No Gentle Giant: A Small Town Romance

by Nicole Snow

  “Oh, I can’t do that. It’s—”

  “—imposing? I knew you were gonna say that, and it’s not.” He laughs quietly. “I like dogs. And even if you miss the little guy, I’m thinking he’s not everything on your mind.”

  My eyes flick over, wondering how this husky of a man reads me so easily.

  I also can’t decide whether I absolutely hate it or if it makes me a little bit in love.

  “No...” Sighing, I slump in the seat, fiddling with the seat belt. “I’m just wondering if Flynn’s going to be lucid enough to say anything useful. Ms. Wilma only hired him out of pity and he was a lot more functional when he was working at the inn. I always hoped she could help him stay on the straight and narrow. It worked for a while. When he started missing too many shifts and mouthing off to guests, stumbling around and assigning people the wrong rooms...Warren and Haley had to let him go.”

  I’m not expecting what he says next—or the way it cuts my heart.

  “You aren’t pissed at him,” Alaska whispers. “You’re hurting for him. Because you’re thinking of your dad when you think about Flynn Bitters, wishing you could’ve saved him.”

  My breath catches.

  My hands fly to my mouth, an instant reaction to the hot prickle in my eyes.

  “H-hey,” I straggle out weakly. “Warn a girl before you do that, huh?”

  “Fuck. Sorry. Didn’t mean to—”

  “No—it’s not you. Not really.” I shake my head sharply, struggling to pull myself together. “I think it just hurts so much because...gah, because you’re right.”

  I press my lips together.

  In, out, in, out.

  Just breathe until I don’t feel like I’m going to burst into tears.

  “Fliss.” He says my name so softly. “There was nothing you could do. They were grown men and they made their choices, your old man and Bitters both.

  “Yeah. I can’t save everyone, right?” I sniff back hot lava.

  It hits too true.

  How can I save anybody when I can’t even save myself?

  “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want it,” Alaska tells me. “Bitters can only turn his shit around if that’s what he wants, and it’s his problem. We’re not there to fix him even if we want to. All we can do is hope he’s willing to help.”

  “Y-yeah.”

  But I don’t say anything else, because the sputtering, dim-lit sign for Brody’s glows up ahead.

  I tell myself I’m the picture of composure as Alaska parks and I get out of the Jeep.

  Very funny. I’m most definitely not composed as we step into the noisy, crowded pub, especially when I’m not expecting the attention.

  It’s like a bad rom-com movie.

  Every freaking eyeball in the bar whirls toward us.

  Argh.

  I freeze at the threshold.

  I can hear the whispers, little hints of my name and his, the word dating, and a few other choice words I’d rather not repeat.

  Oh, but believe me, they douse my face in flames.

  Hello, paralysis.

  Then Alaska’s at my side, just standing there. Oddly tense, stock-still, his face an unreadable stone.

  His hand brushes mine, the backs of his knuckles coarse. Without thinking, I do it.

  I grab on and squeeze for dear life.

  This is all part of the façade, right?

  Letting everyone think we’re a thing.

  Including certain folks who think the girl who’s never had a proper boyfriend has slept her way through half of Heart’s Edge.

  How does it feel? This soft voice croons in the back of my mind.

  It doesn’t feel fake as his hand goes loose in mine, tightens, and locks our fingers together, his rough skin grazing mine. The sun-fire heat of his palm envelops my hand.

  It feels like he’s squeezing my heart into a little clay knot.

  I can do this.

  Oh, God.

  I can do this.

  But I can’t stand here with townsfolk daggering me with dirty looks, and I cast about quickly, searching for the back of Flynn’s head.

  I say the back of his head because that’s all I’m used to seeing, Flynn parked at the bar and bent over whatever his poison is for the night.

  Looks like tonight’s no different.

  There’s a noticeable radius of empty stools around him, like no one wants to be near his slumped, stoop-shouldered figure. His rangy body bows over as if he’s forgotten how to sit up and his wispy grey-white hair sticks up in little tufts from the top of his head.

  I can smell the liquor on him before we close in.

  Bourbon, tonight, by the stench of it.

  My heart wrenches as I slide onto a stool next to him, Alaska taking the seat on my other side.

  Flynn’s eyes are rheumy, filmed, lost. He stares into that tumbler of whiskey like he just wishes he could break its hold on him.

  I know that look.

  And I feel like I’m seeing my dad resurrected as I take in his sallow skin and the signs of addiction pockmarking his face.

  “Hey, Flynn,” I murmur.

  Can he even hear me? I’d meant to come on friendly, firm, but I just can’t.

  This hurts.

  The plan to offer him a drink to loosen up flies out the window.

  No flipping way. I can’t stand being the one to feed another drop of death down his throat.

  He blinks slowly, like it’s taking time for my voice to filter through his fog, and he lifts his head, peering at me like he just can’t quite see me through some cloud in his mind.

  A minute later, his vision clears, and he offers me a smile with slack lips.

  “Little Miss Flissy,” he slurs. “Well, I’ll be damned. Feels like I haven’t seen you since you were barely knee-high.”

  That’d be back when my dad was alive.

  Back when the two of them were friends.

  Even though we’ve both lived in the same town for the decade since.

  “How’s Morgan?” he asks, and that hurt inside me turns into a hot lance.

  I search his watery eyes.

  “Flynn,” I say softly. “Dad’s been dead for ten years. You know that.”

  “Huh?” His face wrinkles inward before he sighs heavily. “...oh. Shit. Yeah, you’re right.” Slowly he looks around. His eyes sharpen as if he’s just realizing where and when he is. “I forget things sometimes. Sorry, Felicity.”

  “It’s okay.” Even if the fumes of alcohol rising off him hurt my nose, I reach over and rest my hand on Flynn’s wrinkled fingers. “Dad’s actually what I came to talk to you about, Flynn.”

  “Yeah?” He puckers his lips together oddly, smacking them, then pulls his hand away from mine and curls it against his tumbler, his fingers shaking. “Don’t know what you want me to say. Morgan was a good guy. Loved shooting the shit out here with me. And man, we had some damn good fishing trips. Great fucking fishing trips.” He sighs so hard it puffs his cheeks. “Really didn’t deserve to go the way he did, Little Bee.”

  Arrow, meet heart.

  My eyes flutter shut just a second too long at a nickname I haven’t heard forever.

  Why does this hurt so much?

  I’m angry at my father, damn it.

  I don’t miss him.

  I don’t.

  ...but I do.

  I miss the man I knew before he was hollowed out by his demons, before he always had this haunted, hungry look in his eyes, like a vampire desperate for one more taste of blood.

  I miss when he started calling me Little Bee with his hand on my shoulder, always so gentle.

  Every time I hear that name, I remember he’s the one who gave it to me.

  When I hear it now, some small, scared part of me demands to know why.

  Why Dad had to evaporate and leave that walking cadaver who just had his name, his face, barely alive...until he wasn’t even barely anymore. He was gone without answering that question that hurts so very
much.

  It’s several bleary seconds before I can bring myself to say anything, blinking my eyes until my vision clears. The wavering blur eases. I manage not to break down crying here in the middle of Brody’s.

  Alaska helps.

  Because he’s there at my shoulder, resting one big hand almost possessively against my back. I know it’s part of the boyfriend-girlfriend act, but it’s also saying everything I need.

  I’m here.

  I’m here, I’ve got you, and you’ve got this.

  Swallowing, I muster a smile.

  “No. No, he didn’t deserve it. I never got to talk to him the last few days he was alive, Flynn. But I’ve heard some people say you did. That you were the last person to see him alive.”

  Flynn instantly goes tense.

  “Yeah, well...maybe so,” he admits slowly, and for someone who’s three sheets to the wind he suddenly looks entirely too clear, one eye on the door. “What’s it to you? I already told Langley I didn’t do shit.”

  “I know you didn’t. Dad was your friend. You’d never hurt him.” When they weren’t hurting each other, that is, telling each other one more drink would be okay. “But I just...I don’t understand some things. I was hoping you might have answers. Because I can’t let Dad rest in peace until I get why he slipped, Flynn. Why he went from over a year clean to dead behind the wheel, full of so much junk it’s like...” The words stick hard in my throat before I push them out. “It’s almost like he wanted to die.”

  That’s what guts me right down the middle, I realize.

  Wondering if Dad actually wanted to die.

  If it wasn’t an accidental overdose, wasn’t foul play, wasn’t anything but my father crumbling under the weight of his addiction and choosing to surrender to the void.

  “Hell no!” Flynn snarls. “Your old man had so much life in him. So much goddamned fight. Maybe he fell off the wagon for a bit, but he was gonna get back on it. He was fighting to get back on. Fighting for you, but he—well...”

  “Well?” I prompt softly.

  Flynn looks uncomfortable, his bony fingers rattling against the tumbler, then tightening.

  “Look, your old man got in tight with some bad folks. Dude was desperate, trying to figure out how to make ends meet when most people don’t wanna hire a former junkie. So he was doing their dirty work and getting paid, okay? And those people, they started wanting more out of him. But he had his limits, nothing that’d hurt his family, and he told ’em to fuck off. Until they started talking about going after you and your mom.”

  Whatever I’d been about to say splits right off my tongue.

  Holy crap.

  I really am my father’s daughter, huh?

  Doing whatever I have to, taking whatever punishment’s necessary, to keep people I love safe from Paisley.

  Even if it means endangering myself.

  Will I share his fate?

  Struggling to protect my mother, and all I get for it is a nice case of the deads?

  Brute memories howl up inside me. Too many memories of that strange, haunted look on my father’s face, how tired he was all the time, and me trying my damnedest to do something.

  Anything to bring back the man I knew and loved.

  I remember when I made him a cup of coffee mixed up real special the way he liked it with a touch of honey and cinnamon, and the way he smiled. When his lips curled up and he finally had this faint shine in his eyes that almost resembled the old dad, I—

  No. Nope. Stop it.

  I can’t afford this trip down memory lane when the price is bawling here in the middle of Brody’s, and especially not in front of Flynn when he’s leaking useful info.

  So I force a smile so intense it hurts my cheeks.

  “He gave up a lot for us, didn’t he?” I say, and that sets him off all over again.

  “Oh, little lady, you have no damn idea.” Flynn’s getting louder, and if I don’t want him giving things away to half the bar, I need to figure out how to bring him back down. But he’s barreling on, loose-lipped and worked up, waving an arm out so sharply he almost smacks me. “Telling you, he was gonna do right by y’all. Those snakes fucked him over, and he was gonna fuck ’em right back. If you knew the big ol’ heist he had planned...”

  My heart stops—if it ever even restarted again after a thousand and one shocks tonight.

  Flynn locks his gaze on mine and lets out a weird chortle that squints his eyes up into these crescents before his face sags like melting wax.

  “He was gonna get y’all out of here, Little Bee. He wanted to move you and your mama somewhere nicer, somewhere you could all start over without this town and it’s never-ending shit,” he spits. “He was gunning for their cash—a lot of goddamned cash—and he said he’d be coming home with gold. But guess they got him before he got their stinking money.”

  Oh, no.

  Oh, God.

  He just dropped a nuclear truth bomb confirming my worst suspicions. And I’ve got to shut him up now. Ideally before the heads turning toward us become some interest we can’t afford.

  Luckily, Alaska’s there before me, his big body rising off the stool and moving to block the line of sight between the rest of the bar and us.

  He drapes a heavy, companionable arm over Flynn’s shoulder.

  “You seem like you’ve had too much, friend,” he says. “Think I could give you a ride home?”

  “Gerroff me,” Flynn slurs, shoving uselessly at an arm that probably feels like a two-ton weight. “Ain’t gonna end up like ol’ Morgan, man. You ain’t dragging me off nowhere. I know what happens when big ol’ bruisers like you give someone a ride.”

  “What happens?” I whisper, my heart clawing my throat.

  Flynn just stares at me, his red-rimmed eyes almost eerie, haunting.

  And then he draws his finger across his sagging throat with a soft “Shhhhk” sound, hissed between his pale lips.

  My stomach flips.

  I’m going to be sick.

  “You...you really think they murdered Dad?” I choke out.

  Flynn pins me with a nasty eye, leaning closer.

  “Little Bee, I know it,” he leers, but at least he’s being quieter, talking to me in this old witch-man growl that makes my skin crawl. “I knew your daddy better than my own brother. He wouldn’t have gone out like that. Somebody did him dirty. Gave him a ride just like big guy here wants to give me one—”

  “Hey,” Alaska protests. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

  Flynn charges on like Alaska didn’t say a word. “—and shot him up. Whole thing was a big-ass con job. A cover-up. And idiot assholes like our own bumbling Mayberry bought it hook, line, and sinker.” He jabs a finger at me, the nail yellowed and cracked. “You mark my words, missy. They killed your dad.” He shakes his whole body, shoving at Alaska. “Get the fuck off me, you gorilla.”

  “Polar bear. That’s the magic word,” I murmur in a sad attempt at comic relief.

  My head’s falling apart.

  The whole world blurs, receding into this dull roar.

  “I don’t give a shit what animal he is. He’s gonna be squealing like a stuck pig if he doesn’t get his grimy paws off me.”

  “Grimy? C’mon now. These paws practically own stock in pumice soap.” Alaska raises his arm, lifting both hands with a good-natured smile. “Hands off. No need to throw any punches. We’ll leave you in peace, man. Enjoy your night.”

  I’m glad Alaska’s keeping this situation under control.

  Because I’m about to flipping break.

  And unlike Flynn, I’m grateful for the arm around my shoulders as Alaska pulls me to his side—into his heat, his strength, his comfort.

  “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s pick up your dog and anything else you need. Think it’s time for you to get a solid night’s rest.”

  Rest.

  Like I’ll be able to sleep after hearing from the horse’s mouth.

  My dad was murdered. He som
ehow stole a load of cash and laundered it into gold—probably hoping it’d be less traceable and easier to hide until he was ready to make it cash again—and now I’m sitting on millions of dollars of reasons why he died.

  Like I’ll ever be able to sleep again. Always looking over my shoulder and wondering when Paisley’s going to show up to make sure another Randall finds an early grave.

  I. Am. Cursed.

  And I don’t know how to break it before it savages everyone around me.

  Including the kind, brave giant guiding me out of the bar with his arms around me like I’ve always belonged there.

  Like he’s big enough to shield me from the horror.

  Kind enough to put my shattered pieces back together.

  Whole enough to be the hero, the marvel, the man I could let myself love.

  My eyes sting like I’m facedown in a hornet’s nest because I can’t have any of that. I can’t let Alaska save me.

  I don’t belong in his tender arms.

  I don’t belong anywhere.

  Definitely not with this perfect soul who belongs to heaven, when all I can ever bring is hell.

  I’m a little calmer by the time we swing by Ember and Doc’s to get my dog, and then drive to my place to pick up more of Shrub’s things—and my own—to bring back to Alaska’s cabin.

  He follows me inside without a word, unspoken knowledge between us that it’s not even safe to let me out of his sight. The moment we walk inside, Shrub slips out of my arms and does an excited, yapping circuit around the living room.

  Apparently, he’s the only one excited to actually be home.

  I don’t know how I feel. Too many memories in this house, and they’re all threatening to swamp me as I sink down on the sofa and bury my face in my hands.

  “He actually said it,” I whisper. I don’t even know what I’m saying right now, the words just spill out of me. “He actually said they...they killed my dad. It wasn’t an overdose. It was a setup the whole time. Dad stole that money, that gold, so they took his life.”

  “One question—who’s ‘they?’” Alaska asks.

  I jerk, realizing—oh, crap—I’m not alone.

  But I almost wish I was when I look up.

  He’s standing near the door, not sitting down, his posture tense—and the way he’s looking at me seems almost wary.