Chapter 6 #3
“This is—” Grace stops short. Her eyes dance back and forth over Crew’s taut features, staring at him as he stares Vince down like a predator in wait.
There’s a subtle, guarded fury that vibrates off him, something that’s only visible if one knows where to look: his hands, fingers flexing and unflexing; his jaw, unsettled and tense.
“It’s none of your fucking business who I am,” Crew spits back, taking a sidestep to put his body even farther between Vince and her, until Grace can see only the top of Vince’s hat over Crew’s shoulder.
He crowds into Vince’s space, and she wonders if it stings, the way the shorter man’s head has to angle upward to continue looking Crew in the eye.
“Walk away.” Crew seethes.
A long moment passes with neither man saying another word.
Crew is still as a statue, but Grace knows instinctively that he’s a coil ready to spring at any second.
Self-preservation seems to finally rear its head in Vince’s case, because after a beat, he throws up his hands in surrender and starts to back away from them.
When he’s nearly halfway across the bar, Crew turns around to face her.
Grace lets out a long breath as Vince sits down next to his friends, pointedly not looking back at either of them.
She glances up to Crew and tilts her head appraisingly.
The tension is slowly starting to seep from his body, noticeable in the way his jaw is finally still, and the line of his shoulders is less rigid.
When he notices her staring, he smirks. “What?”
“Did you enjoy that?”
Crew stares at her, eyes narrowing, while the jukebox transitions into “Tennessee Whiskey.” They don’t join the other patrons pairing up to dance. They stay as they are, a good three feet between them, assessing each other.
From the corner of her eye, Grace notices a head of blond hair moving clumsily across the dance floor.
She looks over to see June and Cooper teetering together, Cooper clearly not on the same level as June.
She leads him patiently, her mouth moving in what looks like encouragement, if Cooper’s bashful smile is any indication.
Crew speaks over the music, following her line of sight to see his brother being pushed around the dance floor. “Guy’s not a local,” Crew says, eyes still on June and Cooper. “He doesn’t know how things work around here. Had to be done.”
With a purse of her lips, Grace asks, “And how do things work?”
Crew’s eyes pull slowly back to hers. “We come in here once a month and blow off steam. Locals know to steer clear—they know better than to try to go toe-to-toe with us. Drinking or otherwise.”
Grace nods, humming in response to his statement. Folding her arms over her chest, she coos, “Big, bad cowboys of Halcyon, scaring everyone out of the bar.”
Crew huffs. “Only if they deserve it.”
“As long as you weren’t trying to be some white knight saving the damsel in distress,” she counters, folding her arms over her chest.
The returning laugh he gives her is low, originating deep in his belly. His Adam’s apple bobs with the movement, and it occurs to her now just how prominent it is, even amid the wide expanse of his pale, freckled neck. “You don’t strike me as the damsel type.”
Grace sighs. She’s been categorized as a couple of different types already this evening, and frankly, it’s a little annoying. “What is it with men? Y’all spend ten minutes with a woman and, suddenly, you know what type she is.”
Crew’s brows lift, amusement dancing in his dark eyes. “I’ve spent more than ten minutes with you. I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
Grace scoffs. “Let’s hear it, then.”
He clears his throat, puts a hand on his hip, and says, “You’re—”
She doesn’t get to hear what he’s come up with—because just before the words leave his lips, a fist collides with his cheek.
Grace’s eyes go wide as Crew doubles over and skids backward a few steps.
She finds Vince standing before her with his equally drunk-looking friends at his back.
“What the fuck?” Grace shouts over the music, and when Crew stands back to his full height and reveals a cut beneath his right eye, her vision goes redder than the blood trickling down his cheek.
It’s almost like she’s stepped completely out of her body, because the rage that fills her at the sheer audacity of this motherfucker—
Grace punches him right back.
It hurts. It hurts like few other things in her life have ever hurt.
If her knuckles weren’t knobby and her hands weren’t covered in scar tissue, she might’ve broken something for how hard her fist collided with his face.
It sends him fumbling backward, falling directly onto his ass.
Whether by the force of her fist or the shock, she couldn’t say, but her teeth are bared as she looks at the rest of his pals, fists curled at her sides, ready to take them all.
Little does she know, she won’t need to.
Because the rest of the hands have caught wind of what’s happening, and now, she has the entire bunkhouse of Halcyon Ranch at her back.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
By the end of it, Grace has a split lip and possibly a fractured rib, but despite the throbbing ache in her side and on her face, she is downright gleeful.
Smiling with bloody teeth, she surveys the rest of the group, all in various states of injured and inebriated.
It had stopped being a fair fight soon after it started, especially once Crew was back in commission and started body-slamming dudes onto the dance floor.
The guys all seemed to have their own specialty—Alec and Caleb with spectacular backhands, Mikey and his strong left hook, June’s supernatural sense of how hard to knee a man in the balls to bring him down and keep him down.
Even Forty had been in the mix of things, yanking up men half his age by their collars and tossing them around like rag dolls.
The sound of bottles breaking and tables smashing into pieces had drowned out the jukebox, and only when Moe’s desperate scream came over a megaphone, telling them he’d already called the sheriff, did they finally come up for air.
The out-of-towners, though barely walking, had escaped with their tails between their legs well before the red and blue lights started to flash through the bar’s tinted windows.
The Halcyon group had let them go—the beating they’d put on the four of them was brutal enough.
But, as Caleb had so eloquently put it, they had fucked around and found out.
An older man—a stereotypical small-town sheriff, handlebar mustache and all—now stands before them as they halfheartedly attempt to clean themselves up outside of the bar.
He’s mostly addressing Crew as he scolds, a knobby-knuckled finger pointed in his direction.
“You oughta know better by now, young man,” he gripes, wagging his finger toward Crew’s chest.
Crew’s hands are up, and he nods placatingly with a sincere, apologetic look in his eyes. A far cry from what she’d seen flashing in them earlier, all feral and black with rage. “I know. I know. I’m sorry, Jim,” he says. “We’ll pay for the damages. You know we’re good for it.”
Out of nowhere, a familiar female voice cuts in.
“You mean your mama is good for it,” Renata Caldwell spits as she approaches the bar with such speed and intensity that fire may as well be licking the heels of her boots.
Where Grace has only ever heard Renata’s voice be soft, lilting, and melodic, it now sounds tight, impatient.
Like she’s gearing up to tear each of them a new asshole.
Any lingering conversation, any remnants of laughter over the whole ordeal completely cease as she steps up to them all, looking like the exhausted, pissed-off mother of this gaggle of unruly idiots.
She shares a look with the sheriff, who seems to understand his place in the hierarchy of this situation and tips his hat before walking toward his Crown Vic.
Renata slowly turns back to the group and folds her arms over her chest. She looks chic as ever despite the irritation that roils off her in dense waves.
Black leather jacket, black felt hat, jeans that probably cost more money than Grace has made in her lifetime.
The picture of class and sophistication, she could drop-kick them all into the middle of next week and would still look like she just walked out of a magazine.
“Here’s the deal, gentlemen,” she says, then gives a pointed stare to June and Grace. “And ladies.” They all pick up their chins at the statement, bracing themselves. “I don’t care what the fight was about. I don’t care who threw the first punch.”
Grace tries not to sink in on herself, but the guilt is heavy.
Even if she didn’t start it, she sure as hell egged it on, and the weight of it is so heavy that she has to look away from Renata—eyes drifting until they find Crew, standing with his hands in his pockets.
Looking at her. There’s a softness to his expression, despite the shitstorm his mother is about to rain down on them.
He holds her gaze for a moment, perhaps picking up on her fear, her sense of responsibility for starting the brawl.
He shakes his head tightly, quickly, as if to say, This is not your fault.
She hates how much better it makes her feel, that one look from him.
“What I do care about is the fact that when you leave my ranch, you’re representing me and my family.
” Her head swivels to look directly at her son.
Crew’s eyes dart away from Grace’s and land back on his mother.
He simply nods, knowing—likely from many a talking-to just like this—it’s better to just keep his mouth shut.
Renata’s hard eyes drag slowly back to the group.
“Y’all about gave Moe a heart attack last month with your antics,” Renata continues, this time pointing at Caleb. “And now”—she shrugs, shaking her head—“you’ve trashed his bar. His livelihood.”
A long, tense beat of silence passes. No one looks away from her, but no one dares to say anything to the contrary. “I’m docking each of your pay a hundred dollars this month to pay for the damages. Anyone who has a problem with that can find themselves a new job.”
A hundred dollars off a ranch hand’s salary isn’t small potatoes, but no one objects.
No one says a damn word. Renata waits for it, but nothing comes.
Eventually, she turns on her heel and walks over to Crew.
The two share a conversation, too quiet for anyone else to hear, but Grace watches as his face shifts from guilt to resignation to apology in the span of a few seconds.
His mother shakes her head, then walks away.
About ten steps into the parking lot she stops, turns, and shouts, “What the hell are y’all waiting for? Party’s over. Let’s go.”
Like an obedient herd of cattle, they all stand, grunting with the effort.
About half follow Renata to her truck, chins down and hands stuffed in their pockets, and the other half, including Grace, follow Forty’s slow steps over the gravel toward his.
A few paces behind her, Grace finds Crew lingering, watching them all scatter.
She slows her steps, letting him catch up.
The curiosity—and the whiskey—gets the better of her as she asks, “What’d she say to you?”
Crew swallows, his eyes casting downward. “Nothing I haven’t heard a thousand times before.”
Truck doors slam shut. Engines roar to life. “You do this often?”
He smiles crookedly, his mouth curving upward toward where a bruise over his eye is starting to bloom. “Not so much in my old age. When I was younger, though.”
A picture pops into her head at that—a sepia-toned memory that doesn’t belong to her, of a boy with a mop of black hair and a split lip, toeing up to men twice his size and smiling through bloody teeth.
They’re halfway to the trucks when Grace stops, turning to face him. “Thank you, by the way,” she says. Alcohol, it appears, makes her sentimental.
Crew’s eyebrows shoot up. “For what?”
“For earlier.” She shrugs. “For stepping in.”
Another one of those low, rumbling laughs sounds from his chest. It barely moves him, but it rocks her where she stands. “Maybe I should be thanking you.”
Grace smiles, or attempts to, anyway, before the cut in her lip forces her face back into something neutral. Crew’s eyes fall to her mouth, the humor in his expression fading slightly.
“You all right?” he asks, giving her a quick once-over before nodding toward her lip. “Apart from that, I mean.”
She nods. “Got kicked in the ribs, but I don’t think anything’s broken. Nothing a good night’s sleep and some Advil won’t cure.”
“Shoulder’s all good?”
She’d left the brace at the bunkhouse, but, miraculously, no additional harm had come to her shoulder.
Even when she’d fallen on the ground after being shoved unintentionally by the brawling mob, she’d mercifully landed on the opposite side.
“All good,” she replies, rotating it just a little. “Thanks.”
Crew nods, satisfied.
Stumbling on her words only slightly, she asks, “Are you—all right?”
The smile she gets in return is warm, like standing in front of a space heater in the dead of winter. “I’m all right,” he says softly.
A horn honks. Someone yells for her to hurry up, but she doesn’t look away, and neither does he.
A few seconds, minutes, maybe hours pass as they stand there, staring at each other.
Eyes tracing wounds, old and new, like the scar on the left side of his jaw.
The indentation above his right eyebrow.
She wonders what he sees when he looks at her.
Wonders if he’s making up his own stories to go with each one of hers.
Crew lets out a breath through his nostrils, only tearing his gaze from hers when the honk sounds again. He shakes his head in exasperation at whoever it is that’s beckoning her. He nods toward the truck and says, “Go on.”
She walks away, and only when she gets all the way to the truck does she look back to find him still standing in the same spot. Watching her go.