Chapter 1 Jack
JACK
“Welcome home,” the robot voice said as warmly as a robot could.
It hadn’t proved shit.
Now here I was in the driveway of my childhood home with the gearshift in park but my foot still ghosting the gas pedal.
I leaned my elbows on the steering wheel and peered through the bug-splattered windshield at the place where I had spent the first eighteen years of my life and precious little of the sixteen years since.
A cute craftsman bungalow trimmed in dark green, nestled between a blue spruce to the left and a trio of aspens to the right, their branches bare except for a random golden leaf hanging on for dear life like it could hold back the winter through sheer force of will.
The map was unnecessary once I turned off I-70. I knew the two-lane highways and dirt roads that spiderwebbed across the Colorado Rocky Mountains to Aspen Springs like the back of my hand. But I had left the map app running anyway, just to hear those two words.
Welcome home.
They didn’t sound right, coming from a robot. And they didn’t feel right.
My mom was in that house. My best friend’s truck was in the driveway, which meant my twin sister, Essie—who had gone and married Brax without even telling me—was there, too.
Probably they had all just sat down to dinner, Brax and Essie on one side of the old pine table that still had crayon marks from the days when we did our homework there, Mom divvying up whatever savory pie she had made extra of at Sweetie Pies, my usual chair next to her empty.
I could picture it. Hell, I could even smell it.
The pie and the vanilla extract that Essie had spilled in the pantry when we were thirteen and that undefinable scent of us. A family.
If I walked in there now, unexpected as I was, there would be a ruckus. Whoops and hollering and tears. A cold bead of sweat slid down my spine. I threw the stick in reverse and backed out of the driveway like I was fleeing enemy territory.
One drink. Two, tops.
Then I would come home.
The Painted Cat was the only bar in a ranching town where cows outnumbered people, and it took that seriously.
Did you see the bank loan officer swaying unsteadily by the ancient jukebox that didn’t play a single song past 1989?
No, you didn’t. Was that the high school guidance counselor doing shots with a transient cowboy?
Mind your business. Everyone knew each other at church on Sunday, but every Friday night at the Painted Cat, they pretended they didn’t.
“The sun just hit the ridgeline. You know what that means, right? It’s quittin’ time.”
“You ain’t the boss of me, Janie,” the older man scoffed at the bartender as I pulled up a stool several down from him, the only seat that put my back to a wall.
I shifted, angling myself so I could see the door. She nodded to me and held up a finger to indicate she’d be with me in a minute, then turned back to the man.
“Now, Saul, you know that’s not true.” Janie patted his gnarled hand. “So long as you’re in my place of work, I am absolutely the boss of you. Settle up, okay? You have just enough light to walk home.”
“I could drive,” he said, his words slurring together in a way that suggested it was a bad idea.
“Hard to do that when I have your keys,” Janie said cheerfully. She spun away, her red ponytail whipping behind her, pulled open the washing machine behind the bar, and started unloading the clean glasses. “You can pick up your truck tomorrow morning. The keys will be in the usual spot.”
“You’re too pretty, that’s what it is,” Saul grumbled. He flattened his palms on the bar and pushed unsteadily to his feet. I watched, ready but not particularly willing. “Pretty girls always think they can boss a man around. Trouble is, they’re right.”
Her laugh was light and musical, and Saul was right: the woman was pretty. She looked like a fairy tale princess that should be frolicking in a wooded glen with chipmunks and unicorns or some shit. But when she turned around again, her big brown eyes had a mischievous gleam.
She leaned across the bar until her pretty face was inches from Saul’s ugly mug. The man didn’t have a stitch of hair on his shiny head, but great white tufts of it sprouted from his ears and eyebrows. “That’s a lie, Saul. Tell me the truth. Why am I the boss of you?”
“Becussh yurr mean,” he slurred honestly.
Her grin widened, her teeth flashing under the dim light of the bar. “That’s right. I’m mean. Do you want me to be mean to you, Saul?”
He looked like he was considering it. I didn’t blame him. Hell, I was half tempted to change my name to Saul and let her be mean to me.
“No,” he said resignedly. He pulled his threadbare wallet out and handed it to her. She flipped it open, counted out a handful of bills, then handed it back to him. “Have a good night, Janie.”
“Have a good night, Saul.”
She watched him shuffle out, her forehead knit in a thoughtful frown. When he pushed through the doors and disappeared into the dusky evening, I cleared my throat. She jerked and her gaze snapped to mine, dark eyes widening like she had forgotten I was there.
“Shit, sorry,” she said, hustling over. “What can I get you?”
I had expected a flash of recognition—Aspen Springs damn near threw me a parade every time I came home on leave—but found nothing in her expression that said she knew who I was.
Not even a sliver of curiosity. I hated that kind of attention, but I didn’t much care for the distracted way she looked past me, either.
“Got anything local?” I asked.
She nodded. “On tap we have Fat Tire. I also have Yeti Stout bottled.”
“I’ll take the Yeti.”
“Good choice.” With another nod, she pivoted to the fridge behind her, where rows of brown bottles with bright, graffiti-style labels glistened behind the glass door. She grabbed a bottle from the middle shelf, popped the top off, and set it in front of me. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” I took a sip, let the rich, dark flavor coat my tongue and settle something tight in me. I refused to call it nerves. “Not too busy tonight,” I said, noting the way her gaze slipped over my shoulder to gauge whether the handful of people milling around needed something from her.
“Not tonight,” she agreed. “The weather will keep people home.”
She looked toward the door again. It had grown darker in the last two minutes. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “Snow is coming.” She said it softly, more to herself than me.
In this part of Colorado, snow was always coming. The early snow tended to melt quickly under the sunshine, but higher in the mountains, some patches of snow stayed year-round. “Saul will make it home before it gets bad.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “I wasn’t worried about him. Saul can survive anything. Like a cockroach, except he’s not nasty. I was just…” Her voice trailed off as she looked wistfully toward the door.
“Some place you would rather be?” I asked, lifting the beer to my lips.
Suddenly I had the full attention of those dark eyes, and the force of it made me freeze with the bottle at my mouth.
“Oh, no,” she cooed sweetly. She bent over the bar and propped her chin on her palm and batted her long, thick eyelashes at me. “There is nowhere I would rather be than right here with you. So handsome. So smart. Such a good tipper.”
And then she chuckled because we both knew that was a lie.
Well, not the part about me being handsome, smart, and a good tipper.
That was all true. But that wasn’t enough for Janie to want to be here with me.
Her mind was clearly occupied with something else, and I wanted to know what it was.
That had always been my problem. I was too curious about people. Too interested in understanding.
All the understanding in the world didn’t make a lick of difference in the outcome. I still had to pull the trigger.
I finally remembered to swallow my beer. I set the bottle down again and delivered a quick, sharp flick to the knot of muscle between my index finger and thumb. It jolted me back to the present. This bar. This woman. No dirt road. And not a turtle to be seen.
“What would you be doing now, if you could do anything you wanted?” I asked. No harm in indulging a little curiosity, was there? I was a civilian now.
She lifted a shoulder. “What would anyone want to do on a snowy night? Make a cup of hot cocoa, snuggle up in bed, and read books.”
“Books…plural? You expecting to get snowed in for a week?”
Her mouth crooked up. “Maybe they’re short. I’m a big fan of The Bear Snores On.”
I read a lot of books, but that title didn’t ring a bell.
It sounded like a children’s book. A comfort read from her childhood, maybe?
Before I could ask, a glass shattered to my left.
Janie jumped a little, but I didn’t move.
Loud noises didn’t startle me or let the dark places in my mind swallow me up.
The psychiatrist at Walter Reed had taken that as a good sign. I was fine.
“Excuse me.” Janie stepped away from the bar and pushed through the door to the kitchen.
A moment later she returned with a broom. I rolled the beer bottle between my palms, studying her distorted reflection in the brown glass as she swept up the mess. She dumped it in a trashcan before rounding the bar counter again.
“Ready for another one?” she asked.
My hesitation was brief. Mom and Essie could wait a little longer. “Please.” I nudged the empty bottle toward her. She swapped it for a new one, popping the top off before she handed it to me. “Thanks, hussy.”
Her eyes narrowed and her head tilted. I jerked my chin at her torso. “Your shirt.”
Janie looked down at herself, where the word hussy was emblazoned in bold, hot pink sequins against her black t-shirt. “Oh. Right.” She laughed. “I like to let people know who they’re dealing with up front. Just so there’s no misunderstanding.”
“Noted,” I said.