The Damaged Heroes Collection [Box Set #1: The Damaged Heroes Collection] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream)

by James, Sandy

  They’d known. Or at least they’d trusted that Susan would rise above any obstacle. They’d had more faith in her than her own husband.

  Li’l Jim waddled over to the piano. When the song was done, the crowd cheered again. Li’l Jim waited for the ruckus to die down then put his hands on her shoulders. “Boys, this here is Susie Hollis. She’s our new singer.” The noise level rivaled the crowd at a Bears’ home football game during a winning season.

  Li’l Jim took her hand and led her past James and Daniel to James’s lowly little room. James followed, as did Daniel.

  Pushing through the swinging batwings, Li’l Jim led Susan to James’s small bed. Kneeling down, he dragged an old-fashioned trunk from under the metal frame.

  “Emma left some of her clothes when she ran off with her soldier,” he said as he popped the latch open. Pulling out a red silk dress covered with beads, he held it up for her to see. “You can wear ’em when you sing and wait tables. You look to be ’bout her size.”

  Susan took the dress and held it up in front of her. The color suited her. Her forehead suddenly creased in worry. “But where will I stay?”

  With me, James wanted to reply, but he held his tongue. She had chosen her path, a path that she probably hoped led away from her marriage. At least if she was working at the Golden Nugget, he could keep an eye on her. He would know she was safe and warm and getting enough to eat.

  Li’l Jim took her hand again and led her past James, who again turned to follow. At the landing of the stairs, the Nugget’s owner jerked his thumb at the second floor. “There’s an empty room next to my daughter Caroline’s. Second door on the right. You can stay there.”

  James couldn’t help himself. “With me. I’ll move up there too.”

  She whirled around to flay him with her glare. “Like hell you will. You let me know what you thought of us being together when you left me alone. I slept under a tree last night, James. A damned tree! And you were here, playing bartender, not caring what had happened to me. You didn’t eat berries for dinner, did you?” He tried to stammer out some kind of pathetic response, but she didn’t give him the chance. “Did you?”

  James wanted to shout back until he noticed the bar had once again fallen silent. The patrons took in their words like they were watching some ridiculous soap opera being acted out live for their viewing pleasure. He wasn’t going to accommodate them by performing like some trained animal. Anything he had to say to Susan, he would say when they were alone. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look bored. For some reason, that only seemed to make her angrier.

  Daniel came to stand at Susan’s side. James hadn’t realized the man was close enough to hear them. “Want me to get the trunk, Susie?”

  James winced at the damned nickname. That man had no right to any say in this, to any say in what happened to Susan. He opened his mouth to speak, but Susan beat him to the punch.

  “Please. Thank you, Daniel.”

  The arrogant grin she threw at James was almost enough to push him over the edge. He wasn’t sure how much more his frayed temper could stand.

  Figuring he needed some space, James stomped back to the bar and started serving whiskey and beer. He’d ignore her. That would work. He’d just pretend she wasn’t here.

  Yeah, right.

  Susan released a shaky sigh and tried to fight back tears. Her marriage truly was over. He didn’t care that she’d been frightened to death to sing in front of everyone, that she’d have to do so again and again just to make a way in this strange world.

  As she turned to follow Daniel to her new home, she stopped on the staircase landing and looked back at James. He stopped wiping the bar with a towel long enough to glance up at her.

  Should she smile to let him know she was fine without him? No, that would be a lie. Should she frown to let him know she was hurt by his rejection? No, that would give him power over her. Susan finally chose a curt nod. Nothing but a short, brisk nod to show she understood that she was now all alone in the world.

  His responding nod brought tears to her eyes. Turning, she followed Daniel to her new destiny.

  Chapter 11

  James scowled at Susan, even though it was rude considering she was helping him by clearing the tables of last night’s empty mugs. It seemed like she was always in his way. Always underfoot. Always too damned close. When she was near, he couldn’t think about anything except her.

  Nearly a week had passed since she started singing for the Golden Nugget crowds. The men who packed the joint acted like they’d never seen a woman before, let alone one as pretty as Susan. The clothes she wore sure didn’t help. While they were modest by twenty-first-century standards, here they drew men to her like a siren’s call. Downright scandalous. Shit, she showed them most of her shoulders and some of the swell of her breasts. The ones that he used to be able to touch. The ones he used to rest his head on while she stroked his hair after they’d made love. And the guys at the Golden Nugget seemed to sigh in unison whenever she hiked her skirt to step over something and showed her calves.

  Freakin’ interlopers. Susan was his spouse, his mate.

  At least she used to be.

  James found it harder and harder to think of her as his old wife, the one he’d known just about forever. His Susan had disappeared. Everything about her seemed so new, so surprising, and so enticing. This woman sang in a bar for crowds of rowdy men who appreciated not only her talent but her charm and beauty—two things he’d been taking way too much for granted.

  It wasn’t like he’d never thrown compliments her way before. Maybe not quite as often as he should have, but he’d always made an effort. Susan deflected them like a hockey goalie dispatches a puck. She never listened and replied to most of his kind words with her typical self-depreciating cynicism. Didn’t she realize those retorts made it harder and harder for him to offer any words of praise or flattery? Why go to the effort when she wouldn’t accept what he had to say?

  Well, hell, she had no problem taking compliments from men now! She thrived on them. Her smile had never come so easily or popped up so often. To be honest, James admitted she didn’t smile very much at all back in her own time. He’d always attributed it to her Type A personality. She survived on stress, and stressed out people simply didn’t grin. Susan grinned now. She grinned when the audience whistled or clapped or stomped their boots against the rough, wooden floor hard enough to make sawdust swirl around their feet and glasses bounce on the tables. She grinned whenever she slapped at the playful hands that seemed to constantly brush against that gorgeous ass of hers. And she grinned whenever Daniel Miller walked into the Golden Nugget.

  What the hell was that man after anyway, sniffing around Susan like some hound seeks a bitch in heat? Daniel seemed to turn up anytime Susan started singing, which was just about every night for the week she’d been performing. The jealousy, an emotion he’d never had to deal with before, became smothering. Every time Daniel smiled at Susan and she smiled back, James felt like someone was holding a pillow over his face. A stupid reaction considering he was the one who declared them unmarried. He was the one who’d walked away from her. He was the one who left her to find her own way in this new world.

  He was a goddamned idiot.

  Susan came striding up to the bar with a tray full of dirty glasses and empty bottles. She had the audacity to smile at him again. He growled his frustration and kept wiping down the surface of the wooden bar.

  Drawing her brows together, she asked, “Are you okay?” He didn’t reply. “You act like you’re not feeling well.” She slid the tray onto the bar and leaned over to place the back of her cool hand against his forehead.

  James swatted her hand away, making her frown up at him. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t act fine. You act like you’ve got one of your upset stomachs.”

  “I said I’m fine. At least I would be if you stopped acting like some stupid floozy.”

  “I beg your pardon?”


  “You heard me.”

  “You’re calling me a floozy?” She pushed away from the bar and glanced down at her clothes. “In the outfits Li’l Jim gave me? In this stupid calico dress Daniel gave me?” She gave the skirts on her dress an angry flip. “For pity’s sake, I’m wearing more now than I did back in Chicago.” She ran her fingers across the bodice, forcing him to stare at her bustline. “Not even showing any cleavage.”

  James snorted at her. “I’m not talking about your outfit.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him, placed her hand on the bar, and started drumming her fingers against the wood in a steadily increasing rhythm. “So what you’re saying is that I’m acting like a floozy? Why in the hell should it matter to you anyway?”

  “You’re all over the guys who come here.”

  “All over the…You mean the customers? The ones I’m supposed to entertain?”

  He tossed her a brusque nod.

  “I’m all over them, huh? You mean when I’m passing around their beers?”

  James nodded again, glad she finally understood what bothered him.

  “I guess I never equated handing a guy a glass full of beer as being ‘all over’ him.”

  Okay, so maybe she didn’t understand. He decided to enlighten her. “You let them touch you.”

  Her jaw dropped as she gaped at him. “Let them? Let them? Who exactly have you been watching? I try to avoid them, but…” A dainty shrug. “I’m a little outnumbered.”

  “Yeah, right. You act like you love it.”

  “You’re a moron, James.”

  Even though he knew he’d let the entirely juvenile side of his personality out to get him into trouble yet again, he couldn’t give up this fight. If she wasn’t more careful, these guys would keep reaching out for her. “You do let them touch you. You love it when they touch you! Shit, you get goosed every couple of minutes.”

  Folding her arms over her breasts, she leveled a stern stare at him. “And I have the bruises to prove it. I try to sidestep them—” She shrugged again. “—but they’re pretty persistent. Daniel says if I slap one, it might teach all of them to lay off.”

  James rolled his eyes and adopted a falsetto tone. “Daniel says I should sing in a bar. Daniel says I should wear these ridiculous clothes. Daniel says…” With an indignant huff and back to his baritone, he added, “I’m sick to death of hearing what Daniel Miller says. I guess he doesn’t care if you act like a slut.”

  James never saw it coming. She leaned over the bar and slapped him so fast and hard, it had to have left a handprint on his face. He rubbed his stinging cheek. “Daniel says to slap someone, and I get smacked. The guy has you brainwashed, or did the slut comment hit a little too close to home?”

  He sure hadn’t expected to see the tears that were slowly rolling down her cheeks. “At least Daniel cares whether I have a place to stay and something to eat. You obviously don’t. If I didn’t sing, if I didn’t entertain these guys you think I’m throwing myself at, I’d still be sleeping under a tree and eating damned berries for supper again. So if it takes a pinch or two on my ass to get the job done, that sure doesn’t make me a slut.”

  If he looked in a mirror, an ogre would be staring back. James didn’t have a chance to soothe Susan’s hurt feelings before Caroline came strolling down the staircase. She skidded to a stop when she saw them. “I’m interrupting.”

  James shot a fake grin at the young blonde, hoping to deflect discussion of what exactly she’d interrupted. “You’re fine. Not interrupting a thing.”

  Caroline smiled at James and wrapped one of her long curls around her finger.

  Susan heaved an exaggerated sigh, not even hiding her frustration. Caroline should have been a welcome interruption from the fight brewing between her and James. But she wasn’t welcome, at least not any more welcome than Susan had been from the moment she met Caroline.

  While she might have had some problems with an occasional sullen student from time to time, Susan knew most of her students genuinely liked her. Perhaps because she was one of the few people who treated them like the young adults they were while so many others looked down on them, believing teenagers were nothing but lazy troublemakers.

  She’d tried to be polite to Caroline when Li’l Jim had introduced them, and Caroline had been civil in return. At least she had until she saw Susan and James talking. The girl’s personality had frosted so quickly, the whole room seemed to grow colder. Every attempt Susan had made to establish some rapport, even if only merely courtesy, had been rebuked. She’d finally given up trying because Caroline obviously hated her.

  Susan knew why. The teen was infatuated with James, and she couldn’t help but believe his middle-aged ego didn’t puff with pride that such a pretty, young thing was interested in him. He grinned at her like some besotted adolescent. A forty-year-old adolescent.

  She sighed again. “You’re not interrupting. I’ve got to work on some songs.”

  Caroline leaned against the bar, talking to James and batting her eyelashes as he started to pull glasses out of a box and put them on the shelf below the bar. Susan shook her head, resigned to watching the two of them flirt like a clichéd middle-aged man and an attention-seeking, teenage girl.

  Taking a seat at the ancient piano, Susan grabbed the paper, pen, and inkwell from the top and set them where she could use them. She started picking out the tune for an old Carpenters song, hoping it wouldn’t create some sort of paradox for the Golden Nugget customers to hear it nearly a century before Karen Carpenter had even been born.

  The music didn’t come easy because Susan became too busy listening to the soft chatter between James and Caroline to concentrate. Every now and then, Caroline would laugh as if James had just said the funniest thing she’d ever heard. And he was probably loving every minute of it. “Midlife crisis much?” Susan whispered.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  Startled, Susan whirled around at the new voice. A friendly face filled her vision. “Daniel!”

  He doffed his weathered hat, revealing that wonderful salt and pepper hair at his temples. The man sure was a handsome devil.

  “Hi, Susie.”

  At least now there was someone standing by her side who actually cared about her. She glanced past Daniel to see that James had stopped talking to Caroline and was now glaring at Daniel. Susan smiled at James to let him know he wasn’t the only bull in the pasture, not even feeling guilty for tweaking his prickly temper. As if James could possibly be jealous of her when he had Caroline’s undivided attention. Besides, she’d never seen that part of his personality and wasn’t sure it even existed.

  “How are you?” Daniel asked, putting a hand on her shoulder, drawing her focus back to him.

  “I’m the same as I was last night when you came in to check on me. Fine. You’re sweet to worry about me so much.” She patted the bench seat beside her.

  He dropped his hat on top of the piano and sat next to her. His muscular thigh brushed against hers. The contact sent a shimmer of warmth rushing through her, taking her by surprise. Only James had ever made her feel that way. As if she’d ever tell James she still got a catch in her breath whenever he walked into a room or a knot of need deep inside her whenever he reached for her. He hated hearing her say romantic things, usually giving her some biting remark in return. His sarcasm had become a weapon he loved to wield, and she’d always been his main target, feeling like a bucket of cold water had been tossed over her whenever a jibe hit her.

  How was she supposed to react to a new man, especially one she knew was interested in her in a way few men had ever been?

  “Working on a new song?” Daniel asked. She nodded. “Something like this?” He plunked out a discordant melody on the yellowed keys, coaxing a hesitant smile from Susan.

  Despite her bout of confusion, she laughed. “No, nothing quite like that. I just can’t quite seem to get it right.”

  “Doesn’t matter much. The men like whatever you sing. Y
ou’re like a nightingale. The voice of an angel.”

  She flushed at the compliments, a little ashamed she wished they had come from another man. To keep her hands busy, she scribbled a few more notes on the paper.

  “What’s the title?” he asked.

  “‘Top of the World.’ Although it’s probably too tame for this kind of crowd. I think I’m going to rename it ‘Next to the Bar.’ I’ve almost got the melody right, but I’m not sure.”

  “Play what you’ve got for me, darlin’, and I’ll be the judge.”

  With a smile, Susan started the music again and sang along with the notes, substituting most of the words to turn the Carpenter’s beautiful melody into a drinking song. Daniel hummed with her until she hit the chorus the second time. He’d already picked up the words and started to sing with her.

  What a gorgeous baritone the man had. He even sang harmony like a born crooner. He let her finish another verse and joined her again for the chorus. She and Daniel were having a nice time until James’s overly loud interruption.

  “Susan!”

  At his shout, she stopped playing and whirled around to face him. “What?”

  He threw her the same look he gave the kids when he was angry. “I need your help.” He squeezed the glass he held hard enough his fingers blanched.

  “Doing what?” Susan smoothed aside some of the bangs that had fallen over her forehead. If she stayed in 1880 too much longer, she’d have to give herself a haircut. She doubted the local barber would want to cut it the way she liked it. Very, very short. Did they even have barbers in 1880? She couldn’t remember.

  Not that she had any intention of staying. The first step in her grand scheme, the one she devoted so much of her day to, was finding that damned rock. Until that miracle occurred, she stayed good and stuck.

  “Um…I need you to…um,” James stammered. “We should…” He kept snapping his fingers like he always did when he was thinking up a fib. James might be good at a lot of things, but the man couldn’t lie well to save his life. Thankfully, neither could either of their kids.