Two and a half of them, to be exact.
“I’m fine,” Brennan said, mashing down on the tightness in his chest once and for all. He’d been through worse than this by the truckload. Facing a few reporters and saying no comment for another day or two until some other story caught their attention might be aggravating as hell, but it wouldn’t kill him. He just had to focus, breathe, and block everything out. And stay away from the end of the bar, because apparently, the key to blowing his composure was sticking around for dinner instead of going home to get kissed.
Yeah. He needed to get moving and do his job. Right. Now.
“Can I help you ladies?” Brennan asked, leaning in toward two giggling brunettes who barely looked old enough to drink. Triple-checking their IDs, he pulled the two light beers they ordered from the cooler at his hip, gaining slight comfort from the hiss and clink of each lid as he liberated them from the bottles.
“So, um, my friend Courtney wanted to ask you something, but she’s a little shy.” The taller of the two women nodded toward her friend, who served up a smile that said she was anything but bashful.
The feeling of ease that had just settled in his chest gave a hard flicker. “Shoot.”
“I thought maybe I could get a picture with you. You know, for my Facebook page?” She held up her cell phone, and Brennan exhaled as the flicker burned out.
“Sorry, I’m not a camera guy.”
“Oh, please don’t say no!” The woman pouted, crossing her arms beneath her cleavage in a not-so-subtle lift. “It’s just that living in Pine Mountain, we never get to meet anybody famous.”
Brennan aimed for a courteous smile, but the tight pull of his jaw told him he’d missed his mark. “Hate to disappoint you, ladies. I’m just a bar manager. Let me know when you need refills.”
He hustled to the kitchen, praying like hell that there were plates to expedite, and thank God, Adrian delivered. But the handful of round-trip loops from the kitchen to the dining room yielded two more requests for photo ops, another batch of cookies, an afghan from the Pine Mountain Knitting Circle, and four polite yet firm no comments. Thank God his cell number was unlisted, Brennan thought. At least he had that tiny bit of peace and sanity.
Right up until his sister Ellie sent him a text that read,
Pictures of my wedding dress attached. Mom wants to know if you are bringing a date—call me!
Keeping his head down and eyes forward went from game plan to game over in less than half the dinner rush. By the time they closed the kitchen and transitioned to the bar-only crowd, the phrases what can I get you and no comment were neck and neck in Brennan’s vocabulary, and he was starting to think the whole this-won’t-kill-me concept was more fantasy than fact.
“I heard the kids from Pine Mountain Community Center made you enough banana bread to start your own bakery,” Adrian said, adjusting his Harley-Davidson baseball hat as he grabbed a bottle of their local brewery’s IPA for the guy across from him at the bar. While Brennan recognized the genuine gratitude pouring in from the locals bringing him thank-you gifts, the spotlight of their attention still burned on the back of his neck. He hadn’t run into danger to find Matthew Wilson because he was a hero.
He’d done it because he wasn’t.
“Yeah. Jesse told me,” Brennan said, angling himself toward the cooler in an effort to dodge Adrian’s X-ray vision.
But Adrian stepped in to deftly check the movement, his proximity and his lowered tone limiting the conversation to just him and Brennan. “Look, I’m not complaining about the business, but we’re even more crowded than last night. This place is busting at the joists with local reporters looking for something to print. You gonna humor one of them?”
“I don’t have anything to say.” Brennan’s shrug dropped off his double-knotted shoulders. Rather than slowing down, the requests-slash-demands seemed to multiply with every no comment. “I just want to stay busy,” he said, popping the handle on the lowboy fridge nestled under the bar top. “Holy crap, what happened to all the iced tea?”
Adrian’s chuckle smacked him right in the sternum. “Your reporter, that’s what. She’s been down there drinking Arnold Palmers and chatting up Annabelle and Teagan all night.”
The door to the cooler snapped shut with a thunk. “What?”
“Relax. Nobody here is giving up so much as your shoe size. And anyway, Ava didn’t ask. Matter of fact, I think she’s the only person in here who hasn’t asked about you tonight. Looks like she’s just hanging out.”
“Oh.” Brennan paused, sliding a glance toward the end of the bar. Ava’s head was tilted down, her attention focused on a stack of papers in front of her, her forehead creased into a V of concentration as she read. She scribbled something on the top page, tapping the end of her pen against the soft divot at the center of her mouth, and story or no story, Brennan had never wanted to be a Bic so bad in his life.
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat, shaking off the impetuous heat making a playground out of his gut. “She’s not mine.”
He turned toward the alcove to grab a box of tea bags from the bottom shelf, ignoring the dark eyebrow that had disappeared beneath the brim of Adrian’s hat. Brennan set the tea to brew, filling a handful of drink orders as he made his way toward the end of the bar. If Ava wanted to act like a regular customer, then he would treat her like one.
Even if after seven years of radio silence, there was still nothing regular about her.
“Got fresh tea brewing for you,” he said, pointing to her nearly empty pint glass as she looked up from the sheaf of papers on the bar. She blinked in surprise, but her recovery time spanned only a few seconds.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Ava lowered her pen, shuffling the pages into a manila folder before placing it in her bag. Although her smile was genuine, the shadows smudged beneath her emerald green eyes betrayed her weariness, sending an involuntary ripple through Brennan’s chest. Okay, so she’d made no bones about wanting a story on the fire, and yeah, that story was what had propelled her back in front of him after seven long years. But when he’d popped off that stupidly impulsive demand to know why she’d left without a word, he’d seen that same vulnerability layered underneath her wide-eyed stare.
Ava was hiding something.
But before Brennan could run the revelation down the chain of command from his brain to his mouth, a swift flurry of movement snagged his attention from the seat next to Ava’s.
“Evening, Brennan. Heard you’re playing hardball on giving up a story. I have to admit, I respect a man who knows what he wants.”
Years’ worth of training to notice the details—even the pretentious-as-hell, squinty-faced ones—placed the guy elbowing his way next to Ava as the Perrier-drinking asshat from last night, and Brennan dialed his expression up to its deadliest setting.
“The only thing I want is to do my job in peace. I still have no comment, Mr. Trotter.”
The reporter snorted, shooting the cuffs of his overstarched dress shirt as he settled back on his bar stool. “What if I told you I could get your story on the front page of the Bugle, and I do mean above the crease, in addition to complete social media coverage? Plus, if you sign on right now, I’ve got contacts in TV who would pick up this story in a second.”
Brennan blanked the irritation from his voice, but just barely. “I’m not holding out for the best exposure, and I definitely don’t want to be on TV. I don’t have anything to say, above the crease or anywhere else.”
“Nothing at all?” Trotter peered through his glasses in haughty disbelief.
“You mean other than no comment?”
The reporter’s thin lips pinched into a nearly nonexistent line. “Is all that silence noble, Brennan, or is there something you’re trying to hide?”
Before Brennan could slice out an answer and a get the hell out, Ava turned in her seat to peg the guy with a disdainful stare.
“Jesus, Mike. He said no comment. Let it go.”
&nbs
p; Trotter smiled, all teeth, and Brennan buckled over the urge to use them as target practice for his right hook. “Trying to get me to walk so you can slide in and steal this story? I don’t think so, sweetheart. Everyone’s got something to say. Isn’t that right, Brennan?”
Trotter swung back toward the bar, his eyes narrowing to near slits as he thrust his recording device about two inches from Brennan’s chin. Brennan parried out of sheer instinct, gripping Trotter’s forearm in a tight hold as the guy struggled to shove the microphone back toward Brennan’s face, but Ava’s sudden gasp and flinch stole his concentration. In the split-second distraction, Trotter pounced. Using his stool for leverage, he pushed up over the edge of the bar, breaking Brennan’s grip on his arm with a forceful yank.
“Hey!” The word fired from Brennan’s mouth in a jagged burst, but it was too late. Momentum catapulted Trotter from his seat, his arm whipping back desperately in the panic of lost balance.
His elbow connected with Ava’s breastbone in a heavy crack, and she crumpled from her bar stool right to the floorboards.
“Adrian!” Brennan’s bellow sliced up from his lungs, and he vaulted over the bar without thought. Indelible instinct reared up from its deep-seated home in his chest, and he pushed past the tangle of limbs and shouts and hard-moving footsteps to hone in on the flash of bright green silk beneath the chaos. Ava lay curled on the mahogany floorboards like a slender question mark, and panic laddered up the back of Brennan’s throat.
Focus. Assess the situation. Breathe.
“Ava?” Her name got lost in the din of Adrian’s zero-tolerance commands, the sloppy shuffle of feet over hardwood, and Trotter’s sputtering protest growing farther away by the second as the furious chef steered him toward the front door. A stern voice—their waitress, Annabelle, maybe?—cleared a wide berth of space at the bar while issuing a no-nonsense warning against anyone taking photos with their cell phones.
“Ava,” Brennan tried again, leaning in. Trotter might have a face like a weasel, but he was built like a damned linebacker, and he’d hit Ava with the full force of his body weight. Although it was uncommon, blunt force trauma to the chest could have nasty implications if the blow landed in just the wrong spot, and Brennan couldn’t tell if she’d hit her head during the fall. He reached out for Ava’s shoulder to gently pull her upright for a better look.
But the second his hands made contact, she went completely rigid, snatching herself backward as she jerked into an impenetrable ball.
“Whoa! Hey, hey, it’s me. Brennan,” he corrected, his heartbeat ratcheting higher. What the hell would make her react like that? “I want to help you. Just let me see if you’re hurt.”
“Oh.” Ava blinked, her green eyes going wide, but then realization washed over her face as she clumsily pushed herself up to sitting. “No, no, I’m . . . ow.”
“Did you hit your head at all?” he asked, fingers itching to travel over her in search of injuries, but she seemed spooked, so he settled for letting his eyes do the job. She was alert and reactive, although clearly rattled, and Brennan revisited the urge to introduce his fist to Trotter’s smug-bastard face.
“No. I don’t think so, anyway. I’m fine.” One hand fluttered up to the center of her blouse, accompanied by a sigh of pain as she struggled to get her feet beneath her. But looking okay and being okay weren’t always the same beast, especially if she might’ve also hit her head. There were half a dozen injuries that could be lurking beneath her “fine” exterior.
“Do you feel short of breath or dizzy?” Brennan palmed her shoulder to get a better visual on her eyes, and jeez, he felt her trembling all the way down his arm.
“No.” She aimed the word at her lap, but it came through loud and clear. “Really, I just want to get up.”
The request came at the same time Teagan arrived at Ava’s side, her eyes doing the exact same tour for injuries as Brennan’s had not twenty seconds before.
“Hey, Ava. I’m a paramedic. I want to take a look at you, just to see what’s what, okay?”
Ava’s cheeks went from pale to pink in less than a second. “I promise, I’m fine.” She shifted to an awkward stand, but rather than stepping back to give her space, Brennan slid his shoulder under Ava’s arm to help steady her feet beneath her.
“No LOC, no visible injuries, breathing seems okay, but the jackass popped her pretty hard in the sternum before she fell and she might’ve hit her head on the way down,” he told Teagan, already guiding Ava toward the pass-through to the kitchen.
Teagan’s brows shot skyward, but she kept up with him, stride for stride. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go up to the office so I can do a quick RTA.”
Brennan nodded in a single lift of his chin. “Couch’ll work.” It would be a hell of a lot more comfortable to do a rapid trauma assessment there than on the floorboards in the dining room.
Ava huffed out a breath of protest. “I don’t need a . . . whatever that is. Seriously, I just got knocked down. It’s no big deal.”
“I know,” Teagan agreed, cutting off both Ava’s argument and the protest Brennan was brewing to fight it. “An RTA is just an assessment, that’s all. I want to take a quick look at your head and the spot where you got hit to make sure your ribs aren’t bruised. It’s strictly precautionary, but it’ll make me feel better. Please?”
“Oh.” Ava’s breath fluttered against his side as he guided her up the stairs leading to the Double Shot’s office, one step at a time. “Well, if you put it that way . . .”
Relief pulsed through Brennan’s veins. Although both her tone and her expression had gotten exponentially tougher with each passing second, Ava was still shaking like crazy.
Shit. Maybe that was him.
“Okay, here we go.” Teagan’s voice threaded past his realization, and Brennan lowered Ava to the bright orange couch cushions. He sucked down a breath, then another as Teagan placed her hands on the crown of Ava’s head and started to work her way downward. Taking in Teagan’s movements and Ava’s ensuing responses with care, Brennan mentally checked off each step in the process, letting the precise order calm him further.
At least until Teagan’s hands coasted over the spot where Ava’s pale skin met the green silk of her shirt and Ava jumped about a mile off the couch.
“Sorry,” she murmured, her black hair spilling over her eyes as she dropped her chin toward Teagan’s frozen hands.
“No problem. Can you rate that pain on a scale of one to ten?”
“Oh, um. Not bad. Maybe a two?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Teagan slid her glance from Ava’s rib cage to her face, but Ava shook her head, suddenly resolute.
“It’s a two.”
“Okay,” Teagan said. She continued even though her expression said she wasn’t buying Ava’s assertion, and hell if that didn’t make two of them. But Ava sat statue-still, with her hands on the knees of her black dress pants and her eyes locked forward as Teagan asked her a few more standard-issue questions and took a look at the bruise already blooming at the open neck of her blouse.
“You’re going to have one hell of a tender spot on your chest for a few days, but other than that, I think you’re okay.” Teagan stood, taking a few steps to the small refrigerator tucked away by the desk to grab a bottle of water for Ava. “Driving after you’ve been rattled up probably isn’t the best idea, though. Is there anyone we can call for you?”
All the color that had returned to her cheeks disappeared, and Ava took a long sip of water before answering. “No, thank you. I’m grateful for your concern, but really, I’m not rattled up. I feel fine.”
“Hmm.” Teagan ran her palms down the front of her jeans, flipping a glance at Brennan that broadcast her displeasure. “Why don’t you take a few minutes to just camp out here and relax, then? Brennan, can I see you in the hall for a second?”
Murmuring a quick “be right back” to Ava, Brennan followed Teagan to the narrow space in front of the Double Shot
’s office. He knew Teagan well enough that he could already hear her protest about Ava driving herself home.
So it was a complete and total potshot to his gut when she crossed her arms over her white T-shirt and said, “Would you like to tell me how you know what an RTA even is, let alone all the other medical procedures that go with trauma assessment?”
“Uh,” came the only answer Brennan could readily grab. Shit. Shit. Of course Teagan would’ve noticed his instinctive reaction. She’d been just as well trained to notice details as he had, and he’d been too firmly ensconced in go mode to cloak his response to Ava’s injury or his default terminology afterward. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
Teagan surveyed his face, her gaze sliding to the gently closed office door before she finally shook her head. “Damn, Brennan. You’ve got a lot of secrets, don’t you?”
At least he had her here. “No. I’ve got a lot of shit in my past that’s going to stay there.”
“If you say so. Look, I can respect that you want certain things in your rearview. But one of them damn near got seriously hurt in my restaurant tonight. I may not know the details, but between this fire at Joe’s, the roomful of reporters downstairs, and the woman sitting behind that door, it looks like your past is coming for you whether you like it or not.”
Brennan silently bit out every curse word in the book. Seeing Ava again might sting, but he could manage that well enough.
The rest of his past was a different story. He’d barely lived through it the first time, and he’d been the lucky one. No way was he letting what had happened that night—and everything that followed—back under his skin.
He wouldn’t survive it twice.
“I’m straight, Teagan. A scuffle like this won’t come back into the bar again,” Brennan promised, clenching his fists hard enough to make his knuckles throb.
“It’s not the bar I’m worried about,” she said, her tone softening. “Now do me a favor and take care of Ava, would you? I meant it when I said she’ll be fine, but if she thinks she’s driving herself home after taking a slap-shot to the chest like that, she’s out of her mind.”
All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) Page 6