Chapter 2
Sawyer
I groaned when I got the text.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
It was almost eight p.m. on Valentine’s night. I’d just gotten home, and all I wanted to do was sink into my couch with a warm beer in my hand and my mutt by my side.
Josie had been my Valentine’s date of choice this year.
And a better date had never been had. She was one of those rescue dogs with a few unfortunate quirks that had made her largely unadoptable.
She was lucky I found her, and… so was I.
That mutt had saved my life. The world had been a lonely place until I got my dog.
Josie didn’t play well with others, so I had to keep her separated from other dogs. And cats, too. She thought they looked like Scooby snacks.
And she had a weird hang-up about walking on a leash. She’d spend half the walk trying to slip out of her collar and the other half lunging at other people walking by.
She didn’t want to eat them. It was her way of playing, but they had no way of knowing that, so she came across as kind of intimidating.
That’s why I mostly kept Josie at home now, and that made her feel more comfortable. Some dogs just need a quiet environment without a lot of stimulation. And I had that to offer in spades.
But other than those few little things, she was my gal. And I didn’t need another one in my life.
Valentine’s Day was a stupid, commercialized love fest, and I wished I could sleep through it every year. Which is why I was so annoyed to get called out to On The Rocks for a service call this late at night. I was an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy. It went with the job description.
The building that held the bar was owned by Mick Harrington, and I maintained his properties along with my buddy Easton, who’d recently started working for the company.
But it was my week to be on call, and Easton had just gotten married this year so he probably had bigger plans than sitting at home alone with a dog tonight.
Which meant I was the one dealing with the leaky faucet tonight. And unfortunately that meant I’d have to see all the happy Valentine’s couples at the bar out kissing it up with each other.
Women had no place in my life.
Since I couldn’t be with the one I wanted, I’d decided all I was good for was the occasional hookup session whenever my dick got angsty enough to stage a revolt.
“Fucking fuck.” I sighed and dumped the warm burger I’d just bought from the Hungry Rooster into Josie’s bowl.
“Here you go, girl. Enjoy it.” It would have been my dinner, but I knew it would be too cold by the time I got back from the service call.
I never liked a soggy burger. A man has to have standards in life.
Josie inhaled it within moments, wagging her tail in appreciation as I grabbed my baseball cap and headed right back out the door.
“I’ll be back soon, girl.”
***
The bar was crowded, just like I’d expected, and done up for Valentine’s Day with stupid paper hearts hanging from the ceiling.
But the job was easy.
It actually wasn’t a leaky faucet. It was just a beer tap that had gotten clogged. I cleaned the lines and admonished the bartender for not doing his basic nightly maintenance.
Twenty minutes later, I was done.
That’s when I raked my eyes across the bar.
I was packing up my toolkit when I paused with my hand in mid-air, clutching a small socket wrench. I’d only been moments away from the freedom and solitude of my remote mountain home when my heart skittered in my chest.
It was an uncomfortable sensation. I preferred to think of my heart as a dead, blackened thing that lived in my ribcage… and there was only one person in this world who ever made it beat this hard.
Thump-thump, thump, thump. Thump-thump, thump, thump.
All the sounds in the bar faded as I took in the sad, crumpled woman sitting by herself at a window table at the far end of the place. All around her, happy couples flirted and laughed. But she was sitting there with red-rimmed eyes and a quiet, defeated look on her face.
What’s Rissy doing here?
It was Matt’s little sister, Marissa.
My best friend Matt had moved away six months ago, starting a life with a woman from Fernwood. He had his head so far up her ass he didn’t have time for his best friend anymore.
We still saw each other occasionally, but it wasn’t quite the same as getting together five nights a week after work.
We’d been glued at the hip for years, almost like brothers rather than just best friends.
His departure from Red Oak Mountain had left me feeling unmoored. I hadn’t just lost my closest friend. I’d also lost the surrogate family that he’d provided me with.
Which included Marissa.
One of the many things that had changed when he left town is that I’d stopped heading over to his parent’s house for Sunday dinners. Ones that Marissa had always attended.
I’d gone to those Sunday dinners since I was sixteen years old, up until six months ago when Matt dropped the bomb on all of us that he was jumping ship and moving off the mountain.
I missed that girl.
Why does she look like she’s been crying?
Then I realized she was still crying as she surreptitiously snuck a napkin up to dab her mascara-streaked eyes.
She looked like a hot mess raccoon out on a baaaaad date night.
“What’s up with Rissy?” I asked the bartender, nodding in Marissa’s direction.
“Marissa.” When that didn’t ring a bell I said, “Marissa. The gorgeous woman with the big tits crying her eyes out in the corner.”
“Oh, never heard anyone call her Rissy before.” Emmett shook his head.
“I feel bad for her. That girl’s been sitting there for close to two hours waiting for some dude to show up.
Can you imagine getting stood up on Valentine’s Day?
Her waiter, Harley, said this happened to her last year, too.
What are the chances of having luck that bad? ”
“Fuck.” The word slipped right out of my mouth. “That’s evil.”
“Yeah, man. It is. I’m tempted to take her home for a pity fuck. She’s pretty enough, at least she was before she started crying.”
My chest tightened and every macho instinct in me wanted to drag Emmett to the ground and make him swear he’d never touch my Rissy. Especially not for a pity fuck. If anyone got to hand one of those out, it would have to be me.
And damn it, just like that, I knew I was going to break all my rules.
“Don’t do that,” I growled out. “She’s my buddy’s little sister. I’ll take care of her.”
I’d always cared for Marissa. Maybe it was her being my best friend’s little sis, but I felt a lot of brotherly love in her direction. And some not-so-brotherly love, too.
She’d always been a cheery spot of sunshine in my life. Not to mention some gorgeous, completely off-limits eye candy.
Right now my best friend Matt felt like he was a million miles away. And all I knew was that I needed to fix whatever was troubling her right now.
Against all my better judgment, I picked up my tool bag and headed straight for her table.
Marissa looked up and saw me, her eyes widening in surprise when she noticed me coming.
When I got to her table, I dropped my toolkit on the floor and hiked the chair out across from her.
Without waiting to be invited, I cozied myself down in that seat and met her eyes.
Then I drawled out, “What’s wrong, Rissy?”
Marissa’s eyes flickered with shock, then embarrassment. She covered her face with her hands and stammered out, “What the hell are you doing here, Sawyer? Does everyone in town need to witness my night from hell?”
I waited for her to answer my question. And while I waited, I studied her. I’d never seen her wear her hair like this before. It was in some kind of a fancy updo with tendrils floating down here and there. It was sexy as hell.
She peeked an eye out through her fingers, then dropped her hands so I could see her again.
Then she parted her gorgeous lips and exhaled deeply. “This is so embarrassing, Sawyer, really. I’m fine. I am.”
“Sure you are. So tell me why you’re sitting in this tourist trap crying your eyes out.”
Harley came by with a notepad in his hand. “Sawyer, good to see you, man. Are you both ready to order now?”
I glanced up at him. “Naw, man. Not right now.” Then I thought about it for a second and pulled two twenties out of my wallet, shoving the bills into his hand. “This is a tip for letting us tie up your table for a while.”
Harley nodded and moved on.
Marissa wiped at her eyes. With the quietest voice I’d ever heard come out of her mouth, she said, “I was planning on leaving. I don’t make a habit of crying in public places. I was just trying to get control of myself enough to go settle my bill and walk out of here with my head held high.”
I leveled her with a serious stare. “And why were you crying? Because some asshole stood you up?”
She blew out a breath and shrugged her shoulders. “It wasn’t just that. I wasn’t really crying over him.”
My voice grew soft. “Then what was it, Rissy? If it wasn’t that guy?”
Her eyes met mine, holding them in place, and it was like I was caught in her spell again. That had been happening to me regularly for well over a decade now.
The sadness I saw reflected back broke my heart.
“Has life turned out the way you expected it to, Sawyer?”
Furrowing my brow, I shifted in my chair. “In some ways it has. In other ways it hasn’t.”
“Well, my life hasn’t. And I guess tonight it just all came to a head.”
She started slowly shredding the paper napkin in her hands.
“I thought things would be different for me. I thought I’d be settled by this stage of my life.
And instead…” Rissy swallowed hard, then met my eyes.
“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.
Enough about all that. What’s been up with you?
It’s like you disappeared off the map the second Matt moved off the mountain. ”
I shrugged. “I’m still here. Doing the same thing I always do. Oh, I got a dog.”