by Mia Malone
He didn’t text Brad, he called him, and then I heard him chuckle as they made plans.
I went into the bedroom and got my own phone, but before I called my parents, I sat on the bed for a while. The night ahead would be difficult, and I looked at the bottle of pills which would make it easier.
No, I decided, like I’d done every night since Cady was born. I would not give in to that man and would not use drugs to sleep because if I did, I wouldn’t be there for my girls in case they woke up. I would be drowsy in the morning and sluggish in the office. I wouldn’t be me. So, I’d face my nightmares, and if I woke up too many times, I’d go to the guest bedroom and read a book or five until I dozed off.
It was a part of my life, and even when I tried, I could barely remember how it had been, before.
Was this all we had?
“I hope we can handle this amicably,” Dante murmured, and I swallowed.
Amicably.
Right.
“Of course,” I murmured. “You’ll move out I assume?”
“Actually…”
He looked uncomfortable and I straightened.
“You’re kicking me out of the house?” I asked.
“You don’t like it.”
He was right about that. The big, white monstrosity he’d come home one day to share with the family that he’d bought was not what I’d ever wanted to live in, but I hadn’t protested because it was important to him.
“Where do you expect me to go?” I asked, knowing he’d likely made plans already.
“Summer is soon here so people are moving,” he said slowly. “There’s a condo I’ve heard about. It’s a bit small and the girls would have to share a room, but Cady only has one more year before college, so they’ll be fine when they visit.”
When they visited? Oh, God. We’d have shared custody. I wouldn’t be with my girls every day.
“Visit?” I said weakly.
“Yeah, that’s the problem. It’s a too far from their schools so it really would be better if they stayed here.” I opened my mouth, but he kept going quickly, “You’ll have them every weekend, I promise, Louisa.”
Weekends? Cady was almost eighteen and had a huge crowd of friends. She wasn’t home most weekends. And Mimi had all the activities a thirteen-almost-fourteen-year-old girl could cram into her free time.
“No.”
“Lou –”
“No, Dante. Not happening. I’ll find somewhere to live that’s within the school district. If you want joint custody they can spend every other week with you, but I will not settle for weekends.”
“You can’t afford something in this neighborhood.”
“I’ll find something.”
“Louisa, you can’t afford something –”
“I’ll find something,” I snapped.
“You can’t afford something safe.”
“He isn’t up for release for almost another year. I’ll find something that works until then.”
“Don’t mess things up, Louisa. Not one more time,” he said warningly. “You’ve done it too many times already.”
I wanted to shout at him that I wasn’t the one who had messed up anything, but it didn’t matter. Our plans had been changed too many times and it didn’t matter whose fault it was because the effect was the same.
“I’ll make sure it’s safe,” I promised.
I glared at him and after a while he sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “You have a month to find somewhere else to live. I’ll get our lawyers to draw up the papers.”
My glare turned into astonishment. A month to find a new home, and some papers to sign.
Was this all we had after twenty years of marriage?
He looked at me and I knew it was because I saw exactly what we had in his eyes, and it was only a whole lot of nothing.
Chapter One
Joke
Joke Tucker walked into the empty room and looked around at Oak, the local bar he’d built up from a small biker place barely providing a living for the previous owner to something which wouldn’t make him a fortune but at least had been profitable for the past fifteen years straight.
It wasn’t fancy because he’d never tried to make it that way. Wilhelmine was a small mountain town with tourists trickling through in the summer, mostly on their way to the resorts for skiing or hiking, so going for fancy would have been dumb. He’d kept the biker bar style but slowly upgraded both the décor and the menu options until it had become what it was today. A nice place where the mood was friendly, and you didn’t have to dress up to hang out with your friends. That was what he liked himself, and he’d figured there would be others who wanted it too.
He hadn’t been wrong, and people from all over the county were regulars at Oak. He was behind the bar himself most nights, had a dependable second bartender in his old friend Tug, a stable of experienced waitresses, and he was feeling old.
Not because he was old-old. Fifty-five wasn’t old. Perhaps he was just tired? The bar was busy even on weeknights these days, and dealing with purchases, deliveries and administration made his days long which meant down time was scarce.
Maybe that was it? He hadn’t gotten laid in for-fucking-ever. Months, he realized. Plural. There were several women he could call to see if they wanted to hook up, and he was pulling his phone out to do just that when it buzzed, informing him he had a message.
“Gib and Lee are at our place for dinner tonight, you wanna come?”
His sister Jenny had hooked up with one of his closest friends after a gazillion years of them being buddies but apparently both wanting more. Now they had a whole lot more, and Joke was happy for them.
Gib was another close friend, and he’d snapped Lee up the literal second he laid eyes on her, and Joke was happy for him too. Very happy. So happy he joined them for somewhat naked activities when the mood struck them all, which wasn’t often but not infrequent either.
Their other two friends, Mac and Day, seemed to have dropped off the radar lately, Mac buried in police business and Day spending more time than usual on the road, roaming the world.
Having dinner with two couples who never made him feel left out but still lived lives full of couples-bliss suddenly didn’t appeal to him. He’d spent a lot of time with his sister because they’d both been single and had been tight all their lives. Then she found a fantastic friend in Lee and hooked up with Paddy, and he didn’t begrudge her a second of that, but he ended up spending more time at Oak, or at home.
Words he’d overheard Lee say popped up in his head, as they had several times in the months since they went camping together.
“Joke’s a good man. He’s gorgeous… and lonely,”
“Fucking shit,” he muttered and crouched down to start switching kegs.
He was.
Working in a bustling bar each night, a handful of close friends he could call any time of the day and a lot of other friends to hang out with. Women he could call when he felt like it. His sister across the street.
And he was still lonely.
Maybe he should –
The front door opened, and he heard steps approaching the bar.
“We’re closed,” he called out.
The steps kept coming, and he pushed the keg to the side and stood up.
A woman was standing on the other side of the bar, and he stared. Then he stared some more. Her straight, thick hair reached well below her shoulders in a fall so blonde it looked almost white. She had high cheekbones which hinted at Native American heritage, but she couldn’t have. Not with that hair. She wasn’t tall, average height maybe, but nicely built. Sturdy would have been the word he’d used if it hadn’t been insulting and, he realized as he kept looking at her, also incorrect. The way she stood, back straight and shoulders squared, was almost defiant and it gave her a look of strength. She was stunning, but none of it was what had him staring at her.
It was her eyes. He’d never seen anything like it on a human before. The i
rises were a blue so pale it looked like they were made of ice. They were guarded in a way which made her look hard, but there was something else in them too. He got the strange feeling that behind the apprehensive stare she aimed back at him, there was warmth, ready to reach the surface. Ready to light up with laughter and a fire hotter than the sun.
“Dibs,” he murmured before he could get his brain to come up with something slightly less stupid and a lot more charming.
“Excuse me?”
“What can I do for you today?” he said smoothly. “The bar is closed but if you’re desperate for a drink, I can make an exception.”
“The lady in the diner across the street sent me here. I’m looking for a job, and she said you might need a bartender.”
Joke blinked and wondered how the hell they’d remembered a job he’d mentioned thinking about, in passing and more than a month ago. And which one had it been – Jenny, or Lee?
“Tall or short?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Just curious, darlin’. Tall would be my sister, short would be my buddy’s woman.”
“Short,” she said.
Lee. Of course, it would be. Jenny wouldn’t meddle with his life, but Lee would, and apparently had.
“Huh,” he said.
“I’m sorry, was she wrong to send me here?”
“Do you have any experience?”
She blinked, and a small smile twisted her lips briefly, but it stayed in her eyes. He was suddenly glad he stood behind the bar because the way it lit up her face made most of the blood in his body move south.
“Ancient experience,” she said. “It’s how I paid for school.”
Well, shit. He didn’t have the energy to train someone from what surely would be virtually scratch.
“My ex liked cocktail parties,” she added. “He did not like mixing drinks.”
Okay, that sounded better, and he guessed Tug could step in if someone felt like going crazy.
“Get behind the bar and make me a Cuba Libre,” he ordered.
Her brows went up, and a flash of annoyance passed over her face.
“Really? You want me to make you a rum and coke?” she asked.
So she knew the basics, at least.
“Maybe not,” he conceded. “What would you suggest?”
She looked around the place, and that brief grin made her lips twitch again.
“Looks like a place where drinks aren’t ordered too often, but if you want, I could make a wicked Bloody Mary.”
Spot on. She’d just picked what was virtually the only thing anyone ordered except for beer, wine, and shots.
“Can you work tonight?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay then. I’m Joke, and you can do a trial run tonight. If it works out, you have a job. If not, you still get paid for the shift.”
Her brows went up in surprise.
“That easy?”
“Life’s supposed to be easy,” he said and narrowed his eyes a little when her face closed down. Ah, he thought. Baggage, like everyone else. “Let’s get the paperwork done, you start at six,” he said calmly.
There was a guarded look in her eyes suddenly, and she bit her lower lip.
“Any chance we can do it without paperwork?”
“Nope,” he said casually.
She watched him in silence for a while, and he let her. Something was going on behind those glacier blue eyes, and then she straightened as if she’d made her mind up.
“I –” She pressed her lips together and restarted. “I have a small problem.”
“Is that small problem with the law?”
“No.” The answer came immediately, sounding as she’d been insulted, and her chin went up a little. “I’d just appreciate if we could keep my name off the records, that’s all.”
“My friend Mac happens to be the chief of police in this town. What’ll he find if I ask him to check you out?” he asked, wondering what the hell she could have done.
Her jeans were clean and seemed new, and her drab tee had a print which shared in one word that she apparently was a trophy. She was a lot younger than him, he thought, but still old enough to have stirred up some serious shit over the years. She just didn’t look like it.
“That I have a restraining order against a man who was let out of prison a month ago.
Jesus. That had not been what he expected.
“Was he in there because of something he did to you?”
“Yeah.”
There was an ocean of hurt behind that simple word, and he leaned forward a little to look into her eyes.
“Your ex?”
“No.”
“Okay.” It was clear that she wasn’t going to tell him what had gone down, so he thought things through quickly and made his mind up. “My books are clean, babe. Don’t do things off the record.” Her shoulders slumped, so he went on quickly, “But I can make an exception. Let me take a copy of your driver’s license, call my bud. If your story checks out, I’ll find a way to keep you off the records.”
Her relief was almost palpable, and Joke wondered what the hell that man had done to her. She handed him her driver’s license. It was from Massachusetts, and it pissed him off.
“Ah, darlin’, why did you have to do that?” he sighed.
“Do what?”
“Try to pull one over on me,” he said and threw the piece of plastic on the bar.
“Pull what?”
Her acting skills were good, he had to admit.
“I’ve been a barman all my life. It’s well done, I’ll give you that, but didn’t you realize I’d get it’s a fake ID?”
“It is my perfectly legitimate driver’s license.”
“Nope.”
“Yes.”
He stared at her, leaned forward to look at the card, and straightened.
“Nope.”
“It totally is,” she snapped.
Did she think he was born yesterday? She glared at him, and he felt his brows go up. He saw anger and puzzlement, but not a hint of guilt or nerves.
“Outside,” he grunted and shuffled her toward the door.
***
Sissy
What in the hell?
I’d walked into the bar, nervous and trying to hide it, and a giant had suddenly appeared from behind the bar to stare at me. He was tall, and the arms he crossed over a ridiculously broad chest had more muscles than I’d ever seen on a man. Then our eyes locked and I lost myself in his calm, blue gaze. In spite of his size, he looked gentle, and there was something in the way he watched me that went straight to my soul. I suddenly felt safe, which wasn’t a feeling I was used to. It was that feeling of safety that had made me dare to ask if I could be employed off the books. He’d thought about what I said, processed it and come up with an alternative that was sensible but still providing some protection for me, so I’d assumed that my assessment of him had been accurate.
Then he’d suddenly gone off the rails about my driver’s license, and now I was being hauled out of the bar so fast I almost had to run to keep up with him.
“Turn,” he grunted, put a big hand on my jaw and moved my head around, so I had the sun in my face.
He held my apparently offensive license up next to me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped.
“Well, fuck me,” he murmured.
“Are you insane?” I growled.
“Usually not,” a deep voice said, and the hand let go of me.
“Shit,” Joke muttered, and his eyes went over my shoulder.
I stared at him, and when I heard a chuckle behind me, I turned. Then I took a step back which pushed my backside against Joke, who put an arm around my waist to steady me.
Another man who was almost as tall as Joke and just as muscular stood in front of me. His hair was a little too long and his short beard was liberally sprinkled with gray.
“Well, hello there,” the man drawled, and his gravelly voice s
eemed to vibrate through me.
“Huh-ey,” I squeaked, and felt like kicking myself for sounding like a stupid teenager.
He was my age, and where the look in Joke’s eyes had been calm and gentle, this man’s pale gray eyes were cool and assessing. There was no doubt in my mind that he was incredibly capable of inflicting harm if you ended up on the wrong side of okay once he’d formed an opinion. Since I had nothing to hide, I stared back at him and waited.
Then he suddenly smiled.
“I’m Gibson,” he said.
“Okay,” I said stupidly, and his smile widened.
“How old do you think she is?” Joke asked, and I turned to look at him.
“You have my driver’s license, so you know how old I am,” I informed him.
“Gib,” he said, and held the license up so the other man could look at it. “Fake?”
Then I was shifted around again, and another strong hand moved my face toward the bright winter sun. And I got why Joke thought my license was fake.
I knew I looked younger than my age. Not younger in a way which warranted their ridiculous behavior, but I didn’t look fifty-one. I got that from my mother who had passed on incredible genes but also made sure I virtually bathed in sunscreen my whole life, facts I’d thanked her for repeatedly in the last ten years.
“Huh,” Gibson said, and I wondered why this seemed to be the word du jour in a small nothing-town in the Rockies.
“Yeah,” Joke said.
“I’m fifty-one,” I said and moved my head to get away from the hand still holding my jaw and took a step to the side, so Joke would let go of my waist.
Or, I tried to do both those things and neither worked. They were not close enough to press up against me, and neither hold was tight, but I was surrounded in a way that felt oddly intimate.
“Are you pawing younger women in the middle of the street, Gibson?” someone chirped, and I turned to find the small, blonde woman from the diner standing there, looking at us.
Her brown eyes were laughing up at me and the joy in them made it impossible for me not to smile back at her.
