by Nicole Helm
He scanned the bar, not even able to catch a glimpse of Rose working behind the line of customers sitting and standing, waiting for their drinks.
Good thing his family wasn’t here yet. If they knew he was sitting around a bar for hours on end, they’d have quite a few things to say. In their own special code, of course. Armstrongs never came out and said a bad word about anyone. It wasn’t considered moral or neighborly. That didn’t mean judgment wasn’t passed though.
If this was happening at home, his family would very quietly express concern over the amount of time he was spending “in town.” Mom would suggest other ways he could spend his evenings. Dad would make noises about farm duty without ever coming out and actually telling or asking Jack to do something.
Jack smiled ruefully. Why did he miss that? Who wanted veiled disapproval and constant suggestions about better ways he could spend his time? He didn’t, but it was all part of being a part of something bigger than him. Being an Armstrong. Being a family. Working together.
Maybe eventually Revival would feel like that, once they opened. It wouldn’t be much longer—by the new year, if Becca the Hun had her way. But it wasn’t here yet, and his chest still ached with a vague kind of homesickness he couldn’t ever give into. Because the home he wanted, the home he remembered…it was long gone.
Thanks to two people who were supposed to love him.
Damn, he wished he had a real drink. Or a pond to jump in to remind him of all those things he’d felt last night. For once, he’d been hopeful about the future and grateful for the people he had. But he had hours to go and no pond on hand, so he pissed away the hours making up stories about every patron who walked in the door. Ms. Leather Vest ran an outlaw biker gang somewhere out in the vast Montana landscape. Sunglasses Inside Guy was a famous country singer incognito.
And Rose Rogers was the beacon his gaze kept drifting to when he could catch a glimpse of her. Even as the crowd thinned and it became a little too obvious, he kept watching her. The longer he sat there, not seeing any sign of the guy in the picture anywhere, the less he cared about how obvious his staring was.
He watched as she emptied the tip jar and handed the contents to Tonya, sending her on her way home. He watched as the crowd dwindled down to fifteen, then ten, then three. He saw Rose making a beeline for him, surely to tell him to go home, and he didn’t know why he wanted to avoid that as much as he did.
But when someone grabbed her attention before she could reach him, he headed for the bathroom, leaving the room while she was busy telling Mr. Sunglasses that he didn’t have to go home, but he couldn’t stay here.
Jack stepped into the dimly lit bathroom and washed his hands, looking at himself in the grimy mirror. He’d avoided mirrors a lot more lately, not really wanting to see what stared back at him. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to, but for the first time in a long time, he felt compelled.
Compelled to look at his own blue eyes and the way his face was too thin and sharp these days. There was the beard he’d have to shave before his mother showed up, and all the scars no one could see but him.
This was Jack Armstrong, this man staring back at him, his plans all gone and his future a big question mark. The familiar panic settled somewhere beneath his breastbone, and he had to look away.
He’d never had to deal with question marks. His life had been a string of periods, of knowing exactly everything that was coming next from the second he was living till the day he died.
And now it’s all gone. When are you going to accept that?
The panic beat harder. He was used to pushing the anxiety away, down beneath that will of steel that had gotten him through SEAL training and a tour in Afghanistan. That heavy thing that had allowed him to survive watching Geiger die, to survive his own injuries and make it through all the physical therapy he’d needed to be able to move his body right again.
He didn’t have that thing to work toward anymore. He was alive. He had friends, a job, and a place to live, and that iron anchor that had kept him grounded against panic didn’t seem to be working anymore.
Now what? Now what? Now what?
“I don’t know,” he whispered, staring at a rusty sink in a hole-in-the-wall bar bathroom in the middle of rural Montana.
Who the hell was this guy he was somehow living in and for?
Maybe, just maybe, a hole-in-the wall bar bathroom was not the place to figure it out.
He forced himself to move away from the sink and the mirror. Maybe he couldn’t anchor his panic like he used to, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t beat it. He might not be a SEAL anymore, but he was a SEAL at heart. He wouldn’t be beaten.
Not by anything.
He stepped out of the bathroom to find the bar empty save for Sunglasses Guy sitting on a stool and grinning at Rose.
She was not grinning back.
“I don’t think you know how things work around here,” she said, her voice edged with the kind of fury that would have sent a smart man running.
Sunglasses did not run. “Come on, baby. Bet if you let me buy you a drink, I could change your mind.”
“The bar is closed, and you were told to leave.”
“Don’t be an uptight bitch.”
“Did you know acting like a dick won’t actually make yours any bigger?” She flashed her sharpest grin and then jerked her chin toward the door. “You have five seconds to get out the door.”
“Or what?”
“Or I escort you out,” Jack said flatly, stepping forward and making sure he didn’t limp, no matter how it hurt to move his leg like that. “And we might have a little accident with my fist and your nose along the way.”
The man turned to face Jack and scowled. “I don’t believe you were invited to this party. Bye, now.”
“Jack—”
He ignored whatever Rose was going to say. He stepped forward and grabbed Sunglasses by the back of his shirt, jerking him to his feet.
“Hey!” The guy tried to fight Jack off, but Jack was holding his shirt tight enough that the collar would start to choke him if he did more thrashing. “Hey!” the guy yelled again as Jack started propelling him toward the door.
Jack was sorely tempted to slam the guy into it, considering he apparently thought it was okay to harass women when he thought they were alone. For the sake of not having to clean blood off Rose’s floor, he opened the door with his free hand and shoved the guy out.
“Please let the door hit your ass on the way out,” he muttered, slamming it hard and smirking a little when it clearly did hit its target.
Jack flicked the lock, something like a smile spreading across his face. That had felt good. To do something. Something.
He didn’t know what he’d expected Rose’s response to be, but it certainly wasn’t the cold fury she was aiming right at him.
“You should not have stepped in.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t need any macho display interrupting my business in my bar.” She whirled away, slamming dirty glasses down and flinging towels about behind the bar.
“Looked like it came in pretty handy right then,” Jack returned, and maybe he shouldn’t be pissed that she was pissed over him doing something that finally felt real.
But he was.
“Yeah, well, so does this.” She reached under the bar and pulled out a gun and slammed it against the hard surface of the bar. “I’m armed, remember? Don’t get it in your head you need to swoop in and save me. I asked for your help for one thing and one thing only. Keeping an eye out for one guy. I don’t need muscle. Especially yours.”
“‘Thanks for the help, Jack’ is the actual appropriate response.”
Her nostrils flared, and she leaned over the bar as if it were the only thing keeping her from going after him. “You’re not a Navy SEAL anymore, Jack, and I’m not the country
you swore to protect. So, no, I won’t be thanking you.”
It landed harder than it should have. He knew he wasn’t a SEAL anymore. He’d come to grips with that. What else was there to do? He couldn’t even walk right. Of course he wasn’t a SEAL anymore. He’d looked into that bathroom mirror and accepted that.
And yet the thing about swearing to protect, about feeling good over having protected her and her throwing it back in his face. Yeah, it landed like the hard, solar plexus blow it was.
“Okay,” he forced himself to say, and if he wasn’t so rattled, maybe he’d have been irritated or embarrassed that his voice was hoarse. “Point made,” he added and turned for the door.
He was not a Navy SEAL. No one wanted him to protect them. He didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, and it was all fine. Great. Amazing.
He didn’t need a mission. He didn’t need anything.
He walked out the door and tried not to worry about her locking it behind him. Of course she would. Rose wasn’t an idiot, and she didn’t need his help.
No one did.
He had a family who loved him, complicated and from afar. Friends who cared if he was okay and wanted to defend him to those who’d wronged him. He had work to do. All of that was important and better than a lot of people had.
But not one person in the universe needed him. He didn’t know how a guy was supposed to breathe with that knowledge sucking all the oxygen out of his body.
* * *
Rose swore and internally lectured herself a million times over. Her hesitation lasted maybe two minutes before she went after him.
She shouldn’t do it, because Jack had seen her true colors right there, in the nasty temper and the words designed to hurt. Her parents’ legacy passed on to her—with just enough conscience for it to bother her, but not enough to change.
She unlocked the front door, practically jogging to catch up with his long-legged strides, never mind the limp.
“Jack!”
He didn’t stop, and why should he? She’d been purposefully mean and twisted the knife right where it would do the most damage.
She shouldn’t run after him and prolong that damage. Fixing things now would only give her the opportunity to do it over and over again. She didn’t want to feel that rush of shame and hurt every time, and she didn’t want to see the way his face registered a blow, the way those ice-blue eyes widened, and his mouth lost that hard-edged military firmness. In that moment, he looked like any other vulnerable man instead of the superhero he so often resembled.
Let him leave. Go inside. Save him from yourself.
“Jack!”
He finally stopped next to his truck. It was dark, and she could only see him as a shadow.
“What? I’ll be back tomorrow night if that’s what you’re worried about. A deal is a deal.” He opened his truck door.
She had to close her eyes against that perfectly executed slap. Oh, he wouldn’t see it that way. This trading of favors was his duty, the right thing to do. No matter how she treated him. No matter all the ways she would eviscerate him before she could stop herself. Why on God’s green earth had she allowed this to happen? She’d stuck her nose in his business, and suddenly they were all tangled up in something.
Cut the ties.
“You don’t have to come back.”
Even though she wasn’t sure she’d said that in any more than a whisper, the whole night around them seemed to hold its breath, heavy and quiet and so, so still.
Then he slammed his truck door closed, and she jumped. When was the last time she’d been scared enough to jump at something? She’d beaten the fear of overt threats out of herself long ago.
But Jack, or at least the shadow of him, stormed across the parking lot to where she stood at the end of the sidewalk. She didn’t have to see his face to know he was furious.
“You will not dismiss me. You are not my commanding officer, you are not my boss, and you are damn well not my ex. I am not disposable, and I’m not letting another person treat me that way.”
“Jack.” It came out like the pained gasp it was, and she reached out for him, but he sidestepped it, the two of them a pair of angry, hurting shadows dancing away from each other in the night.
“I will be back tomorrow night, and I will look for the mysterious guy you want me to look for, and you are going to pretend to be my very happy girlfriend so Madison can shove it up her ass. And you know what? If I see a guy harassing you, I’m going to step in. I don’t care how many guns and knives you have under there. It’s my life. I get to decide.”
Which gave her at least a little inkling that this wasn’t all about what she’d said. “It’s my life too,” she said quietly, and that seemed to still some of that angry agitation coursing through him.
This whole outburst softened her, because Jack wasn’t an outburst guy. He kept it all bottled up tight—and maybe he needed to let some of it go. Not alone though. “Come inside. We’ll have a drink.”
“Yes, because it’s a hell of an idea to keep drowning it all in alcohol.”
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had, but he couldn’t head home emotionally bleeding all over the place. He needed to take a breath and get a handle on himself before she let him go off in his truck all half-cocked.
“Come inside.”
“Remember when you said you weren’t any country I swore to protect? Well, I’m not some sob story you need to soothe your conscience with.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” she returned through gritted teeth, because maybe he wasn’t too far off the mark. She didn’t exactly see him as a sob story, but there might have been a flash of truth she recognized in the whole soothe your conscience bit.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” she threw back at him, frustration and guilt and some other thing that felt a whole lot like panic fluttering in her chest. What was there to panic over? What did she care if Jack took off? They were maybe friends at best, and he’d just made it clear he was coming back. Panic was nonsensical. Frustration was pointless. Guilt was…
Well, inevitable.
“Seems to be a theme,” he murmured, his voice suddenly soft. “Not used to that, are you?”
She wanted to tell him he didn’t know her, but she couldn’t form the words, couldn’t push them out of her mouth.
“Me neither,” he said, as if she’d agreed instead of remained silent and still. She felt his fingertips on her cheek, hot and rough against the cool of her skin. A gentle caress.
He was touching her like something delicate and precious, and her breath got all tangled in her lungs. She swallowed, trying to find some sense of power, some sense of her usual cool detachment.
“W-what are you doing?” Had she just stuttered that question? Unacceptable. Rose Rogers didn’t stutter.
“I thought we established I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, so it might as well be this,” Jack returned, his voice a dark rumble.
And in the dark night, like so many of her dreams lately, Jack’s mouth was on hers. Hot and somehow demanding. None of the timid, only-been-with-one-girl stuff she might have imagined.
His beard was a rough scrape against her chin and his tongue a velvet whisper across her lips, and no matter the little voice in her head telling her to stop this before it hurt them both, she opened her mouth for him.
His tongue swept in, and everything inside her shut up and hummed with a pulsing life. It might have been dark around her, but she felt like a beacon of light, like the center of something. And when Jack’s warm hand slid behind her neck, cupping it firmly, as if she was somehow his to cherish and protect, her body simply loosened and relaxed in a way it never, ever had.
That was quickly followed by a bolt of panic so hard and so potent, she pushed him away. It was only then she realized she was sh
aking, maybe shaking apart, against the brick wall of her bar.
Her bar. Her power. She was in charge. She was…
Broken, just like me.
She pushed away her father’s voice, pushed away everything except the feel of the cool, rough brick behind her back. This was her center, this rough-and-tumble, hole-in-the-wall bar she’d worked her ass off for the past few years.
She took a deep breath in and a deep breath out, almost able to laugh at the fact that she could hear Jack doing exactly the same thing.
Calming himself. Finding center.
“I’m not going to pretend I didn’t… Well, that was a hell of a kiss, Jack.”
“Okay,” he replied, his voice frustratingly devoid of any readable emotion.
“I imagine sex would be great too.”
“I would imagine,” he replied blandly.
“I need you to understand something, okay? You’re not disposable, but I’m not…good guy material. I’m attracted to you, God knows, and I’d even break a few personal rules and sleep with you, but that’s all it would be.”
“Did you think that kiss was me asking for a pity fuck?” And there was a hint at some emotion—rage or wounded pride or both.
“No. No, that’s not what… Look, guys like you do not have relationships with foul-mouthed, tattooed bar owners.”
“Guys like me.”
“Yes. Good, upstanding—for heaven’s sake, you were a Navy SEAL, engaged to the girl next door that your family expected you to marry. You’re like an American fairy tale. Let me tell you, a princess gets that guy. Not me.”
“Did you mistake me kissing you for a marriage proposal?”
She blew out a breath and something almost like a laugh. “No. But… One woman. You’ve had one lifelong relationship, and I just need to be clear that this ain’t going to be that. This can be something temporary and fun, but nothing like a relationship. That’s not what I’m after.”