Prologue
Lizzie | Six Years Old
Christmas Eve
Christmas crapped all over this bar.
The thought ran through my mind as I looked around, watching how the multi-colored twinkle lights lit up the corners of the dive bar, highlighting foot-tall plastic Christmas trees on every age-worn table.
They’d all been sprayed with fake snow, and it flaked off with movement.
Little piles surrounded the base of each tree, and when I slammed my keys down on the bar top with a little more force than I’d intended, some of the mess knocked loose from the tree a foot away from me.
Old-time holiday music played softly in the small building in downtown Wisper, Wyoming, coming from a jukebox next to an ancient pinball machine and dart boards nailed to the wall.
In a dark corner, an older woman straddled and slowly dry humped a much younger man.
Her gray-streaked hair gave her age away, and the flush of the guy’s baby face made it clear this was some kind of mild cougar situation.
The cheap glow from the trees’ lights illuminated the couple, though I had the feeling they didn’t think anyone could see what they were doing.
The guy was into it, and in the woman’s defense, her prey was devilishly handsome in his jeans and tight tee and a brown cowboy hat tipped back.
He moaned loudly, and his hands roamed the expanse of her backside, his fingertips trying to dig through her jeans.
Really, they were only kissing, but things were heating up quite quickly.
I tried not to notice. I’d only caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye, but now that my brain had registered the almost-illicit act, it was all I could see.
Apparently, I hadn’t been the only one to catch the show. The bartender, Manny Perez, hurled a wet rag at the couple, and it landed on their table with a slap. “Take it outside,” he boomed in his deep voice, and the woman yelped as she detached her lips from the man’s mouth.
Before her boy toy took off his hat and hid her face behind it, he tossed the woman a wry smirk.
What I could still see of her hair was a frizzy mess, probably from her beau running his hands through it, but it had been snowing off and on all day.
Humidity could be a bitch for thick, wavy hair. I knew that all too well.
“Sorry, Manny,” she said sheepishly, and as they stood, she licked her lips and tried to tamp down her frizz fest.
The man adjusted himself in his jeans, trying to disguise the blatant hard-on beneath, and the couple made a bee line to the exit, giggling and grabbing each other’s asses the whole way. The heavy wooden door clapped shut after them, then Manny set his sights on me.
He shook his head and breathed a laugh. “True love.” He shrugged. “Merry Christmas, miss Lizzie. What’ll it be for you tonight?”
“Merry Christmas,” I replied, smiling because even though I couldn’t wait for the holiday to be over, Manny made it easy to smile.
I hadn’t grown up in Wisper, but I’d spent plenty of time here during the summers as a kid.
My grandparents had lived here their whole lives, and I remembered playing with Manny’s daughters at the park when I was eight. “Um, I don’t know. Whiskey, I guess.”
He seemed surprised. “Don’t care what kind?” He probably hadn’t expected the town doctor’s granddaughter to order a hard drink, especially since he’d bandaged my skinned knees once or twice when I was a kid. “Your granddad know you’re here? It’s Christmas Eve.”
Yeah, the shittiest Christmas Eve ever.
“Yes, he knows I’m here. Well, maybe not specifically at the bar, but I just left his house. And no, I don’t care what kind of whiskey. Surprise me, but not well. That stuff will burn a hole in your esophagus.”
He chuckled. “The good stuff comin’ up.”
“Thank you.”
“Make that two,” a low voice rasped, and a man stepped next to me at the bar.
The soft hum of his voice reminded me of something, but I had no idea what because, when I turned my head to look at him, I didn’t know him.
I hadn’t noticed him enter the bar. He must have slipped in as the horny couple left.
Manny nodded at the man, but Mr. Deep Voice was too busy staring down at me from his tall height.
Jeez, dude. Rude much? I thought as I sat in a stool at the long wooden bar top.
I tried to turn my head. I knew if I’d looked anywhere else on his body besides his face, I’d be impressed with its athleticism, but I couldn’t stop staring at how the shadows beneath his black cowboy hat made him seem mysterious.
His eyes were like two round beacons, and they lit up the whole bar. That was what it felt like anyway.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered the fact that this man was probably close to my age, maybe a few years older, but there was something haunted in his eyes that set him apart. From me. From Manny. From everyone, I assumed.
It was as if I could see inside him, like his wounded soul shone out from behind those eyes. I got the feeling it wasn’t often he let others in.
I’d never seen colors like the ones I was currently drowning in.
His eyes were like two perfect, round kaleidoscopes, with greens and blues, ambers and browns, and a warm gray color that seemed to surround all the rest. My head tilted, I plopped my elbow on the bar, and my cheek fell into my hand as I gazed into them.
The rest of his face was just as handsome, and now I was picturing touching my lips to the slightly chapped full pillows beneath his nose.
You are completely ridiculous, Lizzie. The man is a stranger!
But I could’ve sworn I’d seen those eyes before. I scanned his face again, and then his body quickly. But no, I didn’t know him.
Behind the bar, Manny chuckled under his breath, but I didn’t avert my gaze like I probably should’ve.
The man wasn’t smiling. He made no expression at all, and it felt like he could see right through me too.
Could he see that I’d let my family down?
Suddenly, my mouth was dry. Those arresting eyes flared when my tongue darted out to swipe my bottom lip, and all of a sudden, I knew this man wasn’t looking through me.
He could see me. He had angled his body toward mine and was staring at me now, too, but then Manny delivered our drinks, and the moment was lost. The man nodded back to Manny, and I reached forward and wrapped both my hands around my glass, trying hard not to wallow in self-pity.
“I saw what happened,” Manny said in a low voice to the man. “On the news. Your br—”
The man’s hand shot out in front of him, and he waved it once to stop Manny from finishing his sentence.
What was that about? But I was certain it wasn’t the first time someone had come into Manny’s wanting to be invisible and drink their pain away.
And this man was in pain. I wasn’t sure how I knew that—something in his voice or that hard look in his eyes—but it was clear to me.
“Sorry,” the man mumbled an apology for his jerk reaction.
“S’okay,” Manny replied. “I’ll mind my own.”
Manny left the man alone then, and I swirled my glass in a circle an inch above the bar.
The rich brown liquid traveled around the edges of the glass, and it hypnotized me for a moment.
Manny had served my drink neat, but it just occurred to me that I hadn’t specified how I wanted my drink.
But neat was fine. No clunky ice cubes to contend with.
Besides, the weather outside truly was frightful.
The last thing I needed was to be colder.
I shivered and focused on the drink in my hand. I brought it to my lips, moaning quietly when the liquid warmed my tongue and worked its way lower. Heat bloomed in my chest, and I shivered as it chased my chill away.
I felt relaxed for the first time today, which was really sad. It was Christmas, damn it. The best holiday of the whole year! I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been blissed out, for crying out loud, but I wasn’t.
I hadn’t been any of those things in weeks.
Anxiety was a bliss killer. I knew telling my father that I’d changed my plan would result in misery, and the fear that had been brewing in the pit of my stomach for the last month, the fear of seeing his disappointment face to face at my grandparents’ house over the holiday had surely caused ulcers.
I should’ve probably started taking iron supplements to replace all the blood I was no doubt losing to the hole in my gut.
Stop self-diagnosing. You’re not a doctor. You chose a different life, remember?
As I imagined my body producing red blood cells and what they would look like under a microscope, the rude man spoke.
“Sorry,” he said. “Don’t mean to ruin your night.”
Glancing back up at his face distractedly, I nodded and smiled. “Too late for that. It was ruined before you got here.”
His lips lifted slightly as if he were trying to smile, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. There was something there in that expression that I felt like I should recognize, but I was too lost in my own wallowing to figure it out.
“Your Christmas not goin’ so great either?” he asked, and finally, he sat in the stool next to mine, lifted his glass to his lips, and knocked it back. The whole glass in one gulp. He pushed it forward to the edge of the bar top, signaling Manny for a refill.
“Nope,” I said, and I took a cute little-girl sip of my own drink.
“Why not?”
The liquid burned as it slipped down my throat this time, and I swiveled my ass in the unfairly handsome man’s direction. I crossed my legs as soon as they cleared the underside of the bar, and the tip of my boot hit his shin.
He grimaced and reached down to rub his leg. “Those boots are weapons.”
I smiled tightly. “Sorry.” I really didn’t need some strange joker trying to pick me up tonight. He was hot, but still. “This is probably the worst day of my life to date. I don’t really feel like chatting about it. Mm-kay?”