Unchained

by Suzanne Halliday

  His eyes narrowed. He couldn’t help it. Shit. Even Lacey had weighed in on what was obviously a growing concern of Family Justice.

  The state of the St. John marriage.

  Half an hour later, after he’d shut himself away in the shop, he pulled his phone out and scrolled through the contacts.

  There was a simple solution—one that would take care of his issues, and in turn, put him in the headspace he needed to keep his wife happy and their family together.

  Pressing the call button, he pressed the phone to his ear and waited for it to connect.

  At the sound of “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Draegyn St. John,” he gritted his teeth and replied, sealing his fate and that of his wife too.

  “Hello, Carol. You don’t sound surprised to hear from me.”

  “YOU BOYS SURE y’all know what you’re doing? Running a bar ain’t like throwing a party. Hell. You take this on, and you’ll be managing a party seven days a week.”

  Finn had to laugh at Pete’s description. He wasn’t wrong.

  His new business partner, Barry Grant, chuckled at Pete. “We’re young, strong, and stupid. Perfect recipe for success. Isn’t that how it goes?”

  Pete took off his Stetson, tipped his head back, and guffawed at the top of his lungs. “Been taking notes, have you?” he asked Barry. Both men fist bumped as the old man looked at his barkeep with obvious affection.

  Finn liked Barry a lot. He was smart as fuck, had an awesome sense of humor, and knew every nook and cranny of Whiskey Pete’s. From the moment they met one night when Barry was tending bar, he’d come to think of him as a friend. Just like Finn, Barry’s family considered him a royal fuck-up and made no secret of looking down their noses at the choices he made.

  It didn’t hurt that Pete regarded Barry as the son he wished he’d had. It made taking the legendary honky-tonk off the old guy’s hands a lot easier than if he’d been trying to make the deal blind and by himself.

  “Tell you what,” Pete thundered in a voice big and gravely enough to be heard across the empty room. “How ‘bout we just jump headfirst with a ninety-day opt-out if you fuck up or can’t handle the pressure? I’ve had enough of this fucking summer heat. Thinking about heading to Vancouver for a spell to hang out with some buddies from ‘Nam who run a chopper business.”

  Finn sat forward. He liked where this was headed.

  “My boy Barry here is already running the saloon. And Finn, son! With your badass experience as a firehouse cook, you’ll give this old place what it’s always needed. Good food.”

  He and Barry looked at each other. What Pete was offering was basically a trial run. Goddamn. Really? How many people got a test period with a new business? Things were looking up big time.

  No discussion was necessary. Each of them stuck out their hand at the same time and said, “Deal.”

  A round of drinks followed. Non-alcoholic because Pete was a bigger stickler about limiting alcohol during daylight hours than Finn’s former station captain was. Not that he was an advocate for the ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere’ believers. Let’s face it, being an Irishman in Boston had given him VIP seating when it came to watching people he knew, and sometimes loved, drink themselves into strangers.

  Was it weird then? Buying a bar? Wow, he thought. Maybe. After all, despite everyone here being briefed on the Finn O’Brien as a fuck-up situation, he certainly did not see himself that way.

  He’d been a damn good student. Straight A’s to prove it. But as Deval and Mike O’Brien’s little brother, he was mostly invisible. He’d wanted to pitch in Little League, but Mike had been a pitcher and Dev, a star shortstop, so he’d been banished to the outfield. Didn’t matter that he could hurl a supersonic fastball.

  Such was his life growing up in obscurity as his older siblings set records, earned praise, found successful careers, and started families.

  Nothing he ever did seemed to matter, so Finn never really tried. Two weeks after starting college, he realized that shit wasn’t for him. Not when he was constantly compared to Dev, or Mike, or even worse, Meghan. He didn’t care how cool his sister was—no guy wants to be compared to a girl.

  So he switched gears and invested his energy into doing something he thought would matter. He became a paramedic, and a kickass one at that, earning high praise and a commendation for the way he handled himself as a young and woefully inexperienced first responder on the scene of the Boston Marathon attack.

  Oh sure, he had some hoopla around him for a short time after that, but within a year, goody two-shoes Meggie hit the fucking lottery with a group of her teacher pals and Finn slid once more into deeper obscurity.

  Barry and Pete were telling bar stories and going out of their way to crack each other up. He sat there and grinned at them, enjoying the easy camaraderie between the two very different men.

  Folders and papers from their business meeting covered the wooden table they’d commandeered along with a big ass bowl of some shit Pete insisted was chili plunked on top.

  Jesus. Who was even willing to eat that crap? No wonder the kitchen was operating at a substantial loss. Bar food was as a huge deal where he was from and firehouse fare was something at which Finn excelled.

  His ma could make a comfort meal out of two cornflakes and some butter, so he pretty much grew up learning kitchen skills from the best. But holy fuck had his world exploded once he found himself under the wing of Poppy Shaughnessy—an acclaimed firehouse cook who taught Finn how to make gourmet feasts for the first responders at his station house.

  He might have to do a bit of research into local tastes when it came to some simple chili, but aside from that, he was fully capable of blowing Pete’s bowl of disgusting crap off the menu with less than half an effort.

  As if he was reading Finn’s thoughts, Pete slammed his mug of iced tea onto the table and reached over to slap him on the back.

  “Boy! You gonna show these dusty cowboys how to get ‘er done ‘Bah-stan’ style,” the old fuck drawled with a mocking Boston accent. “Make your sister proud.”

  Barry snickered and shot him a comical look. Finn hadn’t exactly been quiet with his new friend about how much it fucked with him that his older siblings were regarded as God’s gift to mankind.

  “Meggie can’t cook worth a damn,” he muttered.

  Pete’s gruff chuckle was part understanding and part challenge. “Don’t think Major Marquez married that little filly for her kitchen abilities.”

  Yeah, no shit. Meghan was the only person he knew who could burn water; so of course, it made sense that she’d end up in a friggin mansion with a staff to make meals and pick up after her.

  Barry took that moment to throw down his two cents. “I like the Justice crew. Good guys. Don’t take no crap.”

  Pete nodded solemnly. His whole demeanor changed quite abruptly, and Finn sat back as he took in the sudden shift in the conversation.

  “I owe Alex. Big time. Guy saved my ass when the Feds tried to shake me down.”

  Seriously? This was a new wrinkle in the Justice legend.

  Before he could ask, Barry filled in a couple of blanks. “I remember my dad calling bullshit on that whole thing. Running drugs out of the bar, right? A bunch of hardcore bikers got caught making deals in the desert, and of course, those government boys tried to pin it on a run-down watering hole in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

  Both men made a series of disagreeable noises letting Finn know exactly what they thought of the whole thing.

  “Justice wasn’t even a thing back then. And Alex, well, fuck—he was a certifiable mess. Guy’s lucky he can walk after what them assholes did. Suicide bombers, what the fuck,” he muttered darkly.

  Barry nodded his agreement. Finn knew about his brother-in-law’s past, but seeing it through the eyes of people not living on his property was interesting. And enlightening.

  Adjusting his bolo tie just as he would if the Pope were about to walk in the room, Finn read Pete’s instinct
ual show of respect for Alex as an absolute. He just wished so much as a dropperful of those feelings existed for him where his sister’s new husband was concerned.

  “Vets, we look out for each other. Y’know?”

  He and Barry nodded as Pete kept on.

  “Alex never doubted my side of the story. It was”—he paused—“a turning point for me, boys. Until then, I was just another forgotten soldier with a lingering case of ‘Nam clinging to everything I did. But when a decorated officer, a war hero with deep connections in Washington, believed in my grizzled ass, well, it changed everything. Feds backed off. The bar started making me a decent living, and my reputation went from crazy old fuck to businessman.”

  Silence hung over them when he finished talking. Finn nursed his soda and thought about what he had just learned. Barry took the straw out of his iced tea and started folding it like an origami project. Pete swirled the ice in his glass in an unconscious circular motion as he stared off into space.

  “Hey, Pete,” a loud voice barked. They looked in the direction of the kitchen where the line cook currently fucking things up was holding open one of the swinging doors and waving around a piece of paper. “Got a delivery that needs signing for.”

  Barry hollered at the guy—and not in a friendly way. “Can’t you do anything, man?”

  Pete sighed heavily and fixed Finn with a sheepish look. “Leaving you with a shitshow, boy.”

  Word.

  “JACE!” REMY SQUALLED. “Get your friggin ass in here and help me.”

  Muttering darkly, she tried shoving the enormous crate with her hip only to have it move less than three inches. What the hell was this doing in here anyway? Wasn’t Ben in charge of deliveries to the compound?

  The door opened and shut with a loud bang, and a voice yelled, “Where are you, cuz?”

  Peeking around the imposing wood box, she flagged him with a furious wave of her hand. “Help me move this damn thing so I can get to my desk.”

  “What the hell is this?” he asked. Putting his shoulder to the crate and adding a hip shove, the thing finally started inching forward steadily.

  “I dunno,” she grumbled while trying to guide the unwieldy object out of the way. From the height and size, she made a quick assumption and sarcastically answered. “Statue of David. Giant Buddha. A Remington bronze. Who the hell knows.”

  Jace snickered. “Your cynicism is showing again.”

  The crate finally out of the way, she dusted her hands off on her jeans and stuck her tongue out. “Shut up.”

  Jace scooted around the box and grabbed her in a headlock, administering a vicious noogie that made her yelp and attempt to swat him away.

  “Cut it out!” she scolded.

  He laughed, released her, and stepped back. “Y’know, if you weren’t my cousin, we’d be dueling pistols every damn day out behind desert dune.”

  Arching one eyebrow, she slapped on her best sardonic expression. “Dude. Get real. If you weren’t my cousin, you’d never be within a thousand miles of a place like this.”

  Their easy laughter filled the office.

  Laying it on thick with a practiced and very effeminate sounding French accent, he made her laugh even harder. “But Cherie. You’d be lost without my flair! All this, ugh …” He grunted distastefully with a limp wristed wave of his hand. “All this brown.” Shuddering dramatically, he sneered, “It needs a pop of color. No?”

  Remy wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him in for a peck on the cheek.

  “I’d be up the creek and paddling with two spoons if it wasn’t for you.”

  Jace shrugged off her statement. “And I’d be feeling the noose tighten around my throat every day without this very convenient rescue.”

  What a pair they were. Remy and Jean Claude or Jace, as the family called him, were raised with equal advantage and disregard on two different continents. Her French father had left Europe as a college student and become a successful banker with global clients. His family was duly horrified when he married a Midwestern girl with Native American ancestors in her bloodline. Her whole life was a study of in between. Her French relatives rolled their eyes at her name. Remington. They referred to her as a ‘pistol.’ Bunch of uptight assholes. They knew full well her name was an homage to a famous artist and not a goddamn gun company.

  And her mother’s family held her, her parents, and her little sister at a respectful arm’s length thinking that their Euro roots somehow made them separate and apart from everyone.

  In between. That was how she’d always felt.

  Despite never quite fitting in with her European relatives, she’d developed a close bond with her cousin, Jace, when they found themselves at the same summer camp when they were twelve years old.

  Jace’s mother, her aunt, was the quintessential socialite. In Remy’s opinion, she had more makeup in her arsenal than commonsense. Her husband, a wealthy developer with aristocratic roots and a serious hard-on for the American western cowboy culture, had been her cousin’s saving grace. Raised by nannies and shipped off to private boarding schools by the time he was eight, Jace was being groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps. Luckily for him, that also meant getting an immersion experience every summer when he went to America for what the family referred to as cultural training.

  The two outcasts had bonded the summer they’d been campers together. Jace was her confidence man, and she was his coach. Years later, he picked her up when she fell apart and got her back into the world at a time when Remy nearly lost everything. And she was the voice he listened to, as his prescribed life became a chokehold, slowly strangling the life from him.

  She threw him a lifeline the second Justice reeled her in. Raised around horses, she knew plenty about riding and enough of the basics to bluff her way through the interview that led to this job. But when it came to running a stable, she knew exactly nothing.

  Jace, on the other hand, was more than an expert on these things. He also grew up around horses, but in his case, the stable was where he found an escape from the superficial life his mother insisted they lead and a connection to the life of a cowboy which so fascinated his father.

  Eager to break out of the numbing nine-to-five life he’d been so carefully groomed to lead, Jace jumped at the chance to relocate half a world away to the American Southwest where Remy promptly made him her assistant and put him in charge of the horses.

  The guy might look like a European hipster, but with each passing day, he lost little bits and pieces of his former life and picked up more and more of what she liked to call cowboy crush. Being outside, doing demanding physical work over long days, and living a healthy lifestyle—these things were changing both their lives.

  “Hey,” he said with a chuckle. “You have to come by the barn and check out the Welsh pony Calder dropped into the mix. Snowflake. She reminds me of the dappled gray you rode at camp.”

  Remy dropped into her desk chair with a thud and swiveled to look at him. “A pony? What do we need a pony for?”

  Snatching her bottle of water right from her hands, Jace tore off the cap and slugged back half of it before he answered.

  “It’s for Stephanie’s grandson. Did you know she’s a Junior Rodeo champ?”

  “Shut up!” she drawled. “No way. I heard she was a pageant queen or something like that.”

  Tossing the bottle back, she caught it easily and quirked half a grin when she saw how little of the water was left. Dick.

  “Yeah, I heard that too. But she shows up every morning at the crack of sunrise for a mount. Lady’s got mad horse skills. I watched her, and, this is no lie, grab the pommel and vault from standing still right up onto the saddle like she was swinging around a stripper’s pole. Shit. Now that I think about it, the blond one. Lacey. Her too. Only she’s more like Tinker Bell floating than a stripper.”

  A stripper’s pole! Holy shit. The visual Remy now had in her head of the Justice wives and the thousands of possibilities a pole offered
doubled her over with laughter.

  “Knock, knock,” a voice called out.

  Jumping to her feet, she looked at Jace with frantic eyes. Fuck! With the big crate blocking her view, she hadn’t seen anyone approaching. Next thing she knew, Tori St. John wiggled around the box and stepped into their midst.

  Like pretty much everyone she’d met since coming to Justice—well, everyone but that asshole Finn O’Brien—Remy liked the diminutive spitfire. Something about the twinkle of mischief she found in the woman’s eyes intrigued her. The wife of Draegyn St. John needed a hurricane named after her—she rolled with that sort of unspoken power.

  “Remy. Jace. Glad you’re both here,” Tori said. “Got incoming for you to deal with. Our canine director shipped his car from back East.” Handing her a folder full of paper, she added, “My husband wants you to start the process for transferring registration info to Arizona.”

  Putting her hands on her waist, the little woman eyed the large crate. Leaning this way and that, she read the documents stapled to the box.

  “What in the hell is this?” she asked out loud. “Saudi Arabia?” For no reason, she kicked the crate and then leaned in again to get a closer look at the labels.

  Jace drew attention to the other side of the wooden box. “Yep. Has a royal seal burned into the wood. Look.” He pointed so Tori could check it out.

  Looking twice as confused as she had ten seconds ago, she glanced at Remy and asked, “Does Ben know about this?”

  “He wasn’t around. At least that’s what the delivery guy said. So he brought it here because he needed an official’s signature.” Shrugging, she added, “Guess I was the only one around.”

  Tori did a double take ending with her eyes narrowing as she studied Remy’s face. Used to such intense scrutiny from her military days, she remained alert but passive and wondered what caused Tori’s long, hard look.

  “Want me to move this thing out of here?”

  She and Tori looked at Jace and then at each other.

  “No,” both of them blurted at the same moment.