by Mia Carson
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
One Year Later
HIGHEST BIDDER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
COPYRIGHT
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the author.
Copyright 2017 Mia Carson
Chapter 1
Rock music blared through the speakers, and the bar was packed with more than Thursday night regulars. They filled the space from wall to wall, and the liquor flowed easily through the crowd. Anna Crawley, proud owner of the establishment, watched from behind the bar as she mixed drinks and took care of her customers, always with a smile.
“Anna! I’m out again!” a man hollered from the end of the bar.
She slipped past the other two bartenders to reach the end, wiping her hands on a towel as she stared at Aiden, one of her regulars who had been around since her dad opened this hole in the wall, a hole in the wall that had turned into more than just a bar.
“I think I’m cutting you off for the night,” she told him sternly. “That’s your sixth drink.”
“Aw, come on, don’t be like that,” he whined as she flipped his glass upside down on the bar and held out her hand for his car keys. “You know, you look just like her when you scowl like that.”
Anna followed his gaze to a photograph behind the bar of her mom and dad. The corners of her lips lifted in a soft smile as she kissed her fingers and pressed them to the photo. “Yeah, and I have her temper too. Keys, Aiden. I’ll call you a cab.”
“Nah, I think I’ll walk tonight.”
“You are not walking. It’s January in New Hampshire. You’re not walking. Sit your ass back down and don’t move. Got it?” she ordered and reached for her phone in her back pocket.
“Anna! We’re out of tequila!” Missy, one of the bartenders, told her.
“Right.” She hurried to the back of the bar to grab another case of tequila, tucking the phone between her shoulder and ear. Her hair fell over her face, and she puffed out a breath, blowing the violet strands out of the way. “Hi, yes, I need a cab to come to The Crawler. One of my customers needs a ride.”
“Anna, is that you?” the woman on the other end said. “Let me guess, Aiden?”
She chuckled. “You guessed it. How’ve you been, Mary? The kids all right?”
“The kids are fine and dandy. It’s the husband you should ask about. I’ll get a cab over there for you. I’ll even make sure it’s Aiden’s favorite driver.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know. Thanks, Mary.”
She hung up and shoved her phone back in her pocket. The case of tequila was leaning against the far wall, and she whistled as she bent to pick it up. A hand grabbed her shoulder and she whipped around, her hand curling in a fist, but stopped herself short of decking her landlord, Johnny.
“Easy there, girlie,” he said and backed away, his hands up in the air.
“What are you doing? Trying to give me a heart attack?” she asked, the smile she forced to her face a strain. He glanced around nervously, but it was all an act. Everything with Johnny was an act.
“Missy said you were back here.”
“Yeah, we needed more booze. Do you have something pressing to tell me? I have to get back out there.” She planted her hands on her hips and waited, tapping the toe of her heavy, black boots on the floor.
He sucked his lips in before he blew out a breath and cringed. “You’re late on your rent.”
Anna crossed her arms and shook her head. “No, I dropped it off a week ago like I always do. For the bar and the apartment.” She lived upstairs, taking over the place her parents had lived in for the last decade of their lives. They had passed away in a freak accident, robbing her of so many years with them. The days following had been a struggle, and this bar was the only thing that kept her going and gave her a purpose. She was the only one left to carry on her dad’s legacy of giving back to the community with everything she had, even when she struggled to make ends meet.
“Rent went up so you’re short.”
“Went up? When? You raised it six months ago,” she snapped. “Johnny, you never told me that. How much did it go up?”
“A few thousand,” he informed her, his lips twitching with a smirk. “You’ll have to pay up soon or I’ll have to charge you late fees, and if we start going down that road, it can get nasty.”
“Are you threatening to evict me?” she demanded, taking an intimidating step closer.
He stood his ground, though, and glowered at her, all friendliness gone. “I’m simply telling you of the current situation. Rent goes up, it happens.”
“Funny how your uncle never raised it on my dad, though, not once.”
He shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Times change, prices go up. Don’t get mad at me for your parents leaving you with nothing but this shit hole.”
“If you think this place is a shit hole, then why did you spent the past few months begging me to make you a co-owner?” she seethed and his smirk fell. His sudden interest in the bar was weird, but Anna didn’t have time to deal with whatever game he was playing. “I’ll pay you the new amount next month.”
“Sorry, no can do. I need the rest of it before then.”
“I can’t make that amount of money that fast. I have other bills to pay, you know,” she muttered, shoving her hair out of her face in annoyance. “And I have to put a new order in for the bar.”
He sighed and circled around her, his steps heavy. The noise from the bar suddenly seemed too far away, and Anna tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat when Johnny leaned in even closer and ran his fingers along her bare shoulder. She regretted always wearing tanks to work.
“You know, if you would take me up on my offer, we wouldn’t have to worry about the money at all,” he whispered in her ear as an icy chill shot down her spine. She shuddered and cursed inwardly, and he took it for a sign she was interested. He moved in closer and kissed her neck.
She shoved him away angrily, and he fell backwards, tripping over a case of booze to land hard on his ass with a curse. “Get out of my bar. You’ll get your damn money.”
He scrambled to his feet, spitting curses as he snatched her arm in his iron grip. “One way or another, you’ll figure it out that your life would be much easier if you decided to be with me. We were together once, remember?”
“Sadly, I do,” she replied hotly. “It was one of the worst nights of my life.”
His eyes narrowed to slits and his grip tightened until she stomped hard on his foot. He let her go, and with one final threatening glare, limped from the room. Anna sank to the case of tequila, hanging her head and staring at the floor. One night… she got drunk one night with Johnny when they were still friends, and he was suddenly obsessed with her. She’d tried to let him down easily so many times, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. His interest in her bar was creeping her out, too. She couldn’t lose this bar, though. It was all she had left of her parents, and no man could force her out of it. She’d get t
he money and make sure he had nothing to complain about.
Hefting the case into her hands, she hastened back out to the bar and carried on as if nothing had happened. The cab arrived for Aiden, and she escorted him to it to ensure he got inside and didn’t wander off, as he tended to do. Once he was gone, she headed back inside, out of the freezing cold, and glanced proudly around. Exposed wooden beams lined the ceiling, and brick made up the walls. The bar had a lodge feel to it—cozy, but not so cozy it lost her dad’s rough and tumble personality. He had been a biker until he met Anna’s mom, Wendy. Her eyes darted to the license plates of his old motorcycle hanging on the far wall beside photos of her family and his friends.
“Don’t worry, Dad, I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered to him and went back to work.
***
Two weeks later, Anna was considering taking out stock in tequila. Johnny and his persistence in reminding her repeatedly about the money she still owed him gnawed at her. Add that to his deluded notion that she actually had feelings for him, and she was quickly approaching the edge of what her sanity could take.
She wiped down the bar as closing time neared. Her hand paused as her forehead scrunched. “Missy? Where’s the bat?”
Her bar was no exception to the occasional fight that broke out, so she kept a baseball bat tucked beneath the bar to deter anyone from taking a fight too far. She glanced around, moving her hand under the lip to see if it had rolled back further, but it wasn’t there.
“Dunno. I haven’t seen it all day, actually,” Missy said. “Do you need it?”
“No. I guess I left it somewhere when I cleaned this morning.” She drew her hair back into a messy ponytail and stopped worrying about the bat. She had other issues to deal with, like trying to figure out how to get Johnny that money.
She tried to talk to him normally, as two civil adults, but it escalated into a screaming match two days ago in the middle of her bar. Missy and the other bartender, Pat, had to hold her back. She had the bat in her hands and was ready to test her swing using Johnny’s head as the ball, but they had stopped her from going too far. He threatened to shut her down if she didn’t either take him up on his offer or get him the money by the end of the week. She spat in his face and let her bartenders drag her to the back room to cool down. Not that it mattered much. Everyone saw the fight, and she was sure a few people recorded it. Sometimes she hated the age of technology.
“Missy, do you mind closing up for me?” she asked.
“No problem. Are you all right?”
“No, not even close.” She sighed. “But I have to figure out a way to get that money.”
“You know you could always ask me,” Missy insisted, but Anna shook her head. “This is our place, too. I don’t have much, but if it would help, I don’t mind, really.”
“It’s not your job to deal with the financial burden. I’ll be fine, really,” she promised and tossed Missy the keys. “See you tomorrow.”
She walked towards the back stairs, backed up and picked up a bottle of tequila from behind the bar, saluted Missy, and disappeared through the back door that led to the rear stairs leading up to the next floor of four apartments. If she went this way, she had less of a chance of bumping into Johnny. Sadly, his apartment was only down the hall from hers. If she went this way, she could avoid walking by his front door. She twisted the bottle of tequila open on her way up and took a swig, wanting to take the edge off and relax so she could come up with a plan.
At her front door, she dropped her keys. When she bent to pick them up, she spotted the bat from the bar leaning against the wall by her door.
“What are you doing here?” She picked it up, turning it over as if there would be some clue as to how it had migrated upstairs. She tucked it under her arm and proceeded to open her front door again when a yell startled her. “Shit! What the hell is going on?”
Another yell sounded, and she hurried down the hall, following the sounds of a struggle to Johnny’s front door. He cursed loudly and a crash echoed through the door.
Anna lifted her fist and pounded on his door. “Johnny! You all right in there?”
She set the tequila at her feet and tried his front door when he didn’t respond. The door swung inward and silence met her on the other side. No lights were on, and she reached around, searching for the switch. She flipped it, but nothing came on.
“Johnny?” She crept inside one step at a time, gripping the bat tight in her fist as her other hand reached for her phone in her back pocket.
She heard steps behind her, but before she could turn around, something hard whacked her in the back of the head. She fell to her knees and everything went dark.
***
“Get her up! And get the damn paramedics up here!”
Anna groaned and tried to move, but her head throbbed and her vision swam. “What…what happened?”
“Ma’am, can you hear me?” a gruff voice said in her ear as a pair of hands hoisted her into a sitting position, dragging her arms behind her back. “Ma’am?”
“What? Yeah, I hear you—Why…why are you handcuffing me?” In a panic, she started to struggle, but the cop pinned her to the floor hard and she stilled instantly. “I don’t understand. What did I do?”
“You beat a man with a baseball bat,” the cop informed her.
“What?” She shook her head, trying to clear her muddled thoughts. The cop sat her back upright.
“Can you stand?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” she yelled. “I heard a fight and I came here to break it up!”
“Fight with who?” the officer asked. “Come on, let’s get you on your feet.”
Anna stood with the cop’s help. She stared around the apartment. “This isn’t my place.”
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” he asked as he turned her around. Five more cops filled the living room and paramedics blocked her view of someone sitting on the couch.
“A swig of tequila,” she replied, frowning. “Why?”
“I think you had more than that. The bottle is empty and you smell of it.”
Anna breathed in and cursed at the heavy stench of booze on her. She’d only had one swig, she could swear to it, but he was right. What the hell happened? She couldn’t remember much past walking upstairs and hearing a fight.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” the cop offered, even though he sounded like he’d already made up his mind about Anna and this situation.
Anna rubbed her wrists behind her back. She’d never been arrested before and the cuffs chafed at her skin. “I left the keys with my bartender, Missy, downstairs,” she explained, closing her eyes to get everything right. “I picked up the bottle of tequila from the bar and walked up to my apartment. I live down the hall.”
“And what happened then?”
“I…I heard yells coming from Johnny’s apartment and there was a crash. His door was unlocked, so I came inside to check on him and then…and then…nothing.”
“Ma’am, you and Johnny Tory were the only two people found in this apartment. There is no sign of anyone else being here.”
“I’m telling you I heard a fight!”
“I think you had a bit too much to drink tonight. You took your bat from the bar and you broke down his door to have it out with him.”
Anna wanted to argue, but the paramedics stepped to the side and she froze. Johnny sat on the couch, his face black and blue, his cheek swollen, his eyes blackened. His nose looked broken and his t-shirt was torn. He certainly looked like a man beaten. He glared at her fiercely, spitting blood out on his floor.
“Bitch,” he snapped and lunged to his feet.
“I didn’t do this!” Anna yelled as the cop dragged her away. “I didn’t lay a finger on him! Someone knocked me out, damn it! Let me go!”
The cop, along with one other, managed to remove Anna from the apartment. They took her downstairs and out the front doors. An ambulance and four cop cars lined the sidewal
k outside the building.
“Anna?” Missy yelled from the crowd of faces. “Oh, my God! What happened!”
“Nothing! I didn’t do it!” she ranted. “That bastard! He set this up!”
“And how did he beat himself up with a bat?” the cop asked as his partner opened the back door of the squad car.
“I was knocked out! How the hell should I know?” she snapped.
The cop sighed. “He said he knocked you out after he managed to get the bat away from you long enough to do so. He called us before he passed out, too.”
“He’s lying. Please, you don’t understand.”
“We understand you threatened him with that same bat two days ago,” the cop told her firmly. “He showed us the video, said you’d been threatening him off and on for weeks now.”
Anna’s eyes widened in fury. “That’s bullshit! He’s been harassing me!”
“You can talk more with the detectives at the jail. They’re going to take you and get you booked for the night. Bail will be set in the morning,” the cop said and helped her get into the back of the car without hitting her head.
Anna shook her head as the door slammed shut in her face. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. She hadn’t done a damn thing wrong except try to help the asshole attempting to drive her insane. She sunk down low in the back seat and hung her head. Nothing made sense, but she knew she had nothing to do with what happened to Johnny’s face, no matter how much she would have loved to have been the one to beat the shit out of him.
What she did know is she was in deep trouble if she couldn’t find a way to prove she had nothing to do with this. Anna chewed on her bottom lip the entire ride to the station. She had no family to call to bail her out, and she couldn’t ask Missy to put up that kind of money. She could put up the bar if it came down to it, but if she lost the bar, she lost her only connection to her parents.
Anna fought back the angry tears threatening to slip from her eyes. She would not break down and cry. She would not give that bastard the pleasure of seeing her fall apart. Somehow, she would get out of this. All she needed was a damn miracle.