Redemption River

by Lindsay Cross

  Visions of foreclosure signs flashed through Evie’s mind.

  Bill chimed in, “Yep, bought her that old mansion on Redwood too. Poor Mike’s workin’ the gas station down the road. I bet he’s gotta pump gas into that purple Cadillac every week.”

  Evie choked. A liability suit would cost more than she could make in ten years.

  “You need a drink, sugar?” John stretched his bony arm out, his own half-empty beer in hand.

  Evie shook her head and cleared her throat, “No thanks.”

  Next the sound of splintering wood reached her ears, and Evie could no longer stay tucked behind the safety of the bar. She rushed into the crowd, claustrophobia prickling her flesh like a thousand fire ants. She elbowed her way toward the screams near the stage, the riot of emotions inside her like a Molotov cocktail. She burst free and barely kept from nose-diving into a girl fight gone wild.

  Her grandpa sat on the stage in his army fatigues, swinging his legs and collecting bets. His long grey beard touched the center of his chest, hanging right above the POW lettering on his black T-shirt.

  “Grandpa.” Evie’s tone sounded more like a parent’s than a grandchild’s.

  C.W. glanced up and grinned, fanning the cash like a bookie on a winning night. A pipe hung from his mouth.

  “Last call!” He hollered above the crowd. Shaking her head, Evie turned her attention to the two women brawling on the floor. They rolled, and when the brunette landed on top, she pulled her fake-jewel encrusted hand back to crack a slap across the blonde’s face. The crowd went from a Prius purr to a Harley Davidson roar. She recognized them both. The brunette was Beverly, the blonde, Sue Ellen.

  Evie’s heart rate throttled. She held out her arms, attempting to keep the crowd under control. The only way this was going to end was bad, bad, bad. But hopefully she could avoid a complete disaster.

  “You slut. Don’t you ever touch my man!” Beverly struck again. Sue Ellen kicked her assailant to the side, and both women scrambled to their feet.

  Cheri appeared, much to Evie’s relief, and they exchanged a long gaze that communicated a clear plan of divide and conquer. They nodded in unison and charged. Cheri hooked an arm around Sue Ellen’s neck and yanked the screeching woman back. Evie grabbed a handful of the other woman’s hair, yanked, and came up with clip-on extensions.

  Bev staggered, clutching the fresh bald spot, and screamed. Evie shook her hand, trying to remove the clumps of fake hair from her fingers, but they stuck like brown leeches hanging on for their last meal.

  Evie took a step back. “Now, let’s just calm down. You know we don’t allow fighting in the bar.”

  Bev swung around, her bloodshot eyes glowing wild with alcohol and fury. She lunged to the side and swiped a full pitcher of beer off a nearby table. She pulled back, ready to hurl the contents.

  Evie held up her hands.

  “You do that and I’m calling the cops!” Her heart rate drummed faster.

  A pitcher of her ice-cold finest hit her in the face. She stood drenched, arms out, beer running in thick rivers from her fingertips.

  Evie’s logic disappeared along with her sanity. She knew she was about to play road kill to Bev’s Mack truck, but she was done playing victim for the day. Springing forward, she latched on to what was left of Bev’s extensions and pulled the taller woman down to her own level.

  Time slowed.

  “Get her, Evie!”

  “I want to change my bet!”

  Shouts roared around her as she fought to hang on, the fear of being stomped into the ground becoming more of a reality with each passing second. Finally, Bev pulled Evie’s fingers loose and Evie stumbled backward.

  Bev charged.

  But an arm appeared from the crowd and clotheslined Bev, throwing her to the ground in a twisted tangle.

  Evie stood staring down at Bev, shock jacking her furious heart rate like she’d shotgunned a fifth can of Red Bull.

  “You okay, honey?” Her mother stepped over Bev, careful not to get any beer on her heels.

  Evie nodded, unable to form words.

  Maxine thundered over to C.W. and stuck a long red nail in her father-in-law’s face. “We’re shorthanded as it is and you encourage this behavior in our bar?”

  He slumped and took a drag from his pipe. “We were just having a little fun. No harm done.”

  The crowd returned to their tables, the band cranked up, and Bev’s boyfriend, Jerry, helped Evie up from the floor. “I’m real sorry, Evie. I swear it won’t happen again.”

  Evie turned, completely soaked in beer, to look at him and his woman. Those two assholes were staring at her like they had only watched the fight—not started it.

  “Get the hell out of my bar.” The words choked past her clenched teeth.

  Maxine spun and closed the gap between them once more, striding on five-inch platforms like they were old tennis shoes. She propped a hand on her hip. “You need to wash up and change. We can’t call anyone else in to help tonight.”

  Evie squashed the little girl inside crying out for a hug. After all, her mom wasn’t the butterflies and fairies type. She was pure steel and thorns.

  “I’ll shower upstairs.”

  Cheri stepped to her side. “I’ve got a change of clothes in my truck.”

  “That’s great. All my clothes are back home and I don’t want to tend bar smelling like one.”

  As soon as Cheri left to grab the clothes, Evie grabbed her mom’s arm, maybe a little too roughly. Maxine had at least six inches on her, plus another three from her teased brown hair. “Marcus just left.”

  Maxine’s dark brows swooped down, but she didn’t seem as angry as Evie’d expect. Heck, she didn’t seem angry at all. “What did he say?”

  “He encouraged us to reconsider his offer.” Or he’ll kill you.

  “And?” Maxine continued to study her.

  Fear crept down her spine and Evie resisted the urge to back up a step.

  “Doesn’t this seem like a problem we need to address?”

  Maxine’s right brow rose to a sharp point. “When did you decide to grow a backbone?”

  Evie was on the verge of stomping her foot, something she hadn’t done since high school. Her mother had always been able to pull her strings, but since Daddy’s death, she no longer pulled. She yanked.

  “When my ex-fiancé decided to show up in my bar. And now my mother is acting like it’s not a bad thing.”

  Maxine pursed her lips into a thin red line. The battle was on. “Listen here, I might run the club, but I don’t control it. We go with the vote. If you can’t handle it, you need to get out.” The club was what they called MRG when they discussed it in public.

  Evie took a step back and her mouth fell open. Even though she and her mother didn’t always see eye-to-eye, she relied on Maxine to be her rock. But instead of supporting Evie, she was crushing her will.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m trying to save you from more pain,” Maxine said.

  “Pain?” She fought to control the shrill edge to her voice. “You think ripping my membership away will make me stronger?”

  Forget Dr. Phil, this crap belonged on Jerry Springer. Her mother’s betrayal, whether it was couched in concern or not, stabbed deep.

  “Dammit, Evie. I lost your father. I’m not turning a blind eye to your affairs.”

  “So you want to work for him? You want his money?” Evie said.

  Maxine didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. The truth crashed into Evie, rocking her to her core.

  Her soaking clothes seemed to freeze on her skin. Chills raced down her legs and anchored her feet to the floor.

  “You know how I feel about that asshole. But I don’t get to tell him off. We go with the vote. Period.”

  Where were the tears? The remorse? But Maxine wasn’t the type to cry. She was a machine. A machine that didn’t care about her own daughter. “How could you do this to me?”

  Maxine lifted her chin, loo
king down at Evie. Just like a mother would a pestering child. “It hasn’t been decided yet. Look, I’ll tell the club you need a break. I think that is best for everyone.” In a show of rare show of affection, Maxine cupped Evie’s cheek. “They will understand you need to sit this one out.”

  “I’ll never understand how a mother could betray her own daughter.”

  Evie spun around, trying to hide the tears. This time she didn’t have to fight her way through the crowd. Everyone gave her a wide berth. Her tennis shoes squished with each step, her already-loose blue jeans sagged, and her long sleeve T-shirt clung to her like a spandex glove.

  As Evie burst through the back door, a match flared in front of her, the light temporarily blinding her. She stumbled sideways to avoid running into a lit cigarette.

  “Hey.” His Southern drawl put Matthew McConaughey to shame. Slow. Sexy. And familiar.

  Her gaze traveled up the muscled torso to a pair of dark chocolate-brown eyes.

  Holy crap.

  “Hunter James.” His name breathed past her lips on a whisper.

  For the second time that night her heart stuttered and her stomach clenched tight.

  Hunter blocked her path, his towering six-foot-four frame packaged in a tight-fitting black T-shirt and jeans that showcased his muscles. His arms had to be twice the size they were the last time he’d been here. His gaze twice as intense. Her reaction twenty times that.

  According to the town gossips, he’d been back in Mercy for a couple of weeks, but so far he’d avoided her. And she’d prayed daily he would stay away. Every time he came home on leave, he seemed to make it a point to show up here. At her bar. With another woman on his arm. Making sure she saw he’d moved on. And each time her heart broke a little more.

  “Need some help?” he asked.

  Her brain took a full minute to kick into gear, then another minute to reconnect to her mouth. “What?”

  “You look like you could use some help. Can I do anything?” His serious voice passed through lips that were way too tempting.

  She couldn’t think. The man standing before her had gone AWOL with her heart over five years ago, like the tail end of a twister after a storm. Part of her had been happy he’d left. The other part had been devastated. Their love had been wild and crazy, but ultimately destructive.

  She noticed the knotted wood cane leaning against the table beside him. “What’s with the cane?”

  Hunter grinned and shifted his weight to the side. “What’s with the wet clothes?” He extinguished his cigarette and stepped away from the doorway leading to the upstairs apartment, his limp noticeable.

  Evie crossed her arms over her chest, the action squeezing more beer out of her bra. Her lips pressed into a tight line and she forced herself to answer, “Wet T-shirt contest. It’s a new thing we’re trying.”

  Evie straightened her arms, clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides in time with the ticking in his jaw. A couple day’s stubble graced the hard planes of his face, only a little shorter than the black hair buzzed close to his scalp. He looked as if he’d been chiseled from steel.

  Hunter leaned in close and Evie’s stomach knotted. Lust built inside her, pushing against her dam of resistance. “I bet you won.”

  He wasn’t staring at her chest, she had to give him that. No, his target appeared to be her mouth. His head lowered to hers and her mind went blank. If she had been thinking like a full-grown woman, she would have jerked back before his lips made contact. But tonight her brain had pointed and aimed but failed to fire.

  Hunter’s mouth closed over hers. She froze, holding her body still even though she felt like the Mississippi River, swollen with floodwaters, shorelines about to explode with desire.

  He deepened the kiss and her dams of resistance weakened, cracking under the pressure.

  But something held her back. She didn’t let him take over. She swam and fought against the rip current of Hunter James.

  “God, I’ve missed your mouth. I can’t believe I stayed away from you this long.” His words yanked her back to reality.

  Fury exploded through her limbs. “How did you manage?”

  “I have no idea.” His eyes promised sex. Mind blowing, body numbing, sore-for-three-days sex.

  The words were out of her mouth before she could seal

  her lips. “Yeah, well if you were expecting a welcome party, you’re five years overdue.”

  6

  Hunter dangled a cold beer from his fingers and leaned his elbows against the bar. The dim glow from a few hanging Edison lights illuminated small circles along the scarred top. Probably a good thing. Too much light and he might see a cockroach crawl out of the peanut bowl.

  Evie had sunk fast after her relationship with Marcus ended. Her fiancé had left her two years ago, upgrading from local country girl to city-born, politician-bred elitist. Then her father had been killed on the job, a hazard of being sheriff. Now Maxine and Evie owned a run-down dump.

  How they got involved with the MRG was one of the first things he intended to find out. Hunter was missing one giant-ass piece of a three-thousand part jigsaw puzzle, and fuck all if he’d ever completed a puzzle in his life.

  Why the hell had he agreed to this mission? In terms of discomfort, reconnecting with his ex ranked right up there with those getting-in-touch-with-your-inner-feelings classes the government required when demobilizing from deployment.

  Maybe he could tolerate this a little more if she hadn’t moved on with another man. Particularly such a scumbag.

  And here Hunter sat. At her bar. Drinking her beer. And planning the best way to infiltrate her pants.

  Gotta love karma, that twisted bitch. He downed his beer and banged the bottle down too hard on the bar. Cheri, a loud mouthed redhead, jumped and snatched it up. She wasn’t some shy virgin, but she backed away from him like he was the Grim-fucking-Reaper.

  Hunter could kill an enemy without the slightest rise in his blood pressure. He could target, torture, and terminate with a smile. But right now, the emotional control he so relied upon had disappeared—all because of one woman. One small, blonde memory that had dug a pick ax into his mind and refused to let go.

  When Evie had brushed past him in her rush to stop that fight, her fresh scent had nearly knocked him down. He’d watched as she tackled a woman nearly twice her size, ready to go all Superman and fly to the rescue. Just like before. And just like before, she hadn’t needed him.

  Hunter took a deep breath, forcing his abdomen to relax enough to allow air into his lungs. He clutched his fingers, counted to three, and cracked the closest thing to a smile he could manage. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Rough week. Can I get a refill?”

  Cheri paused, tilting her heart-shaped face to the right. Her pupils shrank the smallest millimeter, making her hazel eyes appear almost gold. Careful calculation snapped across her features. “Why should I get you a refill? Every time you come here, you hurt her.”

  His first thought was, good. He wanted to hurt her, just like she’d hurt him. But he kept that thought to himself. “I don’t want that. I came tonight to apologize. For being such a prick.”

  God, the words might as well be soaked in battery acid as bad as they burned. Liar. He wasn’t going to just hurt Evie, he planned to use her and then turn her over to the government.

  “Ha, I’ll believe that when I see it.” Cheri made to turn away but Hunter reached across the bar and grabbed her arm. She stopped, looked at their connection like she would cut his arm off if he didn’t let go. And he had no doubt she would.

  “Fuck, you’re not making this easy. Listen, I got shot, see the cane?” Hunter lifted his prop, a gnarled wooden cane for Evie’s best friend to see. “It made me realize how wrong I’ve been.”

  Cheri peeled his fingers off her arm, one by one. “I’m not buyin’. You probably been shot before, and that never made you give a flying crap.”

  “You’re right, I’ve been shot. I’ve been wounded.
But this time was different. This time, I almost didn’t make it.” Hunter leaned in, making sure to hold her gaze. “And when I was lying there, bleeding out, the only face I could see was Evie’s.”

  Cheri stared, hard. This crap better work. He’d pulled out all the stops. And used a trick he’d learned in training. If you’re going to lie, tell a little truth.

  Even if the truth was like swallowing rusty nails.

  “Crap. You’re serious.”

  Hunter nodded. “I am. I tried to talk to her a few minutes ago, but she wasn’t in the mood.” And that was putting it lightly.

  Cheri shook her head, grabbed a beer and passed it to him. “I’ve seen the way you look at her when you think she won’t see.”

  Hunter cringed and took a drink. Maybe he hadn’t been as cavalier before as he’d thought.

  “But I’ve also seen the way she looks at you. I tell you what, I will stay out of your way. But I swear to God if you hurt her, I’ll cut off your balls and use them for fish bait.”

  Hunter opened his mouth, and then decided better. No need to respond. Cheri moved away to serve another customer.

  “Hello, handsome.” Tonya Lee Swopes sat down beside him, her long black hair teased and sprayed a lot higher than normal. “Wanna dance?” Her fingers brushed his, stayed a second too long. Her skin was soft, her body temperature a little cooler than his. She leaned forward, displaying a pair of tits to rival a young Dolly Parton’s. He knew he could have her in his bed in a few hours. Or maybe even in his truck in a few minutes. But he didn’t feel any heat.

  The only woman he could picture had blonde hair and impossibly blue eyes.

  “No, thanks.” Hunter pulled away first and took a swig.

  Tonya pouted, but the look only made him cringe. Her red lipstick was too bright. Clownish. “You’re not being very nice tonight.” Ignoring his fuck-off and go away glare, she slid a hand up his thigh. “Remember the last time we went out?”

  Did he remember her drunken advances? Unfortunately, he remembered too well. “Actually, no. And if you don’t mind, I want to be alone tonight.”

  Any semblance of charm disappeared and she stood, shoving her stool back so hard it crashed to the floor. “You don’t know what you’re missing asshole.”