Smythe finished the last box on the checklist and handed her a pen. She signed and dated. He glanced at the uneven paint line between contractor white and soft beige. “They’ll have to repaint.”
Every day for the past six months that unfinished paint job taunted her, a sore blister that time rubbed raw. She and Ryder had never finished. They’d only been in the house for a few months before— “That’s not my problem.”
“I could probably get this place for a song,” Smythe bragged. “Set you up right.”
Lauren tossed the pen on the counter next to the key. The realtor was the lowest piece of dung on the dung heap. “You offering to be my sugar daddy?”
“If you were nicer, I might let you keep the place another month. See where it goes from there.”
“Does that ever work?” Not a chance in hell it would work on her. She’d starve before prostituting herself to the dirty old buzzard.
“You’d be surprised. A woman like you needs a man.”
Lauren made a line for the front door. Regret followed her through the now empty living room. It had been a hopeful place once. “I have a man.”
Liar.
“We both know your husband isn’t coming back.” He boxed her against the door, letting a certain part of his anatomy rub her hip.
Fire licked up her spine. “You know what, I’ve changed my mind.”
“Yeah.” His breath brushed her hair and surrounded her with the smell of cigarettes and peppermint.
“I’m not going to break your wrist.” She shoved him off and followed by ramming the heel of her hand into his weathered face. “I’m going to break your nose.”
Blood gushed and he backed away. “Stupid, bitch.”
Lauren jerked open the door before he could retaliate. She had surprise on her side, but the man was taller and meaner. “Come near me again, you lowlife son of a carpetbagger, and I’ll pull out my granddaddy’s castration knife.” She ran the path alone and jumped into her granddaddy’s Ford. Resting her head on the steering wheel, she fought tears. Every good memory of her marriage was in that house. Every bad memory too.
CHAPTER TWO
Lauren wanted a hot bath, a glass of wine, and the promise of a good night’s sleep. What she got was country music, a loud dance floor, thirsty patrons, and the promise of six hours wearing cowboy boots and a smile as plastic the beer mugs she carried. Soldiers filled the rustic booth to overflowing. Sunday night and they were ready to party.
“What can I get you, gentlemen?”
They responded to her synthetic smile with good-natured grins that spoke of youth and a serious lack of problems. They ordered beer and shots—tequila, God help ‘em. “No problem. As soon as I see some ID.” She smiled and winked to soothe the sting.
“It’s Baby Face, isn’t it?” The soldier closest to her asked, pointing to the guy in the corner with whisker-free cheeks. “We get carded every time he’s with us.”
“It’s all y’all,” she joked, laying her palm flat for his ID. “Pony up, boys, if you want to drink.”
They were loud, but respectful, and barely legal to drink. They looked like babies. Nothing like—
Nope. She cut that thought right out of her head. At the bar, she steered past Wade, the cowboy with more hands than a dude ranch, and hit the other end with a seriously bad attitude. “Remind me why I do this?”
The bartender’s lips lifted, showing pretty white teeth and a sarcastic smile. “Because you like to eat.”
“It’s a reason.” The boss was gone for the night, so Lauren leaned her backside against an empty barstool.
“Not a good one.” Debi chuckled as she filled Lauren’s order. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you all week. Finish your story before we get busy. Did you break his nose?”
“The hit landed solid, but I was shaking harder than a heifer in an ice storm.” Truth be told, the only thing keeping her rubbery legs from giving out was pure spite. A minute and a block later, and she’d had to pull over as a panic attack turned her vision hazy.
“He got off lightly.” Debi raised her voice over the blaring country music. She pulled two draft beers and set them on Lauren’s tray.
“You’re absolutely right. Guys like Smythe are the reason I’m swearing off men.”
“I thought your husband was the reason.”
“Him too.”
“Ryder would have killed Smythe.” Debi added two bottled beers and four shots to the tray. “Speaking of—”
“Don’t say his name again.” She hadn’t let herself think or say his name in months.
“Okay, if that’s how you want to be.” Debi gestured with her head, the move subtle. “Because he who shall not be named is standing there large as life.”
Lauren’s heart skipped as everything froze. Silence wrapped her in a bubble that stopped time. The music silenced and the crowd noise dropped. The barstool swiveled as she—
Debi grabbed her arm and lashed her into place. “Don’t look.”
Right. Don’t look, because he’d left without a word. Dropped off the planet. He didn’t deserve the thunder in her chest, the nearly impossible pull to turn and drink him in. “I’m not even tempted.”
Debi laughed and sound whooshed back—the music, the clank of pool balls, the raucous voices—roared into her head and drowned all thoughts. An image formed, unbidden. The absent smile on his hard face, the quick kiss and go in the kitchen before he ran to help a friend.
Be back soon.
Nope. Thoughts were there after all. The memory of the standoff aggravated what she suspected was the start of an ulcer. The television news stole her focus that day, as paint dried on the rollers and brushes of their unfinished project. Ryder had looked like a complete badass walking through the police barricade. When he’d lifted his shirt to show he wasn’t armed, he’d revealed hard-packed flesh she had once considered hers.
When gunfire had sounded inside the house, she’d feared Ryder was dead. Impossible because Ryder was invincible. The onsite reporter had drawn out the agony until the camera showed him exit the building behind uniformed police, looking like he had the first day after his last deployment. Eyes dead, posture slumped, movements slow.
Losing Madigan had knocked something loose in Ryder’s psyche, and rather than come home, he’d taken a walk. He took a piece of her with him, one she wouldn’t get back and maybe didn’t want. She wasn’t the same girl, didn’t want picket fences and forever. No, she was more like her mother now. Broken, because she knew forever didn’t exist.
Her mother was the widow of a soldier, and she’d never been the same after his death. She’d never dated as far as Lauren knew. Lauren wasn’t going down that road. Life did not stop when a man went away. Grieving was a natural part of the process, so she’d mourned Ryder until she couldn’t cry another tear or wish another impossible dream. And then she’d sucked it up and returned to the land of the living.
Debi rubbed her arm. “You okay?”
“It couldn’t get much worse.”
“Sure it could.” Debi lifted her gaze to the ceiling as if giving it great thought. “If the man who broke your heart showed up with another woman.”
That did it. “I’ll kill him.”
“Stop.” Debi dug her nails into Lauren’s arm. “I was just showing you, it could always be worse.”
“Great freaking joke.” The thunder in her chest matched the music. “Maybe I should kill you instead.”
“You could, but then you wouldn’t have a place to sleep tonight.”
“Jail.” Lauren’s heart still pounded at the mere thought of Ryder finding another woman to love. “In jail, I’d get three meals a day and a cot.”
“There’s the gallows humor I know and love.” Debi patted her arm. “You want me to call in a replacement?”
“No. Sunday tips are usually my best. I can handle it.” Sure. Despite the ache in her chest, Lauren struggled to act like she didn’t know who stood on the other side of the b
ar. Ryder was as sleek as a panther with dark hair, dark eyes, and a darker soul. He met every single checkbox on her fall-in-love checklist—including emotionally unavailable—and she’d fallen before common sense could talk her out of something as reckless as loving a soldier.
The past few months had taught her a few lessons, losing their house taught her another, so when she turned to face her husband in name only, she wore her happy-assed waitress face.
Yep, still good-looking as sin. Ryder wore black leather now, as if he wasn’t enough of a bad boy before. The military cut had grown out, leaving his hair a dark mass of curls that drew her fingers. Lauren tightened her grip on the tray. She ignored his nod and the fluttering pulse in her throat. Instead, she delivered drinks to the booth filled with the soldiers from the post.
Lauren hit the next booth with a smile.
“Hey, Professor.” The petite redhead was a student in one of Lauren’s advanced history classes. They thought it was fun to harass their instructor afterhours at the bar.
“Anna, what can I get you?”
Anna smiled, showing a dimple in a baby face that hid a wicked sense of humor. “Beers all around.”
The girl next to Anna shook her head. “Designated driver, so I’ll have a coffee.”
“Draw the short straw again, Beth?”
“It is my cross to bear. One of these days, I’m going home with one of those.” Beth gestured at the soldiers in the next booth. “And these losers can catch a cab ride home.”
At the idea of taking a soldier home, Lauren lifted her gaze, unerringly finding Ryder. His gaze locked onto hers and the temperature in the bar went up ten degrees. Feeling the flush down bare legs to the tips of her steel-toed boots, she turned back to the booth. “Good luck with that,” she told Beth. “Coffee’s on the house.”
Debi was filling another order, so Lauren moved around to pour coffee. “Three drafts,” she told Debi.
“You going to ignore Ryder all night?”
This time Lauren resisted the pull of his magnetic gaze. “He left me.”
Traffic in the bar had picked up, filling more tables and raising the crowd volume several decibels. Debi pulled the drafts while talking. “Don’t you want to know why?”
Yes. But talking to Ryder was more punishment than pleasure. “No.” Lauren grabbed the mugs of beer and placed them on the tray next to the coffee. “He can’t just show up at my work and expect—”
“Better here than the university.”
Lauren groaned. Dr. Crawford was looking for an excuse to pull her from the PhD program. When the head of the history department had discovered she worked the late shift at the local watering hole, as he called it, he’d flipped a lid. He’d been finding extra work for her ever since. There wasn’t a task menial enough in his mind, but what the hell did he want from her? A girl had to eat, and teaching only covered the cost of tuition.
Debi mixed drinks for the waitress on the other end of the bar, which freed Lauren from a conversation she didn’t want. Maybe she should act like a grownup and talk to Ryder, but she didn’t feel like a grownup. In fact, this was a sucky week to be an adult. She would pay good money to live like a carefree undergrad, cramped in a booth with nothing on her mind but boys and booze.
Lauren worked the room, covering her tables and avoiding Ryder who had taken a seat in a shadowy corner near the emergency exit. In the past, she’d romanticized those behaviors like he was a lone wolf watching his back, but she was done lying to herself. The need for a wall at his back was awareness born of experience. He’d fought—long and hard—for his country, and the paranoia was a natural byproduct, but the real problem predated the military.
Ryder needed an emergency exit. In all places and situations. Six months ago, he’d taken the exit at the speed of grand theft auto. The lone wolf image wasn’t romantic anymore.
Lauren released the tension in her neck before making another round through her tables. When she got back to the soldiers, they bought a round of shots for the undergrads. Shocker. The girls grinned when Lauren brought the tray. “Compliments of the gentlemen next door.” She gestured to the next booth. “If you’re taking a shot,” she said to the designated driver, “I get the keys. If you don’t have another drink, I’ll give them back in an hour.”
Beth knew the drill. Lauren was protective of her students, even when they were off campus and not technically her responsibility. Beth handed over the keys, which Lauren pocketed. The girls took the shots with a squeal of high-energy laughter, before leaning over the back of the booth to thank the soldiers. Moments later, the entire gaggle headed to the packed dance floor.
The melancholy country song rubbed a raw nerve as Lauren bussed a table and set up a new round for a group who came in after the movies. Wade, the frisky cowboy from the bar, moved to sit in her section. He wore tight Wrangler’s on his lean frame and a thick leather belt holding it all together in a fine looking package. The rancher was close to her age with the build of a cowboy and the heart of a poet. Lauren stiffened her spine. “What can I get you, Wade?”
“Your number.” The dimples used to do it for her, add in blond hair and a Texas twang, and he was just about perfect. Here was a man who would stick, but he’d made a nuisance of himself the last few weeks, badgering her to go out with him. “You’re not wearing your wedding ring,” he said with a wink.
Lauren ran a thumb over the groove where her wedding ring belonged. “Don’t read anything into it, Wade. What can I get you from the bar?”
“Long neck.”
The moment the words left his lips, she hightailed it to the bar, grabbing the bottle of beer while Debi mixed a drink. She took the beer back and avoided his grabby hands. In the corner, Ryder glared, but Lauren shook her head no. The last thing she needed was a fight. If she lost this job, she’d be starving as well as homeless. One more semester. She’d sacrificed a normal life to get her doctorate. Fate would not be so cruel as to take it from her now.
Lauren lost track of Wade and Ryder as the one-more-for-the-road crowd showed, fighting for every last minute of the weekend. Every seat in her section filled, except for the empty seat across from Wade, which she kept between her and Wade at all times. He was an affable drunk most nights, but when one beer turned to three, a wise woman used all the barriers she could find.
Her red cowboy boots started to squeeze her tired feet, but she worked through her break, racking up tips and keeping her brain too busy to think. Maneuvering through the tables with a full tray, Lauren took a direct route through the center of the bar, and didn’t think twice about it until Wade ran a hand over her barely clad backside. Dang. She’d forgotten to bypass his table. Lauren jumped, nearly dumping the tray onto the next table. Across the room, Ryder stood. She heard the quick screech of the chair legs against the wood floor. Or maybe she was simply that aware.
So. Not. Good.
CHAPTER THREE
Lauren delivered the drinks with all the grace of a newborn calf. The rage on Ryder’s face sent her on a collision course with disaster. She intercepted him five steps from Wade. “I’m taking my break,” she hollered at Debi. Not waiting for a response, Lauren used her tray to back Ryder away from the crowd like a rancher with a cattle prod. Actually touching him was much too tempting. He let her push him into the back hall by the manager’s office. “What are you doing here?”
“What I’m about to do is teach a cowboy some manners. No one lays a hand on my woman.”
Her traitorous heart did a loop-the-loop in her chest. The possessive tone used to get her juices flowing. She’d liked being his woman, once upon a time. Lauren positioned her body between Ryder and his quarry. “You’ve lost the right to go all caveman protective.”
He backed away as if she’d whacked him with the tray. “You’re still my wife.”
“That can be remedied.” Not the time or the place. Lauren herded him deeper into the hall so their conversation didn’t become a public spectacle.
�
��You’re still mine, Lauren,” he said, his tone low and reasonable. The reasonableness pushed her over the edge. The last thing she needed was her estranged husband mucking up her life even more.
“Honey, you can’t call dibs on a human being.” Her tone rose high enough to shatter glass. “Like calling something mine makes it so, because if it did, I’d be driving around town in a Porsche instead of Granddaddy’s broken down Ford. Ain’t nothing here that was yours.” Using the tray, she backed him against the office door. “Anything you left behind is at the DAV thrift store. They put a price tag on things, and let me tell you, yours wasn’t worth much.”
“I—”
“No. I don’t want to hear it.” She punctuated the words by stabbing a finger into his chest, the solid, muscular flesh tempting her like a shoe store clearance sale. “Damn you and the horse you rode in on, Ryder.” Hysteria stole the force from her words. Tears shimmered so it was like looking through a storm cloud. “I thought you were dead.”
He wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her into his warmth, the tray clattering to the ground. She resisted, stood stiff with her palms braced against him, pushing away like an angry cat, her claws digging into his drool-worthy pecs. “I was dead without you,” he said, his tone as rough as a dried-up creek bed. The texture of his voice put her in the mood for hot sex on a cold winter night.
Kill me now.
The man knew how to push her buttons with his practiced moves and smooth words and a deep voice that zipped desire straight to her underpants. Lauren’s claws retracted and her body softened against his, even as her mind argued against forgiveness. “Love is an action word, Ryder. Your sweet words don’t buy you a pass.” Lauren shook her head to clear the emotional storm. “Not this time—”
“Yes.” Raw need swelled in his gravelly voice, the sound hitting below the belt. He was a walking fantasy and she was all too familiar with his ability to blow her mind, but her wounded pride demanded she grow a pair.
Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) Page 2