Barrie was still the same woman who hadn’t been able to trust him with her future. Nothing had changed there. Except, she’d had a point—what about her career? They could have sorted out something between them, but staying with him, she’d never have achieved quite so much. He didn’t like that thought—he’d wanted to give her more, not hold her back. If anything, she’d only proved herself right. She was better off without him—definitely more successful than he’d turned out to be. Maybe that should prove something to him, too, but she was also still the same woman who could turn his logical mind to mush just by being close enough to let him smell her perfume.
And he’d kissed her... She’d kissed him first, but he didn’t have to take over quite so thoroughly. He could have given her a quick peck and headed on out, but once her lips had touched his, there was no going back. He’d wanted to do that for far too long now. He wished he could say that the kiss had gotten it out of his system, but it had only whetted his appetite.
Curtis let his gaze move around the bar, and he recognized a couple of guys from high school. Dwight Petersen was there—looking scruffy and sweaty. Curtis wasn’t in any rush to reintroduce himself—he’d come here for some quiet, after all—but the drunk cowboy’s words were filtering across the bar.
“Dakota never loved Andy,” Dwight was saying, his words slurred. “She married him for the money.”
“I don’t know, man,” the fellow sitting next to him said with a shake of his head. “They seem good together.”
“He was my best friend!” Dwight was getting emotional now. “A guy doesn’t move in on another guy’s woman!”
“Yeah, yeah...”
The tabletop in front of the two men was strewn with empty bottles. They’d been at this a while. He wondered how often Dwight had gone over this same sob story. Dakota was now happily married to Andy—Dwight might want to let it go already.
“You got to just move on,” the other man said, setting his drink down with a clunk. “Just...just...move on!”
Amen, buddy, Curtis thought ruefully. Sage advice from a drunk guy. Moving on wasn’t so easy when a guy’s heart was in the wringer, though.
The two men hashed over the unfairness of it all for a few more minutes, and then there seemed to be a change of topic.
“You know who I’d do?” Dwight’s tone turned slimy. Curtis grimaced. Did Dwight have any idea how disgusting he sounded or how far his voice carried?
“Who?” The friend was all ears now and Curtis looked away.
“That hot little vet.” Dwight laughed coarsely. “We were friends a long time ago. Ran in the same circles. She was hot then, and she’s hot now. Legs up to here and...” He continued with a lengthy, detailed description of her body—or at least, what he imagined it to look like. Curtis clenched his teeth and glared in Dwight’s direction.
“She don’t want you.” The friend guffawed.
“I say she does.” Dwight leaned toward his friend. “I see the way she looks at me. She always did have a thing for me. And the next time I see her, I’m going to—” He made a grotesque motion with one hand and laughed loudly.
This was just drunken talk—at least that’s what Curtis wanted to believe, but he didn’t like the sound of what Dwight was blathering on about. Barrie never had a “thing” for Dwight, but that wasn’t what grated on him. This wasn’t just some unknown woman. This was Barrie...pregnant and vulnerable Barrie, who Dwight was promising to manhandle like a piece of meat. The thought was infuriating.
“She’s pregnant, though,” the friend said. Even drunk, he seemed to have a moral fiber in there somewhere.
“Single, though,” Dwight countered. “And I heard what she likes—”
There was more talk that made Curtis’s blood simmer—descriptions of all sorts of sordid things that Dwight was positive Barrie would appreciate, and Curtis clenched his fists so hard that he heard his knuckles pop.
“I’m telling you, she’d want it,” Dwight went on. “She might say no, but I’d do unforgivable things to that woman—”
That was all Curtis could handle, and he rose to his feet and took three slow steps toward the other table, his boots thunking loudly against the wood floor. He slammed his bottle down on the scratched tabletop with a bang.
“Evening, Dwight,” he growled.
Dwight blinked up at him. “Hey.”
“You’re talking pretty loudly there.”
“So?” Dwight snapped. “What’s it to you?”
“I don’t like how you’re talking,” Curtis replied, keeping his voice low. “You mind keeping that filth to yourself?”
“What, about that hot vet?” Dwight asked with a laugh. “What do you care?” The man paused and squinted. “Wait... Curtis Porter?”
“One and the same.” Curtis bared his teeth in what he meant to be a chilly smile, but he wasn’t sure he managed even that much.
“No offense, man,” Dwight said, the color draining from his face.
“I mean it—shut your mouth about her,” Curtis growled.
Dwight was silent for a moment, then frowned. “It’s not like you want her. What do you care?”
Drunken logic never ran smooth, and Curtis shook his head. “Don’t push this, Dwight. You’re drunk. Maybe it’s time you went home.”
“Even if she begs me for it?” Dwight sneered. He lifted his hand in the grotesque gesture once more, and Curtis grabbed the man’s middle finger and bent it back until the oily grin on Dwight’s face evaporated into a grimace of pain.
“Hey, leave him alone!” the friend bellowed, rising to his feet, his chair clattering behind him. The man pulled out something that glinted in the low light, and Curtis’s first thought was of a blade. He couldn’t be sure, but he wasn’t working with rational thought right now. It was instinct.
Curtis put out an elbow. It caught the other man in the chin with a hollow sound not unlike a dropped melon, and when Dwight jerked his hand free and bounded to his feet, Curtis had no choice. Dwight’s fist was already coming toward him. Curtis dodged the drunken blow and landed one of his own.
The fight was on, he realized dismally, and he could either fight back or get himself beaten to a pulp. Considering his mood right now and the way Dwight had been talking about Barrie, he opted for the first choice—much preferable. Besides, on the off chance that Dwight had been serious about assaulting a woman, he’d make sure he dissuaded the moron from ever thinking about it again.
“Call the cops!” Curtis heard someone bellow just as a punch landed on the side of his head, sending him to the ground in a cloud of stars. He was up again a moment later, dizzy, but able to block another blow and deliver a solid punch of his own. He watched his hand connect with Dwight’s face in the most satisfying way, and the smaller man crumpled to the ground. That one was for Barrie.
Then something else hit him from behind and there was a blaze of stars once more.
Dammit...was his last thought before he lost consciousness.
Chapter Ten
Barrie awoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing from the bedside table, and she shot out a hand and groped around until she connected with it. Her body felt like it was filled with cement, but her mind was already trying to focus. She got emergency calls on a regular basis, so she was already pushing past the fog of sleep, wondering what might be the issue. She opened her eyes enough to see the screen and picked up the call.
“Dr. Jones,” she said.
“Barrie, this is Detective Mike Cruise at the Hope sheriff’s office. I’m sorry to wake you.”
Mike—Mallory’s sheriff husband?
“It’s fine...” She rubbed her free hand over her eyes. “Hi, Mike. What’s the problem? Is everything okay?”
“We have your ex-husband in custody, and he gave us your number,” Mike r
eplied.
The detective’s words slowly sank into her mind, and she squinted at the clock beside her bed. It was past midnight. “You have Curtis at the sheriff’s office?” She was awake now, and she pushed herself up onto her elbow. “What happened?”
“He was arrested in an altercation at the Honky Tonk” came the reply. “Are you willing to pick him up?” There was a pause and a murmur in the background. “Mr. Porter asks that you be told that he wasn’t drunk.”
That sounded like a drunk Curtis thing to say.
“So was he drunk, or not?” she demanded. “What happened?”
“No, he wasn’t. His alcohol levels were within the legal limits, but he was arrested for assault and battery.” Mike’s voice softened. “You don’t have to come, Barrie. I can drop him off at Betty’s place after my shift tonight. Thing is, he’s refusing medical attention, and I’d rather not have him bleed all over my cruiser, if it’s all the same...”
Mike had always had a dry sense of humor and Barrie shook her head. Some things didn’t change—like the rebel bull rider who lived for adventure. But a bar fight? And here she’d been lying in bed last night, wondering about that kiss, wondering if fifteen years had changed anything in Curtis. Apparently, not enough!
“Is he okay?” she asked reluctantly.
“More or less,” Detective Cruise replied. “But I’m not willing to just release him on his own right now. He needs more TLC than I’m willing to provide at the moment.”
So he was roughed up, too. She sighed. “Okay. I won’t be long.”
“Thanks, Barrie,” Mike replied. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Is isn’t your fault, Mike,” she said. “See you soon.”
Barrie hung up the phone and swung her legs over the side of her bed. Curtis at the sheriff’s office in the middle of the night... He’d always been impetuous, and this was the reason she’d made him promise that he’d never go back to the Honky Tonk—she didn’t want this life, and she’d seen it too often in her own extended family. She had an uncle who drank his family into the poorhouse, and a few cousins who did the same. She’d seen it all up close and personal.
Her alarm at being woken up by a call from the sheriff’s office was quickly melting into anger as she pulled on her clothes. Miley didn’t even move from his spot on the end of her bed. He lay with his head drooping over one edge and his tail flopping off the other, and he didn’t look inclined to get up.
“Miley,” she said, patting his rear as she passed him to grab her sweater. “Let’s go. You’re coming with me.”
Miley made a groaning noise, then stretched so that his long legs moved into the center of the bed. Yes, it looked wonderfully comfortable, but if Barrie had to go outside into the cold at midnight, then so did Miley. Fair was fair.
“Come on, lazy bones,” she said as she pulled the sweater over her belly. “I need your gallant protection.”
Barrie headed out of the bedroom and toward the door, and she heard the sound of Miley’s reluctant feet hitting the floor mingled with the jangle of his collar. Miley might not like his slumber disturbed, but his loyalty outweighed his comfort. By the time Barrie had her boots and coat on, Miley was waiting by her side.
Luckily she’d picked up her truck that morning—ready just as the mechanic had promised. The drive to the sheriff’s office was short, and after she’d parked, she held open the door for Miley to accompany her. If she was being dragged from her bed at midnight, then the sheriffs could deal with a non-therapy dog in the precinct.
“Hi, Barrie,” Mike said as she came through the front door.
“Hi.” Barrie nodded toward Miley. “I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t want to leave him in the cold.”
“No problem.” Mike held out his hand, and she shook it. “Mallory’s going to kill me for even calling you for this.”
Barrie smiled wanly. “She might. So where is he?”
“In the interview room.”
“Miley, sit.” She turned to her dog and took his large face between her hands. “Stay.”
Miley lowered himself onto his haunches, and Barrie followed Mike past the desks, where a couple of officers were typing away on their computers, and the coffee machine, which smelled like the last pot had burned. The interview room was toward the back of the station, and her heart sped up as Mike gripped the knob, then turned back to her.
“He’s not pretty,” Mike apologized. “And that isn’t my fault. I wanted to bring him to the hospital.”
“Okay.” She nodded. How bad was it that Mike felt the need to warn her?
Mike opened the door then stepped back. As Barrie entered the fluorescent-lit room, she spotted Curtis, a towel and an ice pack held to one side of his face. When he saw Barrie, he grimaced.
“Hi,” he said.
Barrie dropped her purse on a table and crossed the room. “Let me see.”
“It’s not too bad,” Curtis said.
“Mike disagrees,” she replied. “Show me.”
Curtis eased the towel off his face, revealing an eye swollen painfully and a gash above it that had already been butterfly stitched by Mike, she assumed. Her stomach flipped, and she looked away for a moment. She hadn’t expected to feel like this. She was a vet—she saw gross and painful injuries on a regular basis.
“I’m fine,” Curtis growled. “It’ll heal.”
“You are not fine, Curtis!” A sob rose in her chest. “What were you thinking?”
She’d been prepared for anger, not for the urge to sit down and cry. She was blaming this on the pregnancy.
“I wasn’t drunk.”
“A point in your favor,” she snapped. “Sort of! So you managed this sober?”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” he replied, pushing himself to his feet. “Thanks for coming, Barrie. I didn’t want to give them anyone’s number, but Detective Cruise there insisted, if I wanted to be let out of here.”
Barrie glanced back. Mike had left the room, and they were in relative privacy.
“Mike says you should have gone to the hospital,” she said.
“Barrie, I’ve gotten some nasty injuries riding bulls,” he said with a sigh. “I have a pretty good sense of when I’m hurt or not. This is cosmetic. It’ll heal.”
He was just as stubborn as he’d always been—the same old Curtis. So why couldn’t she put aside the way he made her feel?
“So, what was this about?” she asked.
“Dwight Petersen,” he replied. “You don’t want to know.”
“I just got up in the middle of the night to pick you up from the sheriff’s station. I absolutely do want to know,” she retorted.
Curtis picked up his jacket and winced as he attempted to pull it on. So it wasn’t just his face. She put a hand on his arm to stop him and felt down his ribs. Curtis grimaced as she got to a puffy place on his side. A cracked rib, too, no doubt. Broken ribs felt the same on animals as they did on people.
“Dwight Petersen had a few things to say about you,” Curtis said, catching her wrist to stop her probing. “And I didn’t like it.”
“What things?” she asked, pulling her hand free of his grasp.
“Things I don’t care to repeat,” he said, but she caught the glimmer of disgust in Curtis’s dark eyes. Had it been that bad?
“So you started a fight?” she asked.
“I didn’t start anything. Okay...maybe I was the first to lay a hand on the slimy twit, but if he ever considered acting on the ugly things he was saying, I wanted him to associate that with a little pain.”
“What did he say?” Wariness wormed up inside her.
“He was describing an assault,” Curtis replied grimly. “Stay clear of him.”
“Oh...” She licked her lips, her bravado slipping away.
“Where is he now?”
“He went to the hospital,” Curtis replied. “Mike says he’ll keep an eye on him. He’s definitely on their radar now.”
Did that mean that Dwight was in worse shape than Curtis? And was she hoping so?
“For the record, I wasn’t the one who beat him so badly. Apparently there were other guys who had a beef with him, too. I was already knocked out cold when they got to Dwight.”
That did make her feel a little better, actually. The thought of Curtis beating on some man—deservedly or not—was enough to turn her stomach.
“So you didn’t hurt him?” She heard the tremor in her own voice.
“Not very much.” He smiled down at her, then grimaced in pain. “I got in one solid right hook. That’s it.”
“I never liked the Honky Tonk,” she said.
“I know.” Curtis reached forward and brushed a tendril of hair away from her face. “I’m sorry about this, Barrie. I had to give them a number or end up in a cell tonight. Maybe I should have taken the cell.”
“No.” She sighed. “Come on. I’ll take you back to my place and get you cleaned up. You can sleep on my couch tonight, if you want.”
“I don’t need babying,” he said. “If you’d just drop me off at my truck, I can take it from there.”
Curtis might not want babying, but he hadn’t grown up much in the last fifteen years. If he had changed, he wouldn’t have been in the bar to begin with, and he’d never have let himself get goaded into some stupid fight.
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