by Sandra Owens
He slammed his empty beer bottle down on the bar. “Again!”
The bartender warily approached him. “Maybe you’ve had enough?”
Jack growled. “I say when I’ve had enough.”
A miniscule voice he was determined to ignore tried telling him that he didn’t act like this. But he was entitled to act like an ass. Not every day a doctor got to ruin your life. The doctor’s report would probably land on his commander’s desk bright and early tomorrow morning.
Goodbye fucking Jack. You’re no use to your team anymore. A farewell hooyah to you, boyo.
“Saw your truck outside, thought I’d have a word with you.”
Jack grinned at hearing the voice of Nichole’s ex. He swiveled on the barstool—barely managing not to fall off—and met the gaze of the man he’d very much like to put a hurt on for all the times the prick had hurt Nichole.
“Got nothing to say,” he said, glad that he’d managed not to slur his words. He wouldn’t start something, but if the asshole wanted to mix it up, Jack’s black mood made him ready for a fight. Before his doctor’s appointment, he would have worried about doing more damage to his arm. Now, he gave zero fucks.
“Then you just sit there and listen, ’cause I got something to say. Stay away from Nichole.”
“Go to hell.” Done with this conversation, Jack turned back to his still empty bottle.
“I’m talking to you,” Gregory said, pushing Jack’s shoulder, the damaged one.
“Touch me one more time, asshole, and you’ll need to see a doctor about your broken fingers.”
“You two start something in here, and I’ll call the cops. Take it outside if you’re gonna fight.” The bartender snatched away Jack’s empty beer bottle.
Jack watched the bottle disappear into the trash. “Rather have another beer.”
When on duty, he’d do whatever he had to in the service of his country and to protect his teammates. Off-duty, different story. He wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t have anything to prove and walked away if trouble started brewing. All he wanted to do right now was sit on this barstool and drown his misery in alcohol.
“Pussy.” Gregory sneered. “Afraid I’ll—”
“I’ve been afraid of things you can’t begin to imagine. You, not so much.” Jack slapped his hand on the counter as he stood. “A word of advice, though. You really ought to walk away while you still can.”
He should probably clue the douchebag in that he was messing with a SEAL, one highly trained in the art of combat, including how to kill a man with his bare hands.
Gregory snorted. “Quaking in my boots, pal. I’ll be waiting outside.” He took a step away, then paused. “You can leave with your pretty-boy face still intact. All you gotta do is get the fuck out of Nichole’s life.”
The miniscule obligation he’d felt to tell Gregory who he was took a hike. Jack was a firm believer in karma. Why else on a day he had zero fucks to give had he ended up in a biker bar that Gregory apparently frequented? He followed the man out.
“Look,” Jack said, stopping a few feet in front of Gregory. “This is bullshit. Nichole doesn’t want you in her life, and that has nothing to do with me. Respect her wishes, and we don’t have a problem. No need for fists.”
When Gregory came at him, Jack sighed. “So be it,” he muttered.
Using the man’s forward momentum against him, Jack leaned back, and when Gregory was close, Jack grabbed his wrist. He used his strength to twist it enough to hurt as he swept his leg behind Gregory’s ankle and tripped him. Gregory hit the pavement facedown, and Jack crouched, pressing his knee into the man’s upper back.
“Had enough?”
“Go to hell.”
He twisted the wrist harder. “I forgot to mention that I’m a SEAL, so oops on that. What that means is I know all kinds of ways to put a serious hurt on you without breaking a sweat. Witness the fact that you’re eating dirt right now, and I’m not even breathing hard.”
Maybe if Gregory knew he was messing with a SEAL, he’d be smart enough to go away and leave Nichole alone. When Gregory tried to buck him off, Jack rolled his eyes. The dude was an idiot.
“Here’s how this is gonna go. I’m going to let go of you. If you come at me again, I really will hurt you. If you bother Nichole again, I promise that I’ll make you sorry. So be smart and forget you ever knew her.”
He glanced up to see the bartender standing a few feet away, his arms crossed as he watched them. Jack stood and stepped back. “He’s not smart, this one,” he said to the bartender.
“You’ve had your fun, now I want both of you gone.”
Jack dipped his chin. “Works for me.”
The bartender disappeared back inside, and Jack was halfway to his truck when he heard footsteps pounding on the asphalt. Spinning, he wasn’t surprised to see Gregory heading for him. Well, he’d warned the asshole. As soon as the man’s knee was in striking distance, Jack kicked, the heel of his boot landing hard on Gregory’s kneecap. Gregory screamed as he crumpled to the ground.
Jack leaned over him. “Believe it or not, I’m still taking it easy on you. But my patience is wearing thin. This is your last warning.”
* * *
Jack jerked awake at the sound of loud motorcycle pipes. Where the hell was he?
He scanned the area around him, his gaze passing over the biker bar and then jerking back to it. He was trained to process intel, and what he processed had him frowning. He’d been in that bar only...he glanced at his watch. Two hours ago?
Damn it. He had the feeling he needed to remember. There was the doctor snatching Jack’s world out from under him, and then he’d stopped at the first bar he’d come to. Right, he’d been happily drinking until Nichole’s ex had shown up.
Nichole.
He fumbled for his phone in the pocket of his jeans. As he blinked to clear the haze out of his eyes, his gaze fell on his bloody knuckles. He frowned at them, then looked up, zeroing in on the bar’s parking lot. Nothing to be seen there, and he let out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t left a dead body in his wake.
At least he hadn’t been stupid enough to try to drive home. He remembered thinking that he would call an Uber, but then he must have fallen asleep. Since he still had no business driving, he made the call, arriving home thirty minutes later.
Seeing Nichole’s car in his driveway and her sitting on his porch swing, he almost told the Uber driver to keep going. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. His mood was too black, and he didn’t want to talk about his afternoon...none of it. Not his doctor’s appointment, not the shoulder that would keep him from returning to his team, not his fight with her ex, and especially not the parts he couldn’t remember.
Chapter Nineteen
Nichole frowned at the unfamiliar car pulling up behind hers. When Jack stepped out from the back, she realized it was an Uber, and that was puzzling. Maybe his truck had broken down.
“Hey,” she said when he was on the porch. He swayed, and she frowned as she studied his face. He stared back at her with bloodshot and unfocused eyes. He was drunk!
“Jack?”
He turned away, fumbled with his keys, finally managing to unlock his door, then disappeared inside. What was she supposed to do? Leave? Follow him inside? The only thing she knew he had planned for the day was his doctor’s appointment. What had happened between then and now?
Dakota walked out the door he’d left open, came to her, and if Nichole wasn’t mistaken, the dog wore a worried expression. She knew her master, and if there was something wrong with Jack, Dakota would pick up on that. Maybe it was her imagination, but Dakota seemed to want her to do something.
“What’s going on, girl?”
Dakota whined, then walked to the door. She glanced back at Nichole. The dog wanted her to come inside. Had Jack purposely left the door open so she’d
come in? The way he’d looked at her, though, made her wary. He clearly hadn’t been happy to see her on his porch. Dakota whined again.
“I wish you could talk so you could tell me what’s going on.”
She took a deep breath, then followed Dakota. The dog led her through the living room and to the French doors leading to Jack’s back deck. He was sprawled in a chair, a beer in his hand with three unopened bottles on the table next to him. His gaze was on the mountains, but his eyes were so unfocused that she doubted he saw them.
“Jack?” She slipped onto the chair on the other side of the table. “Can I have one?” she asked, picking up one of the bottles. She hadn’t known him a long time, but she’d been with him enough to know being drunk wasn’t his normal.
“You need to go home,” he said without looking at her.
“Please, tell me what happened.” She touched his arm and felt like crying when he flinched. Her gaze fell on his hands, on the bloody knuckles. “Jack?” she gasped. “You’re bleeding.”
He held up his hands, frowned, and without a word, twisted the cap off a second beer, guzzling half of it. Dakota, sitting at his feet and staring at him with worried eyes, whined. Deciding she wasn’t leaving until she found out why he was pouring beer down his throat like a man living in hell and beer was the only weapon against the fire threatening to consume him, she tried to twist the cap off the bottle she’d picked up.
When she was unsuccessful, he sighed, snatched the bottle from her, opened it, and then set it next to her on the table with enough force to cause beer to geyser out the top.
If she didn’t know that he was a gentle soul, a sweet man with a kind heart, his anger would have scared her, would have sent her fleeing. But no matter his rage, she trusted him. Knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
“What happened at your doctor’s appointment?” It had to be something related to that.
He finished off the remaining beer in his bottle, staggered to his feet, stumbled over Dakota, and caught the railing to keep from faceplanting to the deck. “Damn dog,” he muttered.
At the door he paused, his chin dropping to his chest. “My shoulder’s permanently damaged. Won’t be returning to my team.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry.”
She knew what returning to his team had meant to him, and what a devastating blow it was that it wasn’t going to happen. She would never admit it to him, however, but tremendous relief flowed through her that he wouldn’t be putting himself in danger again.
“Sorry doesn’t get me back to my brothers.” He finally looked at her, the warmth for her that used to be in his eyes gone. “That’s all that mattered to me. You know the way out.”
Nichole glanced down at her chest, almost expecting to see a knife stabbed through her heart. She startled when he went inside, the door slamming behind him. The tears pooling in her eyes stung, and she tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.
That’s all that mattered to me.
How could six words hurt so much?
* * *
“You were supposed to call me after you got to Jack’s,” Mark said when she got home. “Are we still going out to celebrate?”
She’d completely forgotten about that. What she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and pull the covers over her head, but there was so much excitement in his eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to disappoint him, so she buried her hurt and forced herself to smile.
“Jack’s not feeling well, but yes, you and I are going to celebrate your amazing future as a game creator. Give me time to take a quick shower and change.”
“Yeah, okay.”
At seeing the disappointment on his face, she wanted to march back to Jack’s and give him a piece of her mind. Not that it would matter to him. She treated Mark to dinner and then claimed a headache when he wanted to go to a downtown nightclub.
Later that night, alone in her room, she called Rachel.
“Hey, girl. What’s up?” Rachel said.
“Just missing you. Why can’t you get hired for a movie filming around here?”
“That would be awesome, but that’s not why you’re calling. What’s wrong?”
Nichole sighed. “How can you read me so well from three thousand miles away?”
“I got magic, remember?”
“You do, and it’s spooky.”
“So spit it out. What’s got you sounding like you lost your best friend?”
“Remember the guy I told you about?”
“The SEAL?”
“Yeah, him. Things were really going great. He even asked me to wait for him while he was on deployment.” Nichole swallowed past the lump in her throat. What if he no longer wanted that?
“That’s great, but?”
“But he found out his shoulder’s permanently damaged from the bomb—”
“What does that have to do with the two of you? It doesn’t mean you can’t still be together, right?”
“You’d think so, but he came home drunk after his doctor’s appointment, and he was pretty mean.”
“I’ll come there and make him sorry if he hurt you. You got out of an abusive relationship. You sure don’t need another man like that.”
“No. Jack would never physically harm me. He just hurt my feelings. If something like that was going on with me, I’d turn to him for comfort and support. He doesn’t want me anywhere near him.”
“It’s a man thing. When something goes wrong, they’re like a hurt dog that just wants to crawl in a hole, lick its wounds, and growl at anyone who dares to come near. It’s the equivalent of a girl pity party, but without the ice cream and wine. Don’t take it personal.”
But she did. “So, every time something doesn’t go his way, he’ll shut me out? That doesn’t work for me.” She was falling hard for him, but if that was going to be how it was with them, she’d rather end it now before he owned every piece of her heart. Besides, she didn’t matter to him.
“Then don’t see him anymore. It’s as simple as that.”
It hurt to think of never seeing Jack again, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the burn.
“Not what you want, huh?” Rachel said when she didn’t respond.
“No, but it’s the smart thing to do.” When she’d left Jack’s house, she’d told herself that once he got past his disappointment, he’d realize he didn’t mean what he’d said. But his shutting her out had festered, growing from just being hurt to questioning their relationship if that was the way he dealt with problems.
“Listen, you really like this guy, so give yourself some time to think. Is walking away from him what you really want to do?”
“I don’t know.” She hated feeling torn. Her brain said walk away, but her heart didn’t want to listen.
“Let me play Dr. Phil for a minute.”
“Can I stop you?”
Rachel laughed. “Nope. Lane messed with your head, and now you’re afraid to trust your judgment. You also came out of that mess determined to be on equal footing with any man you had a relationship with.”
“I’d say I’m finally making smart decisions.” So why did it hurt so much?
“Are you really?”
“I don’t know, Rach. I just don’t know.”
* * *
Jack groaned when he opened his eyes to the sun shining in his living room window. And what the hell was that pounding? His head? He blinked several times, then frowned. Apparently, he’d crashed on his sofa, even still had his boots on. When he stretched his neck, a pain shot up his skull.
The reason for getting a drunk on hadn’t gone away but getting plastered didn’t solve any problems. He was a SEAL, and SEALs sucked it up. That didn’t change even when he soon wouldn’t be one. As for his future...he didn’t have an answer to that question except that one thing hadn’t changed. He still wanted Nichole in his li
fe.
An image of her walking away last night—hurt on her face and in her eyes because of how he’d treated her—filled his mind. He didn’t remember anything he’d said to her, but he did know he needed to apologize. All she’d wanted to do was comfort him, be there for him. Being drunk and angry was no excuse for how he’d rejected her. He pushed up, then dropped his throbbing head into his hands. He was an ass.
When he picked up Mark, he’d see Nichole and, well...grovel. He should pick up some flowers on his way over. And chocolate because he had a feeling he owed her a big apology. He wished he could remember exactly what to apologize for.
He glanced at his watch. “Shit!” He should have been at her house an hour ago to get Mark. First, he needed to call Ron and let him know they were running late. He hated disappointing the dogs as much as he did Ron. Seemed like he was letting everyone down. He sniffed under his arm. A shower was definitely in order. He smelled like sweat and beer. And why were his knuckles bloody?
What was that damn pounding?
“Police. Open the door.”
“The hell?”
Before he reached the door, it was kicked in and four uniformed cops fanned out in front of him, two with guns drawn. Jack stuck his hands in the air. What the devil was going on?
Dakota growled, and the cop closest to her aimed his gun at her.
“Friends,” he quickly said. “Down.” She lowered her belly to the floor, but she wasn’t quite believing the strangers in the room were friends. Her eyes were alert on the men, and her ears were pinned back.
Jack leveled his gaze on the officer pointing his gun at her. “She’s a highly trained military dog, owned by the government.” Well, she used to be, but they didn’t need to know that she was no longer their property. “She won’t attack unless I tell her to.”
“She does and government dog or not, I’ll shoot her.”
Jack gritted his teeth, biting back an angry retort.
“On your knees, feet spread, hands on your head,” one of the officers barked while the two without their guns out took positions on each side of him.