The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 4

by Nora Roberts

  Reece couldn’t hear what was being said. She didn’t have to. The men were grinning; Lo looked murderous.

  Just a bad idea, Reece thought. Those kind of games were always a bad idea. But Linda-gail was sauntering hand in hand with one of the men while his companions whistled and cheered. She led him to the strip of floor, put her hands on his shoulders. And led with her hips.

  At the table, the two left behind whooped. One of them shouted: “Go for it, Chuck!”

  And Chuck planted his hands on Linda-gail’s ass.

  Even with the distance, even through the blue haze of smoke, Reece saw Lo’s knuckles go white on the long neck of his beer.

  Seriously bad idea, Reece decided. Her conclusion was confirmed when Lo slapped the bottle back on the bar and strode onto the dance floor.

  She could hear bits. “It’s my ass, you jerk,” from Linda-gail. “Mind your own business, buddy,” from Chuck.

  The two women who’d moved from Shania Twain to a slurred version of “Stand by Your Man” stopped singing and watched in bleary fascination.

  Chuck shoved Lo; Lo shoved Chuck. Linda-gail put her full hundred and twenty pounds into it and shoved them both.

  Any hopes that would be the end of it shattered when Reece saw Chuck’s friends push up from the table.

  The small herd of cowboys playing pool stepped forward. Lo was, after all, one of their own.

  She was going to be in the middle of a bar fight, Reece thought with full amazement. About to be caught in a melee in a karaoke bar in Wyoming.

  Unless she managed to grab Linda-gail and run.

  She glanced around quickly to check the direction and distance to the exit.

  And saw, moving through the noisy, surged-to-its-feet crowd, a man wearing an orange hunter’s cap.

  Her breath hitched and tore. She lurched up, knocking her half-full beer to the floor, where the glass shattered with a sound like a gunshot. She stumbled, shoving into one of the cowboys as she tried to get clear, and sent him bumping hard into one of the fishermen.

  Fists flew. Onstage, the women screamed and clutched at each other. Bodies thudded against, or in some cases actually leaped onto, table and bar. Glassware, bottles crashed and shattered, wood splintered. She swore she heard someone yell “Yee haw!” before an elbow caught her along the cheekbone and sent her sprawling onto the floor and into spilled beer.

  REEKING OF BEER and smoke, holding an ice pack to her throbbing cheek, Reece sat in the sheriff’s office. If she’d been more humiliated in her life, her brain wouldn’t allow the previous incident to surface.

  “Last thing I expected from you was to pull you in here out of a bar fight.”

  “It wasn’t in my plans for the evening. It just happened. And I wasn’t fighting.”

  “You pushed Jud Horst into one Robert Gavin, inciting the incident. You threw your beer.”

  “No, I didn’t! I knocked my beer over when I tried to get up from the table, and I slipped into Jud. It was an accident.”

  “You were drinking,” Rick continued.

  “A half a beer. For God’s sake. I was in a bar, of course I was drinking. So was everyone else. And I wasn’t drunk. I panicked, okay. Fine. I panicked. I saw…”

  “You saw?”

  “I saw a man in an orange hat in the back of the crowd.”

  Rick’s weary, annoyed expression sharpened. “You saw the man you previously saw by the river?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t see that well. It all happened so fast. I got up. I wanted to get away. I wanted to see him better.”

  “Which was it?”

  “Both,” she snapped. “I was scared. I knocked the beer over. I slipped. That’s all.”

  He let out a windy sigh. He’d been pulled out of bed by a screaming call from one of Clancy’s waitresses. He’d barely closed his eyes when he had to get up and dressed again, and go down to clean up the mess in the bar.

  Now he had property damage, bodily injuries, possible civil and criminal charges to wade through.

  “Min Hobalt claims you struck her. I got another statement here that says you shoved over a table, causing a beer mug to land on the foot of a Ms. Lee Shanks from San Diego. I’ve got a tourist with a broken toe.”

  “I didn’t hit anyone.” Had she? “Not on purpose. I was trying to get clear. I got jabbed in the face, I was seeing stars. I was scared. Ifell into a table, which is a hell of a lot different than shoving one over.I got hit in the face,” she continued. “I’vegot bruises over most of my body.”

  He puffed out a breath. “Who swung first?”

  “I don’t know. The guy they called Chuck gave Lo a little shove; Lo gave him one back. Then I saw…I saw the hat.”

  “You saw the hat.”

  “I know how ridiculous that sounds. And yes, yes, I know a lot of men around here wear those damn hats. But I was jumpy because I could see a fight coming, then I saw the hat, and I freaked out a little. Big surprise.”

  “Clancy said he was moving in to break it up when that glass hit the floor. Says it was like the bell going off in the boxing ring. And when that cowboy bumped the tourist, that’s all it took.”

  “So it’s my fault,” Reece said evenly. “Fine. Charge me with inciting a riot, or whatever you want. Just give me some goddamn aspirin before you lock the cell.”

  “Nobody’s going to lock you up. Chrissake.” Rick rubbed his face, pinched the bridge of his nose. “The thing is, you’ve got a habit of stirring things up. You had some trouble down at the hotel laundry today?”

  “I…” Of course he knew about it. Brenda was tight as spandex with Debbie, the sheriff’s wife. Reece imagined she’d been the hot topic of conversation around the Mardson dinner table that night.

  “That was different. Someone played a joke on me. I didn’t think it was funny.” While he waited, brows lifted, for her to explain, Reece contemplated the wisdom of telling him the truth.

  And the truth, she decided, would sound, at the moment, like nonsense. “It was nothing. It doesn’t matter. Do you interrogate everyone who has words with the hotel’s desk clerk, or is it just me?”

  His face hardened. “I’ve got a job to do, Reece. You don’t have to like how I do it. Now I’ve got to sort through this mess. I may need to talk to you again tomorrow.”

  “Then I’m free to go?”

  “You are. You want Doc to look at that cheek?”

  “No.” She got to her feet. “I didn’t start what happened tonight, and I didn’t finish it. I just got caught in it.” She turned for the door.

  “You’ve got a habit of getting caught in things. And, Reece, if you jump and swing every time you see orange, we’re going to have a problem.”

  She just kept going. She wanted to go home where she could burn off her anger and humiliation in private.

  But first, she noted, she’d have to get through Brody.

  Since he was sitting in one of the visitors’ chairs in the outer office, legs stretched out, eyes half closed, she tried to simply go around him.

  “Hold on there, Slim.” He got lazily to his feet. “Let’s have a look at that face.”

  “Nothing to see.”

  He got to the door first, closed his hand around the handle, then just leaned on it. “You smell like the barroom floor.”

  “I spent some time on it tonight. Will you excuse me?”

  He opened the door, then curled his fingers around her arm the minute they were outside. “Let’s not go through the ridiculous routine about you walking home alone. It’s late, I’m driving.”

  Since most of her body ached, including the knee she must have fallen on during the scuffle, she didn’t bother to argue. “Fine. What are you doing here?”

  “Linda-gail called me in case you needed somebody to post bail.” He pulled open the passenger-side door. “You sure keep life interesting.”

  “I didn’tdo anything.”

  “You stick with that.”

  She stewed until he’d
skirted the hood and climbed behind the wheel. “You think this is funny?”

  “It has several of the classic elements necessary for farce. Yeah, I think it’s funny. The only other woman I’ve ever had to spring from the cops was a stripper I knew back in Chicago who beaned a guy with a beer bottle when he got a little overenthusiastic during a lap dance at a bachelor’s party. She was a lot more grateful than you.”

  “Linda-gail’s the one who called you, not me.” Reece folded her arms, and wished desperately for ice and aspirin. “And it’s her fault anyway. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t gotten a wild hair to make Lo jealous.”

  “Why’d she do that?”

  “Because she’s in love with him.”

  “She’s in love with Lo, so she incited a bar fight. Makes perfect sense.” In the Bizarro World women lived in. “Okay, Slim, your place or mine?”

  “Mine. You can drop me off and consider your Good Samaritan duties at an end.”

  He started to drive, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “Do you want to know why I got out of bed and came to get you when Linda-gail called?”

  Reece closed her eyes. “Because you have a need to play savior for strippers and lunatics.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I care about you.”

  “Maybe you do. Let me know when you decide.”

  “Damn it, you know I care about you. Why else would I have been lying awake in bed cursing you when your partner in crime called?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “I think about you. It gets in my way.” Resentment rippled in his voice. “You get in my way.”

  “As this is the second time you’ve popped up in front of me tonight, I’d say you’re getting in my way.” She stirred enough to shift in her seat when he pulled up behind her car. “You wanted me out of your house. I left. You wanted me to back up, back off, I did. Your whim changes, Brody, that’s not my problem.”

  “Hard-ass,” he retaliated. “I felt squeezed this morning. You start off with Italian wedding soup, for God’s sake.”

  “What’s wrong with Italian wedding soup? It was one of my specialties when…Oh, you idiot. Wedding? You shudder in fear of the word?”

  He very nearly squirmed. “Nobody’s shuddering.”

  “I’m going to make soup and you get it into your pinhead that I’m picking out the china? Jerk.”

  She started to yank the door handle, but he leaned over her, clamped his hand on hers. He preferred being pissed off to squirming. “Making the bed, offering to do my laundry. What do I want for breakfast.”

  She put her free hand on his chest, shoved. “I slept in the bed, so I made it. You let me stay at your place when I needed a sanctuary, and I was doing laundry anyway. I thought I could pay you back a little by doing some of the housework. I like to cook for you. I like to cook period. That’s all it was.”

  “You said you loved me.”

  “I did. I didn’t ask you to love me back. I didn’t write off for my subscription toBrides magazine. I never even asked you to clean out a drawer so I had somewhere to put my things. I never asked you for anything but companionship.”

  It was hell being absolutely wrong. “Okay, so I overreacted—”

  “So you said before. I’m tired, Brody. If you want to hash this through, it’ll have to be some other time. I want to go to bed.”

  “Wait. Damn it.” He sat back, raking his fingers through his hair, his expression both pained and frustrated. “I was out of line this morning. I’m sorry.”

  She said nothing for a moment. “Ow. I bet that hurt you as much as my face hurts me.”

  “Maybe more. Don’t make me repeat it.”

  “Once does the job.” She touched his arm, then reached for the door again.

  “Will you wait? Jesus. Listen.”

  At the ensuing silence, she studied his face. “I’m listening.”

  “Okay. Before you said you didn’t want me to take care of you. That’s fine. The thought of wanting to take care of you is scaring the hell out of me. But I want to be with you. There’s no one else I want to be with. Can we get back to that?”

  She pushed open her door, then stopped. Looked at him. Life was so terrifyingly short. Who knew that better than she did? “That’s all I was looking for. Do you want to come up?”

  “Yeah.” He waited while she walked around the car, then held his hand out for hers. “Come here a minute.” Leaning down, he brushed his lips gently over her bruised cheek. “Ouch.”

  “You can say that again. You ought to know I’m not going to be very good company. All I want is a hot bath, a bottle of aspirin and a soft bed.”

  “You don’t have a soft bed.”

  “I’ll compensate.” She unlocked the door. “I feel like I’ve been in a soccer match. As the ball.”

  As she opened the door, he pulled her back, shifted his body in front of hers.

  “What’s that sound?” she demanded. “Do you hear? It sounds like water running.”

  “Stay right here.”

  Of course she couldn’t, and eased in behind him when he stepped in, started across the room. “In the bathroom,” she whispered. “The door’s closed. I never close the door because I need to be able to see inside the room when I come in. There’s water running. Oh God, it’s flooded; it’s coming under the door.”

  He shoved the door open so more water sloshed out. Inside, the tub overflowed as the water running from the faucet poured into it. The few things she’d deemed usable after the incident in the laundry floated like flotsam.

  “I didn’t leave it on. I didn’t even turn it on. I just ran up here…”

  Saying nothing, he sloshed through the floor to wrench the faucet off. Shoving up a sleeve, Brody reached down and pulled the plug.

  “I hung those things over the shower rod before I went down to work. After work, I ran up here to change my shoes. That’s all I did before I went out with Linda-gail.”

  “I’m not saying different.”

  “The floor’s going to be ruined. I have to get something to…Oh God, Joanie’s. Downstairs. It’ll have leaked through the floor and down into the diner.”

  “Go call her. Tell her she needs to come over here, bring the keys for the diner.”

  SHE CAME WITH the keys, and a Shop-Vac. Her eyes grim, she pushed the vac at Reece. “Go up, suck up that water. When you’re done, bring it down here.”

  “Joanie, I’m so sorry—”

  “Just be quiet and do what I told you.”

  Joanie unlocked the door, stepped in, flipped on the lights.

  Water dripped and streamed through the ceiling of the north corner. The drywall had buckled under the weight and split like bad fruit. Below it two booths were soaked.

  “Son of a bitching bastard.”

  “She’s not responsible,” Brody began, but Joanie only jabbed a finger toward him, her eyes on the damage.

  “I’m going to need some fans in here, dry things out. Some plastic to put up over that fucking hole in the fucking ceiling before the fucking health inspector shuts me down because of it. You want to be helpful, go back there and drag out that big standing fan I’ve got in the storeroom. Then you can go back to my place. I got a roll of plastic out in my shed. A staple gun.”

  Brody glanced at the ceiling. “Stepladder.”

  “That, too. Son of a bitching bastard.”

  REECE WEPT AS she worked. It wasn’t only herself being hurt now, but the woman whose only crimes had been giving her a job, renting her an apartment, standing up for her.

  Now it was all a mess. Ruined floor, ruined ceiling and God only knew what else was ruined.

  She emptied the tank of the vacuum, started it again.

  She glanced up miserably when Joanie came through the door.

  “All crying’s going to do is make more water to suck up.”

  Reece knuckled tears away. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough. Fixable.”

  “I’ll p
ay—”

  “I got insurance, don’t I? Sons of bitches ought to shell out a claim after they skin me for premiums every blessed month.”

  Reece stared at the floor as she worked. “I know how this looks, and you couldn’t possibly be in the mood for excuses. But I didn’t leave the water on in the tub. I didn’t even—”

  “I know damn well you didn’t.”

  Reece jerked her head up. “You do?”

  “You never forget a goddamn thing. Didn’t I just have to use my key to open that stupid door? You said somebody’s been screwing with you. Now they’re screwing with me. And I ampissed. But the point is now we fix what has to be fixed, then we figure out the rest.” She planted her hands on her hips. “That floor’s going to have to come up. You got a problem staying over at Brody’s?”

  “No.”

  “Then finish up in here, pack up your things. I’m going to get a couple of boys working on this first thing in the morning.” She kicked the desk, then took her first good look at Reece’s face. “Where’d you get that cheek?”

  “There was a sort of fight at Clancy’s.”

  “Oh, Christ on a crutch. If it’s not one thing, it’s two. Get a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer below before you leave.”

  “IT’S JUST UNTIL I can move back in over the diner.”

  It was after three when Reece stowed the last of her things in the back of Brody’s car.

  “Uh–huh.”

  “Just a few days.” Burned out, sick at seeing the damage down at Joanie’s, Reece climbed into the car. “I won’t offer to do your laundry. I’m not having a lot of luck in that area anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  “She believed me. I didn’t even have to try to explain.”

  “Joanie’s a smart woman. She sees through most bullshit.”

  “Whoever this is, he didn’t have to do this to her. He didn’t have to bring her into it.” She looked out the window as he drove, at the dark surface of the lake. Her life felt like that tonight. Too dark to see what lay under it.

  “If she blamed you for it, she’d have fired you, kicked you out. Odds were you’d leave town. Knocking your paycheck and living quarters out from under you. It’s a smart move.”

  “I’m glad I’m not being stalked by a dummy. Following that logic, which I agree with, you’d be the next on his list. I’m not exactly anyone’s good luck charm, Brody.”