buckle right out from underneath me.

  “Do you? To be clear here on what’s going to happen, you’re going to walk out front and get into the black Yukon that’s waiting. You’re going to tell my associates where you stashed the drugs your boyfriend jacked from my boss, and then you are going to take them to the location. If you call the police, if you alert anyone as to what’s going on, this cute little house where you’ve been staying will go up just like the other one did, only this time your parents will be left inside to burn.”

  I cleared my throat and looked over my shoulder to see that Church had joined Rome and that both of them were staring at me intently. I shivered and fought to get out quietly enough so that I wasn’t overheard. “How do I know you haven’t hurt my parents already?”

  There was some rustling, the sounds of an obvious struggle, and then my dad’s strained voice came on the line. “Don’t you go anywhere with these people, Avett! You hear me! Call the police and keep yourself safe. Do not worry about me …” There was a sickening crunch and a heavy-sounding thud that made me gasp and had me putting my hand up to my mouth.

  “If I were you, I would ignore your father’s advice. If the police show, this place goes up like a tinderbox and we’ll go after the lawyer. We want the product. Once we have it, we’ll be on our way. Your freedom and your parents’ safety for our drugs. Seems like an easy decision to make if you ask me.”

  Maybe it would be if there were drugs and if I didn’t already know how these men did business. I still had nightmares from my last run-in with them and it looked like this time around a baseball-bat-wielding landlady wasn’t going to be enough to save the day.

  “Don’t try and call the lawyer for help either. We have people watching him in case you decide to be difficult. He’s our plan B.”

  At the reminder that Quaid was in as much danger as my parents were, I suddenly had an idea. It wasn’t the best plan in the entire world but it was the best I could come up with given the circumstances.

  “All right, I’m headed out to the SUV. I’ll give you what you want.”

  “See how easy that was? And to think everyone told me you weren’t a smart girl.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my fingers around the phone. “Not smart enough to keep everyone I love out of another one of my fuckups. I’m leaving now.”

  I hung up the phone and whirled on Rome and Church. “I need you guys to head over to my mom’s house. My dad really needs your help with something.”

  I felt guilt threaten to choke me as words shot out at them. I couldn’t call the police, but I could send two highly trained former military men to the rescue. I had to do it without alerting them to what was really going on because there was no way they were going to let me out the door if they discerned what was waiting for me on the other side of it.

  “Um, yeah, he’s run into a situation and he needs you both there. I have to go back to the courthouse. They have more questions for me. Jared’s attorney even sent a car. I have to go.” I rushed towards the front door with both of them calling my name and moving after me as I did so. I looked over my shoulder and told them, “Also, you need to hurry and don’t try and call him because he won’t be able to answer.”

  “What in the actual fuck just happened, Avett?” Rome officially lost his patience and I had to dodge out of the way as he reached for me.

  “Go to the house … and you both need to be very, very careful. It’s a bad situation and you’re the only ones that can help him, so promise me you won’t call the police. If you do, his situation is going to go from bad to worse. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” They both gave me hard looks, accompanied by an
gry and confused scowls. “When you get there tell him I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  I pushed through the door and hit the parking lot at a run with both of them hot on my heels. I saw the big, black SUV idling on the street and made a beeline for it as my heart crawled into my throat. I grabbed the back door handle and looked back at Rome and Church, both of whom had their phones to their ears as they paced the asphalt like uncaged predators. I should’ve known they wouldn’t listen to me after my less than subtle freak-out and all I could do was hope they didn’t call the police before going to check on my dad themselves. As I was getting into the SUV I screamed, “Stay safe!” and hurled myself into the backseat and the unknown. I would never forgive myself if something happened to either of them but I had to do something.

  A guy that couldn’t be much older than me sat in the seat next to me and I tried not to throw up when my gaze landed on the wicked-looking gun that he held in his hand. The driver turned around to look at me through mirrored sunglasses and the passenger turned around to smirk at me. I recognized him from the attack at Jared’s apartment and everything inside of me froze and went startlingly numb.

  “Where to?”

  The driver pulled the big vehicle into traffic as I gulped and tried to make my unresponsive body respond. I curled my shaking hands into fists on my lap and kept my eyes locked on the gun that was trained, unwavering, right on my side.