Chapter 4
FOUR
RAE
The man sitting across from me doesn’t move much, which somehow makes him more noticeable than everyone else in the room combined.
He sits like a man who’s used to being patient, like stillness is something he practices.
Broad shoulders, rough hands around the neck of his beer, dark eyes that don’t wander around the room the way most men’s do when they sit at a bar.
No. His attention stays on me. Which is… interesting.
“So,” I say, tapping my bottle lightly against the bar. “Ghost.”
He watches me for a second like he’s deciding whether the conversation is worth continuing. I get the feeling most people don’t get very far with him. Eventually he exhales slowly and shakes his head once. “That’s just what people call me.”
“Ah,” I say. “So you do have a real name.”
Another pause. Then he says it. “Cole.”
Just a regular guy name attached to a man who just dropped three grown men in a parking lot like it was light exercise. “Cole,” I repeat, rolling the word around like I’m testing it. “I like that better than Cole. Sounds less like you’re about to haunt someone’s attic.”
His mouth twitches slightly, which I’m starting to realize is the closest thing this man has to a smile. Then he takes a slow drink of his beer and sets the bottle down again. “You’ve worked here a long time,” he says.
“Since I was sixteen,” I answer easily.
His eyes flick briefly toward Wayne down the bar, then back to me again. “He’s your boss?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out simple, but something must show in my expression because Cole studies me a little closer.
“You stepped in pretty fast back there.”
I shrug, but there’s no humor in it this time. “They’ve been coming in for a few weeks,” I say. “First it was little comments. Then they started hanging around closing time. Tonight they decided to get bold.”
His jaw tightens slightly. “They ask Wayne for money?”
“Protection,” I say with exaggerated air quotes. “Which is funny, because the only thing they looked capable of protecting was a bad haircut.”
That actually gets a quiet breath of laughter out of him.
Score one for me.
He leans back slightly on the stool, studying me again with that calm, assessing look. “You weren’t scared.”
I snort. “Of those guys? Please.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You followed a fight into a dark parking lot.”
“Curiosity,” I say again, taking another sip of my drink.
Then I gesture loosely at him. “And also I wanted to see if the quiet guy in the corner was actually as scary as he looked.”
“And?”
I grin. “Still deciding.”
That earns me another one of those almost-smiles. Then he tilts his head slightly, like he’s shifting the conversation. “You live around here?”
“Outside town,” I say. “Little farmhouse. Technically falling apart, but it’s mine.”
“Just you?”
I shake my head. “God no.”
His brow furrows slightly.
I take a sip of my beer. “Animals,” I explain. “A lot of them.”
“How many is a lot?”
I grin. “Well… if we’re counting the goats, three dogs, two cats, a one-eyed donkey, and a rooster that thinks he’s the mayor…” I shrug. “Enough that my grocery bill is offensive.”
He studies me for a second like he’s trying to decide if I’m serious. “You run a farm.”
“I run a rescue zoo with bad management skills.”
Cole stares at me for a second like he’s waiting for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, his eyebrows lift slightly.
“That’s a fuckload of animals.”
I grin immediately because the way he says it is so serious it almost sounds like he’s assessing a military situation.
“First of all,” I say, holding up a finger, “language. Some of those animals are very sensitive.”
His mouth twitches again, that almost-smile he keeps trying to hide.
“And second,” I add, leaning forward on the bar a little, “they’re rescues. Most of them showed up half starved or dumped on the side of the road. I just… kept them.”
“You kept them,” he repeats slowly.
“Yeah.”
He glances down at his beer for a second before looking back up at me again, like he’s replaying that sentence in his head.
“You know most people would stop after the first three.”
I shrug.
“Most people don’t have a one-eyed donkey named Pickle who screams if he’s left alone too long.”
That finally gets a real reaction out of him. Not a big one, but the corner of his mouth lifts enough that I know I cracked something.
“Pickle,” he says.
“Don’t judge him,” I tell him quickly. “He had the name before I got him.”
“Sure he did.”
“And the rooster,” I continue, ignoring that, “is named Sheriff because he patrols the fence line like he’s protecting the property.”
Cole studies me like he’s trying to figure out if I’m messing with him or not.
“You live out there alone with all of them?”
“Yep.”
“No help.”
“Nope.”
His eyes narrow just a little, and the expression on his face changes from amusement to something more thoughtful.
“That’s a lot of responsibility.”
I shrug again, but there’s less joking in the movement this time. “They needed somewhere to go.”
“You’ve got a habit of picking up strays,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow. “You calling yourself a stray, Cole?”
“Cole.”
“Right,” I say, leaning back slightly and studying him again. “Cole.”
“So tell me something,” I add, tapping the neck of my bottle against the bar. “You ride into town, quietly handle three guys who’ve been harassing my boss all week, and then sit here acting like you don’t want credit for it.”
His gaze flicks to Wayne down the bar again before returning to me.
“That bar matters to him,” he says.
I nod slowly. “Yeah.” A small pause settles between us before I add, “It matters to me too.”
“I noticed.”
I lean forward again, lowering my voice slightly like we’re sharing a secret even though the rest of the bar is loud enough that nobody could hear us anyway. “So are you going to tell me why an Iron Reapers biker suddenly decided Wayne’s problems were his problems?” I ask.
His eyes hold mine for a moment. Then he says quietly, “Mason asked me to take a look.”
My eyebrows lift. “Mason as in Mason-Mason? President of the Iron Reapers?”
He nods once.
“Well that explains a lot,” I mutter.
His head tilts slightly. “You know him.”
“Everybody around here knows him,” I say. “Half the town is terrified of the Iron Reapers and the other half pretends they’re not.”
“And you?”
I grin. “I work in a bar, Cole. I stopped being easily intimidated a long time ago.”
He studies me again, quieter this time. “You weren’t scared earlier either.”
I shrug. “I had a feeling you had it handled.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“Then I would’ve grabbed a baseball bat.”
His brow lifts slightly. “You keep one behind the bar?”
“Two,” I correct.
For a second he just looks at me. Then he shakes his head slightly, almost like he’s impressed even though he probably doesn’t want to admit it. “You’re something else,” he mutters.
I grin again. “Yeah,” I say. “I hear that a lot.”