“No family,” I grunted, downing my shot and asking for another.
He nodded, poured and took my money down to the other end of the bar. I looked around slowly, ignoring the questioning glances being shot my way. A group of three men were playing shuffleboard, another two were playing darts in the far corner, with another two sitting quietly at a booth talking.
The rest of the place was empty, leaving only me sitting at the bar alone. The bartender returned with my change.
“Are you Jack?” I asked.
“Jack’s my Dad,” he replied. “I’m Pete.”
“Nice to meet you, Pete,” I said. “My name’s Fury.”
“Fury, huh?” he asked. “Tough name for a tough-lookin’ dude.”
“I guess,” I said, taking another sip of whiskey.
“So you’re staying at Dottie’s, huh?”
“How’d you know that?” I asked.
“Small town. Word gets around,” he shrugged.
“Yeah. My sister is writing a book. Figured I’d come keep her and her husband company for a while.”
“Boring ass town to write a book about,” he said, smiling.
“Guess we’re going to get to know each other real well, then, Pete,” I said, lifting my glass to him.
He nodded and pulled out another glass, pouring a shot for himself and slamming it.
“Sounds good, Fury,” he said, filling my glass. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you during your stay.”
“Was thinking about looking for work, actually,” I said.
“Not much work to be found around here,” he said.
“What about with that Green fella that’s got his name on everything?” I asked.
“Bodhi Green’s an asshole. But lots of people work for him. Most trade in their smiles to do so.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah, that bad.”
“So, why work for him?”
“Why does anyone sell their soul to the devil? Money, of course.”
“Of course,” I nodded, the whiskey finally starting to warm me up. “Why else?”
He laughed and walked away, disappearing into the back and leaving me alone at the bar. The door opened, the cold blowing in like old man winter was out there huffing right into the door. I turned to see Jackie walk in, all bundled up in a white, knee-length parka with a faux fur-lined hood covering her head. She pushed it back, exposing her shiny black hair and shaking it out around her face. She spotted me and broke out into a huge smile, before walking over to sit right next to me.
“Ah, the angry one,” she said, teasingly, her smile piercing right through my chest.
“Hey, Jackie,” I grunted, avoiding her gaze. Her scent billowed over me, that same mixture of lavender and soap that I’d picked up on earlier.
“Beer, Jackie?” Pete called from the other end of the bar.
“And a shot,” she replied, flashing him a smile before turning back to me.
“So, how did your day go?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said. “Quiet.”
“Not much excitement, I bet,” she said.
“How do you stand it every day?”
She laughed and leaned over to me, boldly peering into my eyes.
“You have to make your own excitement.”
I nodded slowly, my heart beginning to pound in my chest as I felt that old familiar tightening in my jeans. I shifted slightly and swallowed hard, silently cursing myself for instantly turning into a twelve-year old kid around this gorgeous woman.
Pete brought over her drinks and leaned against the counter, his eyes lingering on her.
“How was business today?” he asked.
She shot him a quick glance and shrugged.
“Same as everyday, basically,” she replied.
“Hank was in here earlier,” he said. I glanced over at her just in time to see her roll her eyes quickly.
“Who cares? You don’t have to keep me posted on Hank’s whereabouts, Pete.”
“Said he might come back later. Just thought you’d want to know,” he said, looking at me pointedly before turning and walking away.
“Jesus,” she muttered.
“Who’s Hank?” I asked.
“My ex.”
“I see,” I nodded, taking a drink of whiskey. “You two still tangled up?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” she replied, after downing the shot and taking a huge swig off her bottle of Bud. “He’s having a hard time letting go, you might say.”
I looked over at her and nodded slowly.
“I’d imagine that might be a difficult task for any man.”
She smiled slightly and shook her head.
“Smooth,” she muttered.
“I try,” I replied, winking at her.
“Where do you live, Fury?” she asked.
“Well, I did live in Salem. But recently I moved out to Tillamook.”
“What’s in Tillamook?”
“My new family.”
“What happened to your old family?”
“I guess you could say we broke up.”
“Oh,” she bit her lip, nodding slowly. “That’s too bad.”
“I suppose.”
“Are Grace and Ryder part of your new family?” she asked.
“Yep. Grace is my sister,” I said, remembering to stick to the cover story.
“They seem nice.”
“Nicest folks you’ll find anywhere.”
“Lucky you.”
“That’s true, I have been on a lucky streak lately. What about you? Where’s your family?”
“Didn’t really have much of a family. Just me and my Mom. She died a year ago.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I muttered. She looked sad, her big blue eyes holding back a storm of emotions. I wanted to scoop her up into my arms right then and there. “So you grew up here in Greenville?”
“Yep. Born and raised.”
“Father?” I asked.
“Didn’t know him. Mom wouldn’t ever tell anyone who he was. Now that she’s gone, I’ll never know.”
“That’s fucking rough.”
“It is what it is,” she shrugged. “Not much I can do about it.”
“You ever think about leaving?”
“Leaving Greenville? Hell, yeah, all the time. But Mom left that diner behind, she put her whole life into it, you know? And my grandma started the business before her. If I left now, I’d be disappointing two sweet ghosts and putting a handful of people out of a job, including myself.”
“You could sell it.”
“Yeah? To whom? Nobody wants to buy that grease hole.”
“You might be surprised. Hell, half of California’s moving up here, I’m sure somebody would buy it just for an investment.”
“Well, even if I had somewhere to go and someone interested in buying the place, Bodhi Green would never allow someone new to take over.”
“Bodhi Green, huh? Heard him mentioned a few times now. Seems like he runs this place with an iron fist or something.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said, her eyes darkening with anger.
“You’re not a fan?”
“Hardly,” she scoffed. “Don’t know of anyone who really is. Most of us just tolerate him because we have no choice.”
“Sounds like a real asshole.”
“Well, let’s put it this way. He’s a walking example of the fact that money doesn’t make one a kind person.”
“I did hear he was quite generous at times,” I said.
“He uses his money as a tool to get what he wants. He cloaks that in the guise of generosity. If he doesn’t need something from you, he has absolutely no use for you. If you do get help from him, he requires complete and total loyalty from you forever.”
“Understood,” I said, nodding. “I know the type.”
“I hope not,” she shook her head slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she sai
d, laughing lightly. “I just try to hold onto the hope that Bodhi Green is a one-of-a-kind prick. I shudder to think there’s others like him in the world.”
“You need to get out more,” I said, half-joking.
“You may be right, Fury,” she laughed. “You may be right.”
I peered into her eyes, facing the storm she was trying to hide full-on, wondering what secrets she held behind that smile. I couldn’t help but wonder which was worse — knowing your father and having him leave or never knowing him at all, like she’d had to endure?
I’d never really know, I guess. There were things about my old man I wish I’d never known and times I’d wished for a different father all together, but the thought of not knowing what made up half of your fabric seemed like a tough load to pull.
The urge to pull her into my chest rushed through me again. I wanted to wipe the sadness from her eyes, make her smile shine true, not the wistful forced one she was flashing me now.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not yet, anyway.
“So you never had any dreams outside of this sleepy town?”
“Dreams?” she asked. “Oh, sure I had those. I wanted to open a horse shelter, actually. Take in all the horses people don’t want anymore, the sick ones, the ones unable to ride anymore, the neglected ones.”
“That’s pretty noble.”
“I don’t know about noble. I just saw a need. Unfortunately, fate had different plans for me. Now, I’m forever doomed to be the proud of owner of Jenny’s Diner.”
“Forever’s a long time,” I said.
“Don’t remind me.”
I nodded understandably, my mind doing what it always did when it saw an unhappy woman — try to figure out a way to make her happy.
“Would you like another beer?” I asked.
“Please,” she said. “Pete?”
“On it,” he said, having inched back towards us slowly while we were talking. I knew he was listening but I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose and nobody I needed to impress.
Not till tomorrow. And knowing a little more about Green now, I knew just how to approach him.
“So, do you come here every night after work?” I asked her.
“No. But I saw you walk in as I was locking up.”
My smile stretched at her honesty, and she stared back at me with huge, trusting eyes.
“Well, ma’am, I’m mighty glad you did.”
“So am I, Fury,” she said, her voice as soft as a promise.
We finished our drinks in silence, the urge to reach out and touch her growing with the throbbing need between my legs with every second.
“Can I walk you to your car?” I asked her.
“I was hoping you’d walk me home,” she whispered, lifting her chin and flashing her eyes at me.
My heart swelled in my chest and I damned near fell off my barstool. With seven words, she managed to rip right through me. I was supposed to be working here, not letting a beautiful woman barrel over my plan.
“I think that can be arranged,” I murmured, as I hurriedly threw a few bills on the counter. I helped Jackie into her coat and pulled on my own. We walked to the front door and she passed in front of me, a whiff of lavender hitting me like a brick.
One foot in front of the other, I thought to myself as I followed her outside. The frigid cold air was a welcome slap in the face, snapping me out of Jackie’s trance and helping just a little to ease the white-hot desire that was washing over me.
“I just live a few blocks away,” she said, her voice as clear and soft as the breeze lifting the hair from her cheeks.
I nodded, suddenly speechless now that we were alone. With not another soul in sight, we walked past the town square, past her diner, now dark and deserted, the chairs turned up onto the tables, the floors sparkling clean. We strolled past a dress shop and a pie shop and the bank.
A crescent moon hung bright and vibrant in the sky above us, beautiful and regal, but completely outshone by Jackie’s eyes.
Like bright blue diamonds she’d taken from the sky itself, her gaze lit up my soul.
“You’re staring,” she said, smiling over at me.
“I can’t stop,” I admitted, my voice a low, hungry growl.
She nodded, a slow, sure, peaceful acceptance.
“Good,” she whispered. “I like it.”
Her hand reached for mine, slipping inside of my palm as if it were precisely sculpted to fit there. Warm, soft, unexpected and so welcome, I grasped her fingers, interlacing them with mine as we slowly wandered the rest of the way down Main Street.
***
Her house was a quaint white Craftsman with a large, open porch. A pair of antique rocking chairs sat in front of a large bay window and the other end held a hanging porch swing, the porch railing lined with brightly colored pots of ferns, their tips covered in a dusting of snow.
An antique lamppost by the steps scattered rays of soft yellow light out onto the snow gathered on the front lawn.
More piles of snow lined the edges of the sidewalk, but despite the cold, my body was on fire by the time we arrived.
As if the heat of her palm against mine wasn’t enough to send every drop of blood in my body straight to my cock, Jackie had chosen to walk as close to me as possible the entire way, her hips swaying against mine, her thigh brushing against me with each step, making me harder and harder with each delicious collision.
Trying to hide that fact from her proved to be more difficult with each step. Especially with the knowledge that there was likely an available bed in this house just waiting for us to crawl into.
We were so close to fucking paradise I could taste it.
That’s why it took every goddamned bit of strength I could scrape up from the bottom of my gut to keep my cool.
As much as I wanted to scoop her up and carry her away to that soft warm bed and show her just how much I wanted her, I knew I wouldn’t.
Did I want to rip her clothes off and fuck her right there on the lawn in a furious dance of lust and pure, animalistic sex?
Hell yeah, I did.
Did I want to kiss every inch of skin hidden under that white winter coat that contrasted so beautifully with the darkness of her hair?
You bet your ass.
But didn’t she deserve more? The girl with the sad eyes and broken dreams, stuck in small town America?
Yes, she did.
At the very least — before I devoured every inch of her, before I unleashed this beast inside of me that I was desperately trying to hold back, before I let her see that darkness that was threatening to spill out in the blink of an eye — she deserved a real date.
She turned to me now, her face lit up with as clear as an invitation as I’d seen in a long time — and it was all I could do not to press my lips to hers just to see what she tasted like.
But I’d not earned that right. Not yet.
She was one of the most intriguing women I’d met in a long time and I didn’t want it to be over before it even began, whatever ‘it’ was.
I just wanted to draw it out a little longer. I won’t be around long.
“I had a nice time talking to you tonight, Jackie,” I said, my voice almost cracking with the weight of my restraint.
“Me, too,” she whispered, slightly licking her bottom lip. My knees almost buckled at the sight of the tip of her tongue darting out.
“So, maybe I’ll see you soon? At the diner?” I croaked.
She blinked and nodded slowly, taking a step back in surprise. Her hand fell from mine, my palm searing from the absence of her skin.
“Of course,” she said, nodding firmly, her eyes turning cold. “Have a nice night, Fury.”
“You too, Jackie,” I said, backing up as she opened her front door and walked in, quickly shutting the door behind her.
I shook my head, walking quickly down her porch steps and back to the sidewalk, cursing myself the whole time.
‘See you soon?’
That’s all I had?
“For fuck’s sake, dude, you can do better than that,” I muttered to myself, kicking myself all the way back to Dottie’s. “Idiot…”
I’m just rusty, I thought.
I’ll do better next time, I’ll make it up to her.
If there is a next time…
“Fuck that,” I said, turning around once I realized how she must be feeling right now.
In five minutes, I was back at her front door again, knocking softly.
The sound of pattering footsteps made me smile and when she opened the door, I saw she’d changed into a pair of red silk pajama pants and a black, lacy tank top. Her soft black hair hung in thick waves over her shoulders, her bright blue eyes shining with surprise. My breath caught in my throat — she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Fury!” she said in surprise. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded, my cock twitching.
“Yeah,” I muttered, suddenly falling over my words. “I just, I didn’t want you to…”
“To what?”
Her eyes raked down my body, lingering at the bulge in my jeans.
“I didn’t want you to think…”
I stopped again, unable to say the words, suddenly wondering why the hell I’d turned around at all. It’d been so long since I’d flirted with anyone, or hell, even wanted anyone like this. I didn’t know what to say or even if I should say anything at all.
Eloquence and subtleness was never my strong point. If I let myself act naturally, I’d come off like a bull in a china shop.
“I don’t want you,” I finally blurted out.
“What?” she asked, her eyes widening even more.
“Shit!” I said, shaking my head, feeling like a fool. “I meant I don’t want you to think that.”
“You don’t want me to think that you want me? I don’t understand, Fury,” she said, confusion crossing her face with a crooked smile tugging at the corners of her luscious lips, the lips I so wanted to press against mine and slide my tongue over.
“I don’t do this often,” I finally said, running my hand through my hair.
“I can tell,” she said, her voice low and serious as she gazed back up at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath and forcing myself to pull my shit together. “I came back because I was afraid I came off a little harsh. I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t interested.”
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