Chapter 3 #2
If it were up to her, and laws be damned, she’d have shot the bastard on sight.
He’d beaten his girlfriend almost to death.
He’d come home drunk after having lost his job and had taken it out on her until she’d passed out.
A friend had found her the following morning and called the police.
In the end, after they’d taken the victim to the hospital for her injuries, which were plentiful, they found out she’d been pregnant and the assault had caused a miscarriage.
It was all Krista could do not to shed multiple tears along with her.
The woman cradled her flat and bruised abdomen and wept for hours on Krista’s shoulder as Krista’s hand discreetly snaked down to her own stomach and hugged the inconvenient little miracle inside.
With a wince, a sigh and a stomach in tight knots, she pushed open the big, well-worn wooden door of the bar and was immediately hit with a wave of déjà vu: loud music, boisterous laughter, the clink of utensils against plates and beer steins being plunked back down on the tables.
A cacophony of Friday-night fun in a country biker bar with just a tinge of underlying fear or perhaps threat percolating around the edges.
She knew that if things got just the least bit out of hand, or the wrong thing was said to the wrong person, all hell would break lose in an instant, and Santa Claus behind the bar—she never did learn his name—would be bringing out his shotgun to maintain order.
But she wasn’t afraid. She’d grown up in a small town.
The local barkeep was her uncle, and she’d waitressed in a place very similar every summer when she’d come home from college.
She could banter and joke with the best of them.
And one thing that had served her well waitressing all those summers—and was continuing to do so in her new career choice—was to look past the exterior.
Just because someone looked rough around the edges and ready for a knife fight didn’t necessarily mean they were.
Appearances can be deceiving, and it was better to go with your gut.
Take Myles, for example. He was clean-cut and friendly, but Krista would rather spend every waking hour of the rest of her life with the bearded man in the corner wearing a leather vest half buttoned up, showing off his giant skull tattoo on his hairy chest, than an extra five minutes with Myles.
To her this was normal. This was welcoming. This was home.
She took up her old perch at the bar and waited for Santa Claus to notice. When his light blue eyes finally snagged hers, his smile was heartwarming, and for just a moment, she wondered if maybe he was Santa, taking a break from being the ultimate Arctic overlord to hang out with the mere muggles.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?
” He chuckled, wiping down the counter and offering a grandfatherly wink.
“Was starting to think it was something I said that scared you away for so long. Or did it take just this long to get over your hangover from all the tequila?” His laugh was deep and raspy like he was just getting over a cold or had smoked since he could walk. “You here to see Brock?”
She nodded sheepishly. “You, uh … you don’t know where I could find him, do you?”
Without prompting, he placed a glass of fizzy red liquid in front of her. Krista shook her head and pushed it away, the reality of the next eight months slowly settling in.
“Relax,” he said softly, “it’s cranberry juice and ginger ale. It’ll help calm the nausea.”
She squinted at him. “Nausea?”
Leaning against the bar, he cocked a hip and gave her a tilted eyebrow.
“Honey, I’m a retired detective. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to add up the clues.
You show up here, white as a sheet, about a month or so after you spent the night with Brocky.
I’ve got five kids. Two of which were glorious accidents. I know how it works.”
Her eyes went wide. “A-are you Brock’s dad?”
Holy hell, did the grandfather just find out before the father? She was doing this all wrong! ALL WRONG!
He shook his head. “Naw, Brock’s daddy’s been gone for some time now. But he and I were best friends. We were on the force together. Brock helped me open up this bar after I retired. He’s part owner … silent owner, mind you. Doesn’t much care for people or the chit-chat.”
“So, where is he now? How can I find him?”
He closed his eyes for a second and then swung his big frame over to the food window after one of the cooks had hit the bell.
He wandered back toward her, bringing the decadent scent of greasy french fries with him.
He plopped the basket down in front of her, then reached under the counter and brought out a bottle of ketchup.
“Another thing that helped my wife. She must’ve eaten nearly a thousand pounds of potatoes between all five pregnancies. It’s what she lived off for the first three months, only thing she could keep down. French fries and ginger ale.”
Krista dove in without hesitation, ravenous from not having eaten anything all day and suddenly feeling like she might chew her own arm off if Santa didn’t order her another basket posthaste.
“What’s your name?” she finally asked, licking ketchup off her finger, her eyes rolling into the back of her head at how truly magnificent everything tasted.
He smiled. “My real name is Michael, but everyone calls me Mickey.”
She took a sip of her cranberry and ginger ale. “Can you help me find Brock, Mickey?”
“He’s on a job right now for a few weeks. So when that happens, we don’t really hear much from him until he’s back.”
Was he a spy? A ninja? What kind of job had the man going off the grid for weeks on end? Especially in this technological day and age?
“He’s in security,” Mickey said, reading her mind again. “Surveillance, security, protection, intel, that kind of thing. Right now, I think he’s on some kind of surveillance job, but he couldn’t tell me much. Just that he’d be away for a few weeks.”
She couldn’t escape the shiver that suddenly wracked her body. She was going to have to keep this baby-size secret to herself for even longer.
“There’s no way I can get in touch with him sooner?” she asked, almost pleaded, her pulse racing and eyes going wide when Mickey plunked another hot basket of fries in front of her. She could have kissed the man.
He just shook his head and refilled her drink.
“’Fraid not. Though if you leave me your number and name, when he comes back, or on the off chance he checks in, I can let him know you’re looking for him.
Who knows, he could be home tomorrow. That’s sometimes the way with these jobs.
” He placed a notepad in front of her, and she hastily scrawled down her information, loathing the idea of having to tell Brock something like this over the phone but hating the idea even more of having to tell him face-to-face.
It was another three weeks before she heard even the faintest of squeaks about Brock.
Liking Mickey and the vibe, she’d gone back to the bar numerous times and just sat and chatted with the big, friendly bartender.
Tonight was one of those nights. Krista was just getting ready to pack it in and wish Mickey a good weekend when his cell phone buzzed on the back counter.
“Looks like Brock is home,” he said. “Just got in. Said he’d come by the bar tomorrow to check on things.”
Krista swallowed the hard, sandpapery lump in her throat and nodded, grabbing her coat and shoving her arms into the holes. “Thanks.”
Balancing his duffle bag, a box of pizza and a six-pack of beer in his arms, Brock pushed open the front door of his house, only to be greeted by the chirp chirp of his alarm. Plunking everything down on the bottom step, he quickly disengaged the alarm and toed off his shoes.
Exhaustion was an understatement about how he felt right now.
That three-week stint up in northern Alberta casing a warehouse that was rumored to be doing some human sex trafficking had been brutal.
Thankfully, he’d been able to drag his brother Rex along, so at least he wasn’t alone and didn’t have to hunt the monsters himself.
But he was glad to be home. He sniffed the air as he shut the door and listened for any peculiar sounds.
Twelve years in the navy and with special ops had taught him to hone in on all of his senses, always.
And he was doing just that. He’d made some enemies over the years, and although most of them were either dead and buried or serving significant time in prison, one could never be too cautious.
But nothing smelled, sounded or felt suspicious, so he lugged everything upstairs and flicked on some lights. His belly grumbled at the smell of the pizza he plunked down on his leather ottoman. He glanced at the duffle bag full of dirty clothes and then again at the pizza box.
Laundry could wait.
Sloughing off his jacket like a second skin, he sank down into his big La-Z-Boy recliner, popped open a bottle of beer, flipped the television on to the news and dove into his meat lover’s pizza with extra mushrooms and banana peppers.
He was four slices into his extra-large but only half into his bottle of beer when there was a knock at the door.
Grumbling at the inconvenience of being interrupted and too tired to deal with people, he flung open the door seconds later and nearly swallowed his tongue.
“Hi,” she said shyly, toeing at a dead leaf on the front stoop and averting her gaze.
A grin spread across his face before he could stop it. The last two months had been spent dreaming about this woman’s luscious body and whether he’d ever get to taste it again. Was she here for a booty call? She’d been a little lioness in the sack and brazen.
Did he like that?
Yeah, he did.
“Constable Matthews?” he asked, giving her a moment to compose herself.
She licked her lips. “Uh … hi,” she said again. He liked that he flustered her.