Quentin (The Bourbon & Blood Series Book 4)

by Seraphina Donavan

  Quentin

  Bourbon & Blood Book Four

  Seraphina Donavan

  Contents

  Also by Seraphina Donavan

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Seraphina Donavan

  Copyright © 2016 by Seraphina Donavan/Chasity Bowlin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by Seraphina Donavan

  The Dark Regency Series: Volume One

  The Haunting of a Duke

  The Redemption of a Rogue

  The Enticement of an Earl

  Standalone Novellas

  The Beast of Bath

  The Last Offer

  Coming Soon:

  The Dark Regency Series: Volume Two

  A Love So Dark (September 2016)

  A Passion So Strong (December 2016)

  A Heart So Wicked (February 2017)

  And writing as Seraphina Donavan:

  The DuChamps’ Dynasty Series:

  Been Loving You Too Long

  Have A Little Faith In Me

  I’ll Take Care Of You

  Back To The Beginning: A Duet (with Laramie Briscoe)

  The Bourbon & Blood Series:

  Bennett

  Ciaran

  Clayton

  Carter

  Quentin (October 2016)

  One

  Quentin eased out of his car in the parking lot of The Kicking Mule. It was the only bar within thirty miles of Fontaine and it only existed because a sliver of Woodford County butted up against the main road into town. It was the very definition of a dive bar—sawdust on the floor, a chain link fence around the stage, and glass crunching under foot with every step. But he needed a drink, and he needed it to be somewhere his family wasn’t. He felt raw, rocked to the core. It was more than just the ass beating he’d gotten. It was his mother.

  Being in that house, being reminded of every horrible thing that had happened in their lives was just too much. It was the cowardly thing to do, running from it the way he did. But he wasn’t like Mia or Clayton. He’d accepted that he didn’t have the same kind of steel inside him that they did. Every time he looked at Patricia, he just wanted to lash out, but the person his anger was directed at was never there. Samuel was long gone now, and hopefully for good. So he’d gone for the next best thing… the stranger amongst them.

  His newly discovered half brother had been on the receiving end of his bad temper. He just hadn’t been prepared for how little of it his half brother would be inclined to tolerate.

  When punches are thrown before Thanksgiving dinner is even served, you know it’s a bad day. Holding his ribs, hoping they were just bruised instead of broken, Quentin limped toward the door of the bar. He was too damned old to fight like that. The truth was, even younger, stronger and in a hell of a lot better shape, Ciaran Darcy would still have handed him his ass. He’d been outclassed, out maneuvered and generally wrote checks with his mouth that his body couldn’t cash.

  Judging from the number of cars in the parking lot, the crowd was light. It wasn’t surprising. Even hard core drunks would spend the holiday with their families. Quentin stepped through the opened door into the darkened interior and moved towards the bar. There might have been five people in the whole place, including him and the bartender.

  “I’m getting ready to close up,” the bartender said, tossing the words over her shoulder without looking in his direction.

  He looked her over, taking in every detail from head to toe. Her hair was lighter. She now sported a shade of blonde that had never been found in nature. It was shorter too, just barely brushing her shoulders. Memory stirred in him, of her kneeling on the bed, her long hair wrapped around his fist as he sank into the heat of her. The odds of that ever being repeated were about as good as the odds of him suddenly developing the ability to kick Ciaran Darcy’s ass. In other words, next to never. “I know you are,” he finally said, “I’m very familiar with your schedule.”

  She did turn then. Her brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, were shooting daggers in his direction. “We’re already closed to you.”

  Harlow Tate had every reason to hate him. He’d dicked her around, bailed on her, kept her at arms length, and generally been a gigantic, raging ass. The fact that she hadn’t pulled out the shotgun she kept under the bar was a miracle. She had a hell of a temper and even better aim. Of course, even having her throw shit at him was a better option than quiet civility. If Lowey got to the point where she could just be polite to him then any shot he’d had would truly be long gone.

  There was only one way to answer that question. He had to poke the bear. “That’s not what the sign says,” he replied, jerking his head in the direction of the blinking neon near the front door.

  She frowned then. “What happened to your face? I thought I was the only one who hated you that much.”

  A smile started, but quickly morphed into a wince as it pulled his split lip. “I have a gift for pissing people off.”

  “Especially women,” she said. “But I don’t think a woman did that much damage to you unless she outsourced.”

  “A family disagreement,” he explained, easing onto one of the bar stools. Fuck, his whole body hurt. And it was only going to get worse. Ciaran could throw a punch like a goddamn hammer. “You think maybe I could get a drink?”

  “You think if I give you one you’ll get the hell out of my bar and never darken my door again?” she shot back. Even as she asked the question, she’d pulled a bottle of bourbon off the shelf and was filling a glass for him. It was not Fire Creek. She reserved that for people she liked.

  If he said it, he’d stick to it and that was a promise he wasn’t willing to keep. Evading the questions he didn’t want to answer was more his specialty. “I can’t make any promises.”

  Lowey set the bottle down with a thud and pushed the glass toward him. “That’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said.”

  “I never lied to you, Lowey. Not even to tell you the things you wanted to hear,” he stated softly before he took a sip of his whiskey. It burned like hell. It didn’t even deserve to be called rotgut. “Son of a bitch.”

  Her gaze raked over him coldly enough that he felt a chill in its wake. “I’d say that’s just about right… You’ve had your drink. It’s time for you to go.”

  “Lowey—.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said stiffly. “That name is reserved for friends, family… for lovers. You don’t fit into any of those categories. Not anymore.”

  “I did once,” he reminded her gently. And it had been fucking amazing. Nothing in his life had every felt as good as being with her and that was part of the problem. He’d left her because he was afraid he’d come to need her too much. The hell of it was he’d proven himself right.

  She glared at hi
m as she wiped the bar down far more vigorously than necessary. “And if it had meant so goddamn much to you then you wouldn’t have walked out on me the way you did. Leave, Quentin. You’re good at it.”

  Quentin placed the glass back on the bar. There was nothing he could say to her that would change anything he’d done and there was nothing she’d said to him or accused him of that wasn’t true. Part of him wanted to cut and run, to chalk it up as a mistake and cut his losses. But that was the kind of thinking that put him in his current situation to begin with. He had to show her he’d stick, he had to make her see that he wasn’t just playing her. And that meant taking whatever lumps she threw his way.

  He let his gaze rake over her again, committing every curve to memory, every luscious inch of her. Seeing her up close and in person, remembering the texture of her skin, the sweet scent of her hair, and the way she felt beneath him… there wasn’t a word in existence that could describe how much of a fuck up that was.

  “I’ll go, Lowey… but this isn’t over. This thing between us was too good and I’m not going to give up on getting another shot at it.”

  “And if wishes were horses, Quentin Darcy, beggars would ride. It’ll be a cold day in hell!”

  He smiled at her. “Guess I need to dig out my winter clothes then, don’t I?”

  As Quentin turned to leave the window imploded. Flying glass hurled through the air at them. It was instinct more than anything that had him diving over the bar, taking her to the ground with him. It was fear that kept him there, shielding her body with his own, as the sound of gunfire filled the bar.

  Glass shattered above them, sharp pieces of broken bottles and the mirrored shelving behind the bar rained down on them. His clothes took the brunt, but a few of the larger pieces weren’t so easily deflected. Even with him to shield her, Lowey hadn’t escaped without injury. He could see blood on her hands from the glass on the floor, and minor nicks and cuts.

  “Son of a damn bitch,” he hissed. “What the hell is going on?”

  She glared up at him. “You tell me! They didn’t start shooting until you walked in! Who the hell else have you pissed off, Quentin?”

  “Nobody who’d want to put in a bullet in me!” he snapped. Well, except for his father, but that wasn’t really Samuel’s style. Even if it was, he’d never do the dirty work himself and right now he was too damned broke to hire anyone.

  When the last of the gunfire faded, the quiet was overwhelming. It was broken by the sound of an engine revving and the spewing of gravel in the parking lot. Quentin stood up and raced toward the door, what was left of it. It cost him. Every bruised muscle, every abused inch of him protested. But he managed to get a look at the ancient beat up truck and the lack of a license plate. It didn’t matter. He knew exactly whose truck that was.

  Turning back to the bar, he saw Lowey staring around in dismay at the wreck of her business. “Don’t guess the sheriff bothered to inform you that his cousin—your ex-husband—was getting out of jail, did he?”

  Her face paled considerably, but her lips firmed into a hard line and the look in her eyes would have withered a lesser man. “No. That asshole didn’t tell me.”

  Quentin nodded, then looked back at the two old drunks who were still sitting on the floor under broken tables. Neither of them appeared injured. In fact, they were grinning from ear to ear at the excitement, prompting him to shake his head.

  “Call 911, report the shooting.”

  She laughed bitterly. “They won’t do anything! Hell, he almost killed me and barely served a year!”

  “No. They won’t arrest him. They won’t stop him. But if you don’t file a report then your insurance company won’t pay for the damages… and I don’t think you’re ready to tackle that out of pocket,” he explained.

  She sat down then. Heavily, as if the weight of the world was suddenly pressing down on her. “I hate this. I should just leave. I should sell what’s left of this place and go.”

  He couldn’t tell her no. The truth was that she was right. Getting the hell out of Fontaine was the best thing Lowey could do, for herself and for him. But those words wouldn’t come. So instead, he said simply, “This is your home. And you’re too damn stubborn to give it up.”

  A bitter laugh escaped her. “You’re right about that. You’ll have to call the cops… they won’t show up if I do.”

  Quentin sighed and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He didn’t question her statement at all. The entire family that she’d had the great misfortune to marry into at the tender age of eighteen was full of rednecks and assholes, the two descriptors not being mutually exclusive. He didn’t labor under the illusion that Sheriff Silas Barnes would hurry just because his last name was Darcy.

  Two

  Lowey retreated to the bathroom of the bar. At the back of the building, the restrooms had at least been spared the worst of the damage. Still, a bullet had traveled through the wall, embedded itself in the mirror. The spiderweb crack around it brought home to her just how much danger they’d been in. Her hands trembled as she tried to shake the bits of glass and wood from her hair.

  She had half a dozen tiny, stinging cuts all over her, but Quentin had borne the brunt of it. She still couldn’t fathom how he’d moved so quickly given the shape he was in. Someone had kicked his ass up one side and down the other, and while she was feeling somewhat more sympathetic to him than normal at the moment, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that whatever he’d gotten, he’d asked for.

  No one, not even her nutball, rage-addict of an ex-husband, could make her as crazy as Quentin Darcy could. And he’d made it more than clear that he wasn’t in the market for anything more from her than rolling around in the sheets from time to time. So why was he there? Why, when his life had clearly gone to shit, and she unknowingly needed him the most, did he have to show up? And of course he was saying all the right things, too. But then he was good at that. Quentin, when he was trying to get in your pants at least, could be a charming devil.

  “Get it together, Lowey,” she whispered to herself. “You’re going to have to facedown your asshole ex-in-laws and you can’t do that if he’s mucking up your brain!”

  With some semblance of her composure returned and most of the glass shards shaken out of her clothes and her hair, Lowey walked back into the main room of the bar and felt it all shatter around her again. It had been her grandpa’s before it was hers. He’d come back from Korea and opened a little watering hole, as he’d liked to call it—a gathering place for men. Eventually, women had taken up coming there too, but by and large, it had been envisioned by him as a place where other soldiers like himself could gather. It was a place where they didn’t have to worry about being polite or following rules to a society they didn’t really belong in any more.

  Now it was a shambles. The last connection she had to him, and to her grandmother also, had been destroyed. It looked like the war zones he’d never spoken of. There were things broken and shattered on the floor, pictures and mementos of his life that she would never be able to repair or replace. Joey Barnes had robbed her of something else, she thought bitterly. He hadn’t been content with convincing her to marry him when she was still too young to know better and then ruining her life. He’d had to come back and fuck it all up again.

  “You okay?”

  Lowey looked up and realized that she’d just been standing in the middle of the room in a pile of broken glass and busted wood, staring around like someone in a trance. The question had come from Quentin who looked at her with enough concern for her to believe he might actually care. But she knew better than to fall into that trap again. Regardless of what he’d said, he wasn’t someone she could ever count on. Sure, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, but counting on him for more than that would just get her heart broken.

  “I’m fine. Just trying to assess the damage,” she lied. “You don’t have to stick around. I know you’ve got better things to do with your time than help me deal w
ith the Barnes Family Drama Hour.”

  “If I leave, I just have to deal with the Darcy Family Drama Hour,” he said. “Hell, it might even be a two hour special after today… Besides, I’m the only one who saw Joey’s truck. And we both know Silas is going to give you a ton of shit about this. Somehow, he’ll make it out to be your fault.”

  Truer words, she thought. Whatever else could be said of the Barnes family, they knew how to stick together, through thick, thin and probation. Silas had given her shit at every opportunity ever since she’d turned Silas in for cooking meth. She’d filed for divorce while he was incarcerated for that and Silas had written her tickets for everything coming and going. Then Joey had gotten out, beat her half to death, and somehow, by sending him back to prison for it, she’d still be the bad guy.

  Thinking about the Barnes family wouldn’t get her anywhere. She’d been questioning how they worked for yeas and it still wasn’t any clearer. So she focused on something else altogether.

  Curious and wanting to think about anything besides her ex-husband, she asked, “So what did happen today?”

  Quentin had his hands on his hips, the jeans he wore riding low on lean hips with a plaid shirt and a v-neck sweater over it. The shoes he wore probably cost more than her monthly car payment. He’d clearly been in a fight, then he’d rolled around in busted glass to save her ass, and he still looked like he’d stepped right out of a men’s fashion magazine. She hated him for that—more than a little.

  “I got into a fight with my brother,” he replied evenly.

  “You and Clayton? That’s hard to believe.”

  “Not Clayton,” he answered. “My other brother… the new one.”

  She wanted to know more, but given what she already knew of Samuel Darcy, she was a little afraid to. The Darcy family drama was a little more high end than her own variety, but that didn’t make it any less toxic. The degree of Quentin’s inability to commit to anything other than running away from relationships was proof positive of that.