by Alexa Davis
“Room on the table, where I am supposed to put all this to make room on the table?” The busboy laughed.
“I’d start making friends, sir, you’re gonna need ‘em. Upside is, most people in here will follow you around for a beer or some nachos.” I laughed and waved down the purple haired stylist, pointing at the food and trying to look helpless. By the time Libby returned, we had to squeeze her in next to me, half on my lap, just so she could reach her beer. She gaped at me and I shrugged.
“I figured you ordered that much, because you wanted it to be a party. So, I invited my friends.” I happened to glance toward the pool hall in the back and the cowboy was still watching us. I nodded and turned back to the bikers sharing my pizza. Lesson learned, I thought to myself, if you want to send a message, say it with leather-clad, studded collar-wearing bikers.
12. Libby
I had felt bad the second I’d slid the bolt to, on scratched metal stall door. Sam had waltzed over with a smile on his face and beers in his hands, and it hadn’t occurred to me that he was looking for trouble until I saw him put his back to Tucker. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I told him I’d talk to him later and escaped. When I finally returned, not only was there no blood on the floor, but Tucker, introverted almost to the point of being shy, was sharing the massive amount of food I’d ordered with Isabelle, her husband, and his motorcycle club.
I’d glanced toward the back room to see if Sam was still there, and he’d seen me, and tipped his hat. It made my stomach flutter, but I wasn’t sure if it was fear or attraction that I was reacting with. I had squeezed myself in next to Tucker, as he regaled the table with stories from the ranch, and I saw him differently than I ever had before.
He was laughing and easy-going, as always, but when he spoke of his childhood home, he lit up like I’d never realized he could. Between him and his brothers, there were enough shenanigans to tell stories all night, and he made them come to life as he spoke, bringing tears to the eyes of burly, hardened bikers from laughing so hard, and then again later, when he shared with them the day his own stallion, Denny, had slid down a hill that had become unstable from flood washout. He smiled throughout, but pressed as close to him as I was, I felt his body sag, under a weight no one else could see but him.
No sooner did the food disappear from the table, and another wave was brought out, and Tucker glared at me. I reminded him that he was a single, well-paid attorney, and could afford one night of pleasing the locals, although in truth, I was disappointed that the bacon cheddar fries had gone so fast. I’d just learned a recipe for a dip called fry sauce from a friend, and I wanted to try it once, before I banned it from my “allowed foods” list, forever.
One we’d gotten ahead of the food I’d ordered, and given most of it away to other patrons, it appeared that Sam had left, and we could play pool. The entire bar had fallen in love with Tucker, who I didn’t think had seen that much rapt attention, outside the courtroom, in his entire life. I glance around the pool hall, and when I looked up at him, Tucker was doing the same.
“I think it’s safe. Want to play?” I asked, and he looked at me, guilt in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean anything by not wanting to hang out with your friend. But you might want to teach him some manners, if he’s gonna come back.” His back was stiff, and I could see the ice in his eyes as he scanned the room one more time, before he escorted me to a free table.
“He’s not my friend. I only met him for the first time at the pool, same as you,” I chided. I tried to squash the resentment that made me want to smack him in the arm and tell him to grow up.
“That explains why you abandoned me to him.”
“I am sorry about that. He was acting like he wanted a fight, and I decided maybe if I left, he would, too.” I sighed, and played with my pool cue, looking anywhere but his disappointed face.
“Well, beautiful, I appreciate you trying to prevent trouble. But I know how to use my words, right?” He complained, and I scoffed at him.
“You mean like that one time, back in college? Do you even remember? It was graduation, and that one moron, ummm,”
“Jeff Gardner,” he offered.
“Oh, my God, yes. That’s the one, Jeff Gardner, tried to feel me up under my robe, and offered me a chance to find out first hand that he was nude under his.” I shook my head, laughing at the memory of Jeff, bare ass-up, his robes over his head, after Tucker had knocked him out with one solid blow to the side of his face.
“I was defending your honor.”
“How would a fight tonight been any different?”
“If I fought him tonight, it would either be because I was stupid and fell for him trying to pick a fight, or to defend my pride. As far as he said, you two are real close, and I’m just poking my nose where it doesn’t belong.” I tapped my manicured nails on the side board of the pool table with a satisfying clicking.
“Suddenly, I wish I’d stuck around, called him out on his ego trip.” Tucker racked up the balls and stood back for me to break.
“Nah, it was pretty anticlimactic. I’m sorry you felt like you had to hide from us both; I thought I had myself darn well controlled.”
“He kind of scares me. Sometimes I see his curtains move when I’m coming or going, and it feels like he’s watching me. But when the hearing is over, hopefully, I can move somewhere I feel more comfortable. Especially now that Shaunte and Dale are building a house on the other side of town.” I broke the set, poorly, and within a couple of plays, it was obvious that Tucker wasn’t as rusty at the game as I was. He won, by a lot, and racked up again to give me a chance to redeem myself.
It wasn’t until halfway through the second game, that I realized Tucker had stopped paying attention to the game completely. I glanced in the direction he was staring, and there was Sam, his cowboy hat standing out among the ocean of trucker caps and bandanas most of the crowd here wore.
Tucker excused himself, and disappeared into the crowd that was gathering as the live music started in the other section of the bar. I took my shot, and stood with my back against the wall. I felt wary and out of place once Tucker wasn’t with me, and my pulse raced and my chest squeezed down on my lungs in a vise grip. Looking around, I couldn’t see the cowboy hat, and some of the stiffness bled out of my shoulders.
Sam was hot, built, and attentive, but with him lurking in the corners and watching them, and after what he’d said to Tucker, I’d lost any curiosity I had harbored about him. He just seemed too interested, like he was one of those obsessive types that branded their girlfriends and stalked their exes. The thought made me shudder
I started looking for Tucker again, wondering where he’d gone to, when my spine began to itch, right between my shoulder blades, like I was being watched. I spun around and bit off a squeal as Sam reach out for me, lunging backward and painfully banging my back against the pool table. Before I could speak, or get further out of reach, Tucker slammed his shoulder into Sam and they both pitched to the side.
“Tucker!” I stumbled over their tangled legs as I tried to pry Tucker off Sam before a bouncer showed up, but a pair of hands picked me up and lifted me out of the way as another squeak escaped me. Connor set me down to one side and Isabelle put her arms around me like she was shielding me from danger. He grabbed Tucker, and pulled him to one side, and then Sam disappeared. I saw him helped to a standing position, then he was just gone, as Connor and Isabelle’s friends surrounded him and ushered him out of the bar.
A meaty guy, with impossibly broad shoulders and no visible neck, came back to check on us. He’d heard there was a disturbance, but without evidence of a fight, all he did was warn us to watch ourselves, because he would be. I released the breath I’d been holding when he stomped off and hugged Isabelle and Connor in turn.
“Hey, we saw him sneaking around, and Izzy said you told her he made you nervous, so when Tucker here asked if we’d seen him, we started looking around.” He pointed at a skinny guy in a hunter-or
ange vest, who nodded and crushed his trucker hat in his hands. “Tom over there, he spotted him and held off the bouncer for a sec, so we could help out.” Tom nodded again, blushing, until even the tips of his ears were red.
“It was nothing. I just stayed out of your man’s way, that’s all.” I opened my mouth to argue, but them thinking I was Tucker’s woman was the least of my worries. We gathered our things and closed the tab. Connor and Tom headed out to look around before we left, just to make sure we didn’t run into Sam again without the benefit of backup. I thanked Isabelle and Tucker stopped and talked to Connor, but we didn’t speak to each other until we were alone in the car. Tucker was the first to voice his concern about my proximity to the guy who almost seemed to be stalking me, or at least had a very skewed idea of how to get a girl’s attention.
“I am suddenly very uncomfortable with the idea of you staying at your townhouse alone with Olivia,” he began, while I stared at the bright spot on the road ahead of us, directly in the beam of light from his headlights.
“Well, what else would you suggest? I’m certainly not moving into your place,” I countered. I wanted to get out and walk home, I was so fed up with being manipulated by men who thought I owed them something.
“That was never on the table, but thank you for clearing up your position on it,” he drawled. I saw him roll his eyes before he continued. “I was thinking you might want to spend a few days out at Lago Colina, with or without me.” I felt the fight rain out of me at the suggestion, and I looked out the window as I considered it.
“I don’t know. You’re the only one really worried about him. He’s just a guy who probably isn’t used to hearing ‘no.’ You keep talking about him like he’s that creepy troll who can’t get a date, and he’s stalking me because it’s the only way to get close to me.”
“Could he get close to you?” I stared at him and he shrugged, glancing at me from time to time as he navigated the dark surface roads back to my place.
“I’m not afraid of him, and I’m not afraid of you. But the two of you beating your chests and fighting like animals? That was pretty scary to me.”
“Trust me. You take Olivia to see the horses, and it will be all better when you get back.”
“Okay, Tucker.” I paused, then continued even though I was afraid it would make things worse between us, the words pouring out of my mouth despite my brain begging me to stop. “Andrew would have blamed me first, then grounded me—and after that, he would’ve spent a month judging everything I wore or said as being suggestive or acting like a slut.” Tucker barked out a mirthless laugh.
“Eventually, Libby, you are going to figure out that I’m not Andrew. In fact, no one else is, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another guy just like that, without looking for it.” He paused, and shot me a quick grin. “Or, you could go ahead assume that every guy other than me is like Andrew, and work on remembering that I’m not.”
“Right.” I sighed and watched that steady beam in front of us, and the glowing eyes in the darkness just outside that light that appeared from time to time. I cared about him, more than I wanted to admit. But I didn’t know how to make him understand, that I needed to make it on my own, not as his woman, or hidden away from other men just to keep me at heel.
If he didn’t trust that I was capable on my own, how could we ever be anything to each other? He was a better man than Olivia’s father had been, and she deserved to be as safe as he could make her, as cherished and protected. But it wasn’t his job to do it. It was mine. I was not about to give up the most important responsibility I had in the world: my daughter.
13. Tucker
It was a big reaction to a small thing, and I realized it even as I was making the appropriate calls to get Sam out of Libby’s hair. But still I moved forward, gathering up Olivia and Libby and taking them to the ranch to stay with my family for a few days. I left them in the inestimable care of my parents and older brother, Daniel, and headed back into town to talk to the property managers.
They were full of empathy and compassion, and ran me around in circles until they inadvertently gave me a full name with their correspondence. Once I had a friend at the Austin Police Department stick his name in the system, it was easy enough to find out that, Sam Newton was a man with almost no priors, aside from a few bar fights. He was a former Marine and had been honorably discharged—that was the word from another neighbor lady who liked to gossip—and he now worked in construction.
I was more disappointed than I was willing to admit that the guy wasn’t a pervert. Libby obviously wasn’t going to file a complaint against the good-looking guy across the street just because he didn’t like me taking her out. I cursed to myself and called her at the ranch to check in. I asked if she was willing or wanted to talk to the community management company with me, and file a complaint. She asked me to hold on, and started talking to someone about watching Olivia. I heard the distant sound of my mother’s voice in the background, replying to her. It made my chest ache to hear the woman I had grown to love talking to my mom like they were old friends.
With Libby safely tucked away on Lago Colina, it was easy for me to imagine a life with her by my side, with weekends on the ranch with my family, and Olivia being raised to be a master horse woman. In my fantasy future, Libby had her own successful business, and my life of condominium living was over, replaced by a house with property, and a few horses of my own. But Libby saw me as my profession first, a phantom of her ex-husband second, and in a distant third place, sometimes she saw me. Under those circumstances, we had no chance of a future together.
She came to an agreement with the women of the ranch, and agreed to meet me at my place while Mom and Patty and Rachel took Olivia on an adventure ride somewhere out on the property. We said our goodbyes, and I glanced around the mess of paperwork and take out-boxes and empty beer bottles that made up the current décor of my apartment.
Kennedy was so unused to seeing me clean anymore that she ran to the bedroom to hide once I started picking up my garbage and throwing it away. The sound of glass breaking against glass caused her to bark loudly from the safety of the dark, dusty space beneath my bed.
By the time the front desk buzzed Libby up, the place looked half-decent and no longer smelled like a frat house—so long as we didn’t open the door to the guest room. I started some sweet tea brewing and filled a pitcher with ice, and propped the front door open so Libby could let herself in, wondering why my palms were clammy. I breathed to control my heart rate, which was steadily climbing as I tried to keep myself busy. I was concentrating so hard that I flinched when I looked up to see her standing there, her eyes wandering over my home.
“I’ve never been here before,” she mentioned as she peeked around the corner to see more of the place.
“Well, I’d encourage you to look around, but the guest room is a mess of things I need to organize and I haven’t picked up in a while,” I apologized lamely.
“It’s a lot tidier than I’d imagine for a single guy, living alone. I can’t imagine….” She broke off as Kennedy, hearing her voice, finally came out from under the bed and raced to her, yapping, and grinning so big her tongue was lolling out.
“It wasn’t thirty minutes ago,” I confessed. I handed her a glass of sweet tea across the counter, and motioned for her to sit, but she leaned against the counter and kicked up a leg on one of the barstools. The silence was uncomfortable, not the easy way we usually were with each other.
“Your family’s ranch is really beautiful,” She said, forcing a wry smile as I came around the wide counter and half-sat on the barstool next to her.
“It is. I miss it. Sometimes I wish I had more excuses to visit so I could spend more time out there.” She scoffed at me.
“I didn’t know you needed a reason to spend time with your family. I wish I had that liberty,” she said in a scolding tone. Both her parents were gone, and I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her to be surrounded by
people who just wanted to make her happy.
“They’re good people, aren’t they?” I asked, as she flashed me a grin, before her face grew pensive.
“It was hard to leave, even to come home and take care of business,” she admitted. I laughed and saluted her with my sweet tea, the ice clinking pleasantly in the glass as I brought it to my lips.
“Your hearing is next week, and now this guy is being a creepy stalker. How do you stay so calm? My blood pressure is through the roof, and I’m sweating like a pig, and it’s not even my life we’re talking about.” I dabbed at my forehead and face with a towel from the island counter top, as she chuckled at me.
“Well, I don’t know why you’re so upset. You said he wasn’t a creepy stalker, just a former marine who seems to find me interesting.”
“It doesn’t stop me from having the urge to scoop you up and hide you in my bedroom until this is all over.” She rolled her eyes at me and shook her head.
“And that’s why we can’t date, Tucker. I don’t want to be hidden away. I want to be propped up when I start to fail, not sealed into a box so I can never succeed.”
“You think my desire to keep you safe is going to prevent you from succeeding?” I huffed, drained my glass, and slammed it down on the counter harder than in had intended. “It doesn’t make me a Neanderthal to want you to be safe from men who don’t like ‘no,’ or to want you to win this contestation,” I ground out, frustration adding gravel to my voice. “Did you ever consider that I want those things so that you have financial freedom to build your business, and that you matter to me, that Olivia matters to me?” I paced in front of her, my arms folded across my chest, trying to stay angry. Kennedy had begun to pace with me, heeling perfectly like we’d been working on recently.
I stopped pacing and looked down at my sweet-faced little girl, her tail going as she sat and patiently waited for her reward. Libby watched me, her face set in stubborn pride.