by Josie Kerr
“More or less.” Annie leaned toward Em so she could hear the small bespectacled woman better. “The guys in Skankin’ Janey Mac have been playing together since high school, and Rory and Mick played with them back then. They’re in town recording a new album.”
“Wow. That’s exciting.”
“It is. It’s a lot of work, too. I’m surprised they’re performing tonight.”
Annie fidgeted in her seat, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t inane. Luckily, the band began to play and she got another reprieve, so she just sat back and enjoyed the show.
Chapter Eight
Pierce sat on his stool, leaning against the latticed trellis wall that camouflaged the trash cans behind Foley’s Public House. He’d had every intention of bailing after his shift ended, Ryan be damned, but when Annie showed up? Well, he decided he could stick around for a little while.
He had an unobstructed view of the table where the woman sat with various members of the DS Fight Club crew and their significant others.
But his gaze kept returning to the quiet woman he’d helped power through a panic attack. She looked very pretty tonight, in a plain white dress shirt and a pair of jeans that fit her just right. Pierce leaned back and tried to get a glimpse of the shoes she was wearing. He had a vague impression of her hips swinging when she walked, but he didn’t know if it was because she was wearing heels or if she was being flirty.
He halfway hoped she was being flirty even though he wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone, much less an anxious, twitchy woman like Annie. Hell, he didn’t even know if she was still married to that douchebag manager of the motel. Something told him she wasn’t.
“Okay, boyo, you’re off duty.” Sully, the owner and main bartender of Foley’s Public House, looked from Pierce to the table where the DS Fight Club crew sat. “Go on. Go talk to your bird.”
Pierce snorted but stood up. “My ‘bird’?”
“Aye, that blonde bird—the one you’ve been staring at since she walked in the door.”
Shit.
Sully laughed, probably at Pierce’s furious blush. Pierce shot Sully a poisonous look but made his way across the pub.
And, of course, the only available seat was between Annie and Ryan, who was grinning knowingly at Pierce. With an inward groan, Pierce made his way to the table.
“Pierce.” Ryan jutted his chin up but then snickered. “Have you met Annie? This is Annie.”
Annie bobbed her head but wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve met Annie.” Pierce gestured with his head at Ryan, who moved over half a centimeter. With a grunt, Pierce wedged himself between the cutman and Annie. “Are you enjoying the show?”
She darted a look at him, nodded, and then fixed her attention back to her hands, which she wrung so hard that Pierce fully expected her fingers to pop out of joint. He did also notice, though, that she no longer wore a gold wedding band.
Pierce ducked his head close to Annie’s. “I got your note. Thank you.”
Another little nod, but this time she made eye contact. “Did you just thank me for a thank-you note?”
“Yeah, I guess did.”
Then she did something that took Pierce’s breath away: she smiled at him. No, she beamed at him. He’d seen her before with a fake grimace that looked almost painful, usually when her husband made a very inappropriate joke at her expense, but never a full-on smile.
He felt like someone just kicked him in the head.
“Hi.” God, Pierce. You are an idiot.
“Hi. Um, so you work here? In addition to doing whatever you do at the . . . fighting place?” Annie had stopped playing with her fingers and began shredding a napkin.
Pierce huffed a laugh at her nervous behavior. Her smile dimmed, and she literally sat on her hands.
“Sorry. I get really nervous talking to people like . . .”
“People like . . . ?” Pierce leaned into her space so he could hear her answer.
Annie scooted a little bit farther away from him. “People like, people? Just people.” She huffed and swallowed hard. “Sorry. I should have just said, ‘I get really nervous,’ and stopped at that.”
“Sweetheart, quit apologizing. You’re fine.”
“Dude . . .” Ryan reached around Annie to poke Pierce in the arm.
Pierce looked around Annie. “Dude,” he said through ground teeth.
Ryan leaned over, and Annie flattened herself against the back of the chair. “Sorry, Annie. Pierce, I’m thinking we need to shut these guys down.”
He gestured with his head toward the bar’s stage, where the band was playing. Pierce didn’t see anything at first, but he noticed Rory Doyle scowling as he played a button accordion. Pierce followed Rory’s line of sight to a group of three men who had two women boxed in between the pub wall and a high-top table. The women did not look happy at all.
Pierce made eye contact with Rory, who nodded his head once.
“Pardon me, Annie. I’ll be right back.” Pierce began to stand. “Ryan, hang back. I sort of work here—I’ll take care of it.”
Ryan cut his eyes toward the men and women but nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
Annie’s eyes grew wider and wider, bouncing back and forth between Ryan and Pierce as they conversed.
Pierce swung out from the table and made his way over to the men. He could feel Annie’s eyes on his back, and he sensed that his next actions would make or break the shy woman’s opinion of him. So while he really wanted crack these three idiots’ heads together, he merely stepped in between the men and the women and leaned on the high top.
“I’m thinking you gentlemen need to move along. These ladies don’t seem interested in your company.”
Pierce knew he intimidated people, really whether he wanted to or not. At six and a half feet tall and a little over two hundred fifty pounds, he was bigger than just about anyone in the room, at least when he wasn’t at DS Fight Club. At this moment, he wanted to intimidate. He put his arms on the table and subtly flexed.
“Hey, we were just asking the ladies to dance,” one idiot slurred. The other two stayed quiet. They were obviously the smarter men of the group.
Pierce smiled a mean smile. “Ladies, are you interested in dancing with these gentlemen?”
The women shook their heads and edged toward the center of the room. Pierce stepped forward, forcing the mouthy one away from the women and freeing their path. They disappeared into the crowd.
Pierce cracked his neck. “This is what you’re going to do. You’re gonna leave. And you’re not gonna come back. Ever.”
“What are you gonna do if we don’t leave, huh?” Mouthy Idiot was proving his nickname was justified.
Pierce smiled blandly at Mouthy. “See that guy who’s over at the tables behind you? The one who looks like he just rolled in from a tour in the Sandbox?”
The three men swiveled their heads around to find the bearded and long-haired Ryan still sitting but primed to jump in.
“Good. He’s my bud. He doesn’t like it when men intimidate women. And then over there, the accordion player? And the other guy, playing the drum? They might be musicians, and older, but that one”—he nodded at Rory—“is a second-generation Irish boxer. And the dark-haired one, well, let’s just leave it at he really doesn’t like men who intimidate women.”
The three bullies twisted toward the stage, where the band still played, to find every member of Skankin’ Janie Mac focused on them. Pierce whistled.
“Hm. These guys are all from Southie. You know about Southie, right?”
“Hey, Mark. I, uh, gotta head home. I remembered that I have an early meeting,” Smarter One said.
“Yeah, uh, and he’s my ride. See ya around,” Smarter Two was quick to add before the duo hightailed it toward the door.
“So. ‘Mark,’ is it? What are you gonna do?”
Mouthy Mark stared into Pierce’s eyes, but after ninety long seconds, decided he didn’t l
ike what he saw there. He just shook his head and wandered away from the dance floor.
Five sets of eyes followed him out the door.
Chapter Nine
“Holy. Holy, holy, holy.” Annie fanned herself with a coaster. No one threw a punch, but she had surely seen an epic smackdown. She was positive that there were rules in place for people who got a paycheck for beating people up, but boy howdy.
Ryan snorted. “That was the most impressive display of raw intimidation I’ve ever witnessed.” He whistled low. “He is one sexy beast.”
Ryan winked at her. What is it with fighters and winking?
Pierce had gone over to the bar and was talking to the pretty, dark-haired bartender, who scowled. With his back to her, Annie took the opportunity to really study him.
Oh, who was she kidding? She was ogling him.
Annie peeked over his shoulder at his reflection in the mirror. Thick stubble covered the lower half of his face, and she thought she just might see the hint of a cleft in his chin.
He was dressed simply, in just a black T-shirt, a pair of black jeans, and black boots, but the black-on-black definitely suited him. The T-shirt stretched over his back, the black swirls of a tribal tattoo poking out of one sleeve and licking the back of his neck.
Blushing, she turned away, only to find Ryan studying Pierce as well. “For as much as he likes country music, he’d make a terrible cowboy.”
“What? Why?” Annie turned back to Pierce. She could just imagine him wearing a cowboy hat. Yippee ki-yay.
“Look at that ass—he doesn’t have one. You have to be able to fill up a pair of Wranglers to be a proper cowboy.” Annie spluttered a surprised laugh, and Ryan just shrugged.
She supposed that Pierce really didn’t have much of a butt.
The band had stopped playing, and Ashley’s red-headed mister had joined Pierce at the bar.
Ryan nodded at him. “Rory’s got a proper cowboy ass.”
Ashley leaned over. “Baby Brother, are you checking out my mister’s ass?”
“Nah, Annie and I were just discussing cowboy buttocks.”
“Oh my goodness, we were not!” But Annie laughed, because, yeah, maybe they were.
“Oh yeah. Rory’s got plenty of junk in that trunk to fill up a pair of jeans.” Ashley whistled and imitated squeezing a melon.
Rory, his attention pulled by his missus’s catcall, stalked over to Ashley. He pulled her head back by the hair and sealed his mouth over hers. Holy hotness!
“I swear to God, if I have to see one more Richards boning someone on a table . . . ,” Ryan started.
Annie slapped her hand over her mouth while Ashley and Rory wheezed with laughter.
This family was the crudest, most outspoken group of people she’d ever encountered.
She just might be a little jealous. Okay, a lot jealous.
Still smiling, she turned toward the bar to examine Pierce’s non-cowboy butt some more, but he had disappeared.
She looked around the pub but didn’t see him.
Dang. Oh well, she was getting very tired anyway; she’d had a long day at work. Annie gathered up her bag. Ashley, Ryan, and Rory were all arguing loudly with one another about something—deviled eggs?—so Annie slipped out of the bar without saying good-bye.
She walked quickly toward the parking lot, her keys in her hand, just like she’d been told to do during a self-defense class that Ashley insisted she take.
She was halfway to the parking lot when her heel got caught in a crack on the sidewalk. She felt herself going down and struggled to remember if she was supposed to put her hands out to break her fall or if she wasn’t supposed to put her hands out. Just when she’d tensed to wipe out, she felt two big hands grab her, catching her as she fell.
A surprised “Oh!” escaped from her lips as the huge man steadied her on her feet, one large hand on her shoulder and the other on her hip.
Pierce.
“Whoa there, darlin’. You good?” He searched her face.
Annie met Pierce’s steady gaze. “Boy, your eyelashes are really long.”
Pierce’s rumbly laugh reverberated down her spine to coil between her thighs. He stepped back, gently pulling Annie upright. He loosened his grip on her arm but didn’t let go of her, and his other hand seared the small of her back where it rested lightly.
“You okay?” He blinked at her, and she thought she could see the corners of his mouth tugging up.
Great. He’s laughing at me. But why shouldn’t he? I almost wiped out walking on level ground. I am never wearing heels again.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” His big, rough paw gently cupper her face.
Pierce’s endearment, combined with the soft pressure of his hand on her cheek, snapped her attention back to the man in front of her. And he was definitely a man. A stubbly, scruffy, brawny man who smelled really, really good.
“Oh, yeah. I’m good.”
Pierce’s rough fingers lingered on her face for the slightest of moments before he let go of her completely and moved back out of her space.
“Okay. Good.” He cleared his throat. “Where’s your car?”
“Oh, it’s just around the corner.”
“Well, I’ll walk you. You don’t need to be going through a deserted parking lot this late.”
Annie bobbed her head. “Sure. Thank you.”
Annie was incredibly conscious of Pierce’s bulk as he walked beside her. She caught brief whiffs of that delicious scent of soap and something else—mint, maybe?—that made her want to climb him like a tree so she could rub her face against the crook of his thick neck.
They got to her car too quickly, and Annie briefly considered wandering around the parking lot “looking” for her lost car, but there was no way she could pull that off, her car being as conspicuous as it was.
“This is me.” She pointed to her car. Pierce snorted in surprise.
“Wow. I was not expecting that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just . . . don’t.”
“Hey, not judging.” Pierce chuckled some more.
Annie grinned at him. “Oh, you should be. It’s awful.” She shrugged a shoulder. “But it was cheap and it has A/C.”
They stood by her car for a few beats until Annie cleared her throat.
“Um, thank you again for walking me to my car.”
Pierce bobbed his head. “Sure. My pleasure.”
“Can I at least give you a ride back to the pub? I promise, the inside isn’t as bad as the outside.”
Pierce gave her a full grin. Holy Dimples, Batman!
“Sure. Thanks.”
Pierce waited for Annie to unlock her car door, and then he helped her in before going around and settling his bulk in the passenger seat.
Annie burst out in laughter.
Pierce put on his seat belt and leaned back, but the seat was so low-slung that his knees were almost up to the middle of his chest.
“This is a small damn car,” he said with a chuckle while shifting in the seat. “Wow.”
“Good thing you didn’t buy one just like it, huh?” She grinned.
She threw the car into reverse to back up. When she shifted the manual transmission into first gear, she accidently grabbed Pierce’s hand where he had it balled into a fist at his side.
“Oh my goodness. I didn’t mean—”
But Pierce was laughing, and not quietly. Big belly laughs came out of his mouth even as he was scrunched in the front seat of the bright purple Saturn. Annie bit her lip, and a giggle escaped.
“Holy sweet Jesus, this is the most ridiculous thing.” He continued to chuckle as Annie coasted to a stop in front of Foley’s. “Thanks for the ride, Annie. Be sure to lock your doors before you head home.”
“Sure.”
Pierce leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Bye, Annie. Be safe.”
He winked and got out of the car, leaving Annie gaping, her hand on her cheek where he had pressed his lips.
> Chapter Ten
Colin grinned, allowing a glimpse of his Texas-flag-patterned mouth guard, before settling back into his game face. The big former champion stood across from Pierce and pounded his fist into the palm of his hand.
“Whoa. This is some Matrix-level shit right here,” Pierce heard Tig say.
Pierce bounced from one foot to the other, sucking on his own mouth guard. He was keyed up and alert, waiting for Paddy’s signal to begin sparring. As it was, the Irishman looked from one man to the other and shook his head.
“Okay, you two gits. Listen up. We’re going to do a free-form, light sparring session. I said, light, understand? All MMA rules apply—you know them by heart, so obey them.” Pierce bristled a bit at Paddy’s look but knew that he’d do the exact same thing in Paddy’s situation. So Pierce just nodded his head and focused his attention on the big man pacing on the other side of the cage.
Paddy looked from one man to the other and then signaled for them to begin. Pierce and Colin touched gloves and began to move around the center of the octagon.
Pierce experienced a bit of déjà vu as he caught Colin off guard and swept him off his feet. The floor reverberated as nearly five hundred pounds of fighter hit the center of the octagon, Pierce on the bottom, on his back in full guard. Colin squirmed around, and with a few well-placed elbow jabs, got loose enough to twist around to face Pierce.
Oh yeah, this was another round of déjà vu as Colin’s massive fist headed toward Pierce’s head.
Colin was the king of ground and pound, and Pierce knew he was about to become C’s subject if he didn’t do something quick.
Colin’s fist connected with Pierce’s shoulder blade, but only at about half the speed and power that Pierce knew he was capable of.
It was still painful as fuck.
Pierce wrapped his legs tighter around Colin, hoping to force the man on top to pull back to where his reach wasn’t quite as devastating. It wasn’t working.
“Light sparring, fellas! Light sparring!” Paddy yelled at both of them.
Both Colin and Pierce had split lips and small cuts on their cheeks, but the helmets kept their heads protected from further damage caused by their fists and elbows.