Small-Town Redemption

by Andrews, Beth

  She couldn’t look at him while she told him. It was too gross. Too humiliating. She stared at her lap. “He came into my room and he...uh...he kissed me.”

  Just the memory of it made her skin crawl. The feel of Adam’s flabby body as he’d pressed her against the headboard, his hard-on touching her thigh. The taste of cigarettes when he’d stuck his tongue in her mouth.

  “Why didn’t you tell your mother?” Kane asked, sounding mad. She hoped he wasn’t mad at her.

  “I couldn’t. She’s never been this happy. I...I didn’t want to take that away from her.”

  Her mother had always put Estelle first. Put their relationship—mother and daughter—before everything else in her life. But in two years, Estelle would be away at college and she hated the idea of her mom being alone.

  But Andrew had been right. She didn’t want her mother with Adam. He wasn’t nearly good enough for her.

  “Your mom would never risk your safety, not for anything,” Kane said. “Once she hears what that son of a bitch did, he’ll be lucky she doesn’t skin him alive.”

  Estelle started crying. “He said if I told her, she’d blame me.”

  Her dad’s head snapped back as if she’d smacked him. “What the hell? You listen to me and you listen good,” he said, giving her shoulder a gentle shake, “Meryl would never, ever blame you for this. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “He said it was. That I’d flirted with him. En-enticed him by walking around in my pajamas and lying out in my bikini by the pool.” At first, when Adam had moved in, she hadn’t thought anything of it, but then she’d catch him watching her. Giving her the creeps. She’d started being more careful about what she wore in front of him. “I didn’t mean to give him the wrong idea. I swear. I was just... I wanted him to like me. But maybe,” she said hoarsely, confessing her greatest sin, her biggest fear. “Maybe I did flirt with him. Maybe I made it seem like I was interested in him. In that way. That I wanted him to...you know...” A tear dripped onto the back of her hand. “What if it really was all my fault?”

  * * *

  KANE COULDN’T REMEMBER feeling this helpless, this out of control with rage. It filled him, simmered in his bloodstream, raced along his veins. He’d been angry plenty, had spent most of his teenaged years pissed off. Had been scared many times during his time in the service, times when they’d taken on enemy fire or had gone into a possible insurgent’s home, not knowing if he was going to make it out alive.

  But nothing compared to the bone-deep fear of knowing his daughter had been in danger. The fury pushing him to fly to France, beat the living hell out of Adam, make sure Meryl and their daughter were as far away from the slimy bastard as possible.

  But he couldn’t let his feelings control him. Couldn’t let them lead him into making a mistake. He’d spent too much of his life trying to cover up his emotions, trying to numb himself with alcohol and drugs, lashing out or running away instead of doing the right thing.

  His daughter needed him. Here. Now. To help her through this, not tearing out of Shady Grove to track down Adam, not ranting and raving like an out-of-control lunatic.

  He shifted to the floor, knelt in front of Estelle, the sight of her tears ripping him apart inside. “Don’t you ever say that,” he told her firmly, his voice stony. “None of this was your fault. Adam’s nothing but a liar. He was trying to intimidate you into not saying anything. Your mother would never believe that crap and I sure as hell don’t.”

  Raising her head, she blinked at him, tears clinging to her lashes, the tip of her nose red. “I don’t want you or Mama to hate me.”

  It killed him that she would even worry about that. “Never. Meryl loves you. I love you. That will never change.”

  They told Estelle often how much she was loved, but sometimes words weren’t enough. Sometimes even parents had to show their kids what they meant to them.

  And that was what he was going to do. It was his job to protect Estelle. Had been his greatest priority and weightiest responsibility ever since he’d found out she was his. “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Taking it, she set her feet on the floor, but didn’t stand. “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going to wash your face,” he said, tugging her to her feet. He held her close, kissed the top of her head. “And then we’re going to call your mother and tell her. Together. And that’s how the three of us will get through this. Together.”

  * * *

  “I SWEAR TO GOD,” Sadie said as she came behind the bar Saturday night, “if that idiot plays ‘Love Shack’ one more time, I’m going to go bang, bang, bang on his fat head.”

  “He’s got at least another hour’s worth of quarters lined up on the jukebox,” Julie said of the thirtysomething guy doing a shoulder shake next to the entrance to the men’s room, his flabby stomach swaying with the movement. “I could accidentally—” she made finger quotes “—knock them off.”

  Kane sipped his bottle of water, noted the drink in the guy’s hand. “Offer him two free drinks if he lets someone else pick the music for the rest of the night.”

  Julie slapped his arm. “That’s brilliant. Must be why you’re the boss.”

  She headed off, winding her way through the crowd to save them all from B-52s overload.

  The boss. That was him. Problem was, he still hadn’t decided if he wanted to be the boss. The urge to run was still there, nagging him like an itch he couldn’t reach. Had grown stronger since Meryl took Estelle back to Houston yesterday.

  They had called Meryl together, as he’d promised. Had woken her up but there was no way Kane could put off telling her that her fiancé was a sick bastard who’d put his hands on their daughter. They’d asked her to go somewhere private and she’d slipped into the living room of her and Adam’s suite.

  Kane could still remember the shocked silence on the other end of the phone when he’d relayed what Adam had done. How Estelle had clung to Kane’s arm as he’d talked, her head bent as if she was the one who had something to be ashamed of.

  A moment later, Kane heard the unmistakable low rumble of a man’s voice on Meryl’s side of the phone. She’d asked Kane to excuse her for a moment, sounding as prim and proper as the debutante she’d once been. But she must have held her phone in her hand because the next thing Kane knew, Meryl called Adam a slimy son of a bitch.

  And, if the sound of cracking bone was any indication, she punched the bastard in the nose.

  She’d returned to the phone, told Kane she was leaving on the next flight and that she’d be in Shady Grove as soon as possible. He and Estelle had picked her up at the Pittsburgh airport the next evening.

  He’d known, as soon as he’d seen Estelle’s face when she’d spotted her mother that his daughter wouldn’t be living with him. He accepted it. Understood it.

  But was still disappointed. Surprisingly so, considering he hadn’t been sure he’d been up to the challenge of raising her on his own.

  With Senior doing better each day, and since Meryl had kicked Adam’s ass to the curb, there was no reason for Estelle to stay in Shady Grove. Kane missed her already.

  Now it was time for him to start making some decisions about his own life. Thanks to his cast, though, he had five more weeks before he could go anywhere. At least on his bike.

  Until then he’d mull over his options. Look into where he wanted to be. He’d been thinking that instead of going north, he’d head west. Not Houston, but New Orleans might not be too bad. He’d be closer to Estelle. Taking an order for a beer, one of the drinks he could still easily serve, he glanced over as the door opened. Froze.

  Charlotte. What the hell was she doing here?

  For a moment, one breathless second, he wondered, hoped, she’d come to see him.

  Until she turned to smile at the man behind her. The man
she was obviously with.

  “Kane,” Sadie said, bumping his elbow. “Kane.”

  He frowned at her. “What?”

  “The beer?”

  He glanced down. Swore at the liquid overflowing from the glass. He shook the wetness from his hand, grabbed a clean glass and pulled another one.

  Wiping his hand on a clean rag, he scanned the room until he found Charlotte again. Her date pulled out her chair and she sat, crossed those long legs. She was here. At his place. With another guy.

  He strangled the rag, considered wrapping it around her date’s neck. Or hers.

  Where did she get off coming here, to his place, with another guy, looking like...like that? She wore a skirt. A short one that was snug at her hips and showcased those endless legs. Legs that were bare and even better than he’d ever imagined, her feet in strappy heels. Her top clung to her torso and long arms, the low cut accentuating her neck.

  Her date sat across from her, some bastard in black pants and a white shirt, his short hair slicked back, his smile too white, too perfect. That’s when it hit Kane, why he recognized the guy. It was the doctor from the E.R.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Did you just growl?” Sadie asked, watching him intently. She followed his gaze, then deliberately stepped in front of him, matching his scowl with one of her own. “Stop staring at my sister,” she said in a low hiss. “I mean it.”

  Gladly.

  Too bad he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away.

  He wasn’t jealous.

  But when the good doctor leaned over to say something to Charlotte, resting his hand on her bare knee, Kane’s own hand curled into a fist. His vision took on a definite red haze.

  “Hey,” James Montesano, Sadie’s fiancé, said as he joined them. He glanced between them. “What’s going on?”

  “Kane is looking at Charlotte,” Sadie whispered fiercely. “Make him stop.”

  James lifted a dark eyebrow, a beer in his hand. “How do you suggest I do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with an irritable shrug. “Punch him or something.”

  “You want me to punch your boss, while you’re at work?”

  She poured vodka into a shot glass, her mouth pinched. “Fine. Wait until after I’m done working.”

  James and Kane eyed each other, much as they had when Kane had deposited a drunk Sadie on James’s doorstep last year. They were close in height, but James had weight on Kane. Then again, Kane was meaner and a dirty fighter—something C.J. could attest to.

  But James wasn’t a brawler. And he didn’t have anything against Kane once James had realized Kane wasn’t trying to sleep with Sadie.

  “If I punch him,” James said mildly, “I might spill my beer.”

  “Good call.” To reward him, Kane opened another bottle of his favorite brand. Handed it to him. “On the house.”

  Sadie slapped her hands on her hips. “Really? You won’t fight to defend my sister’s honor and all for the cost of a beer?”

  “Your sister’s honor is fine,” James soothed. With that, and a silent toast with both bottles, he headed back to join his brothers at the pool table.

  “Relax,” Kane told her. “Your sister is safe from me.”

  She may not be safe from Dr. Handsy, though.

  Not his business or his problem.

  Refusing to look their way again, he went back to work. Pulling beers, pouring shots, mixing drinks. For over an hour, he managed to not look Charlotte’s way.

  And then she sashayed up to his bar as if she had every damned right to do so.

  “Kane,” she said, looking nervous. Good. “Hello.”

  He nodded, which only seemed to unsettle her more. Perfect. Why should he be the only one who was a mixed-up mess? “Uh...you remember Dr. Louk?”

  She was introducing him to her date. He’d been dreaming of her, missing her, and she was rubbing his face in it.

  He’d never known she’d had a mean streak.

  Smiling, his bedside manner obviously not just for show, but a part of his everyday charming, polite, happy-go-lucky life, the doctor reached his right hand across the bar.

  “Justin,” he said, as if Kane wanted to be on a first-name basis with him. “How are you doing?”

  Kane raised his cast to show he wouldn’t be shaking his hand. “I’m healing.”

  Justin gave a self-deprecating laugh at his handshake blunder. Settled his hand on Charlotte’s waist. “Good to hear.” He turned to Charlotte, his fingers curving along the slope of her hip. “Excuse me for a minute?”

  She nodded, stood there looking all bright and out of place in his dim bar. Her lips a glossy red, long silver earrings dangling from her ears.

  The damn necklace Kane had bought her hanging from her neck. A guy bumped her as he came up to the bar and ordered a draft. She stepped to the side, had the silver pendant swinging.

  “Do you need a drink?” Kane asked, his voice a low growl.

  She startled as if surprised he was asking that of her. She was in a goddamn bar, wasn’t she? She must have been sipping on something for the past hour.

  “No. Thank you.” She moved closer, set her sparkly bag down. “Justin saw you and wanted to come over. To see how you were doing after the accident.”

  Well, that explained it. Though she didn’t have to. It also made it clear she would have kept her distance if it was up to her.

  Yet she was the one who’d come to Kane’s bar.

  Since he had nothing to say, he kept silent. Gave the customer his beer. Took another order, all the while aware of her there, close enough to touch.

  “How’s your father?” she asked when he came her way again.

  “The same.” Carrie and C.J. were trying to decide where Senior should have his rehab, in Pittsburgh or Houston. Zach had gone back to base after his two days off and Oakes had flown home the same day as Meryl and Estelle, needing to get back to a court case he was working on.

  Charlotte ran her finger back and forth across her bag. “That’s good. That he hasn’t taken a turn for the worse, I mean. What about Estelle? Is she still hanging out with Andrew?”

  “She’s gone. Her mother took her back to Houston.”

  Now she looked sad, disappointed, as if she’d miss his kid. “I thought she wanted to stay with you.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “She changed her mind.”

  Charlotte touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t move, simply stared at her fingers on his skin. She slowly drew her hand away. He wished he could drag her out back where they could be alone, but he wasn’t going to play the jealousy card. Wouldn’t let it, or these confusing, conflicted feelings he had for her rule him.

  Not when he was afraid she had too much power over him already.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, angling his body over the bar so he could speak quietly and still have her hear him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I kissed you in the elevator and haven’t seen you since, and now, you just happen to come here with a date?”

  Color washed up her neck. “We...we were at dinner and we came in for a couple of drinks. That’s all.”

  It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. They could have gone to three different bars, all within a mile of here.

  “Whatever you’re trying to prove,” he told her, “you’ve proved it.”

  Her eyes flashed with building temper, and for a minute, he thought she’d whack him with that beaded purse of hers. Almost wished she would. Seeing her here, after wanting nothing more all week than to talk to her, touch her again, made him feel tight with tension, antsy with unnamed emotion, the kind that built up in a man until the only way to rid yourself of it was to explode.

  �
�I’m not trying to prove anything,” she insisted.

  “You think the doc is safe?” Kane asked, his gaze holding hers. “You think he’s the perfect guy for you, someone to fill the role of future husband?”

  “I think he’s a nice man, an intelligent, handsome man who is interested in me,” she said softly. And Kane wondered, worried, that she hadn’t brought the doctor there to make him jealous.

  That she was with Justin because she was moving on with her life. Moving away from Kane.

  And that was even worse.

  He straightened. Smirked. “My mistake.” Tossing down his rag, he called across the bar to Sadie. “Switch sides with me.”

  She did as he asked, looking at him curiously as they passed each other.

  A few minutes later, Justin returned and he and Charlotte walked out.

  Hand-in-hand.

  For several long moments after they left, Kane stared at the closed door, his back teeth ground together so tightly, his jaw ached. He wanted to run after her, demand she quit playing these games. Tell her to give the doctor his walking papers.

  He wanted to beg her to stay with him. To give him a chance.

  He whirled around. Beg. She’d reduced him to this. Turned him into a jealous, pathetic loser willing to toss aside his pride.

  He took an order for a kamikaze from a pretty brunette, poured vodka into a martini glass. He’d never been a fan of vodka, but when the potent scent of it hit him, it was all he could do not to raise the glass to his mouth and down the shot in one swallow.

  His hands shook, his body craved the alcohol like his lungs craved their next breath. But he knew what would happen if he gave in. One drink wouldn’t be enough. It had never been enough.

  When faced with his greatest weakness, the best thing, the smartest thing a man could do was get as far away as possible.

  He slowly, deliberately, added lime juice and triple sec to the drink, set it on the bar, took the brunette’s money and did what he was best at.

  Walked away.

  * * *

  “I HAD A NICE TIME,” Justin told Char as they reached her back door.