Chapter 1 Jack #2
The door swung open and a man I didn’t recognize prowled into the bar, looking all kinds of aggravated as he claimed the stool two up from me. Janie stiffened, which sent me to high alert.
“You shouldn’t be here, Steven.” Janie braced her palms on the scarred pine bar top and glowered at the man.
I glanced sideways to gauge his reaction. Ready, and suddenly a whole lot more willing. This one at least might make it worth the effort.
Steven huffed an annoyed sigh. “Janie. The one who likes sunflowers,” he muttered.
Janie’s head tilted, her shiny copper ponytail falling over her shoulder. “How did you know I like sunflowers?”
“Chloe’s shoes. James likes columbine, Essie likes red roses,” he said, and my hand flexed at the sound of my twin sister’s name. “Hannah likes violets, you like sunflowers. Chloe likes peonies.” The last one came out wistful.
Janie narrowed her eyes. “That’s right.” She studied him for a moment, then shook her head. “No. You still shouldn’t be here.”
Steven glanced around warily, like he might be expecting trouble. “Any of the Hale brothers here tonight?”
Since the Hales had been my second family practically from birth, and now that my best friend was my brother-in-law they were family on paper too, I made their conversation my business.
“You got a problem with the Hale brothers?” I asked.
Steven grunted. “No. The Hale brothers have a problem with me.”
“Why is that?” I asked. I turned on my barstool to look him squarely in the face. That curiosity again. I liked to know who I was about to flatten.
Steven looked at me, quickly understood the way of things, and turned his gaze forward. “A misunderstanding,” he muttered. Janie guffawed loudly. “On my part,” he clarified.
“The Hale brothers are pretty good at judging character,” I noted. They were more than capable of fighting their own battles, but hell. I had nothing better to do except go home, and truthfully, I didn’t want to.
Like she sensed a sudden change in the wind, Janie’s head whipped toward me. “Just drink your beer, Jack. I’ll handle this.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. Most people didn’t surprise me, but Janie had managed to pull it off.
She rolled her eyes at my stunned expression. “I knew who you were the moment you sat down. Essie has a photo of you on her fireplace mantle.”
Shit.
“Did you tell her I’m here?” I asked. Because if she knew, I had maybe ninety seconds before she stormed in here looking for me.
Janie’s brow furrowed. “She doesn’t know?”
“I wanted to surprise her,” I lied.
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t tell her, I guess.
” Janie turned back to Steven. “I haven’t decided what to do about you yet, so don’t get too comfortable on that barstool.
” She sank a hand on her hip. “Maybe I should follow Chloe’s lead and tell you to get the hell out. That’s what she always did.”
“And now she lives with me, so…” Steven spread his arms wide, smirking. “Seems like a risk on your part. You might actually end up liking me.”
“Doubtful.” Janie pursed her lips. “Still not sure she wasn’t under duress.”
Steven huffed and rubbed his palms over a crack in the wood. “Chloe could tell me to get the hell out of my own home, and I’d go,” he grumbled. “I’m not forcing her to share space with me.”
Damn. Steven had it bad for this Chloe chick, whoever she was. I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. Clearly her friends didn’t like him, and that would be tough to overcome.
Janie took pity on him. “One beer,” she said. “That’s it.” She didn’t ask him what he wanted, just grabbed a bottle of IPA from the fridge, popped the top, and handed it to him.
“Thanks,” he said.
I sipped my own beer and pretended not to notice as he kept sending curious glances my way.
He’d talk when he was ready, and I wasn’t much in the mood for a conversation.
Not with him, anyway. I looked at Janie, who was rubbing water spots from the clean glasses she had taken out of the dishwasher.
The Painted Cat’s clientele wasn’t the sort to notice or care about water spots at a dive bar, but she did it anyway.
That shouldn’t surprise me. Brax would notice, and he was an owner of the bar, so of course he would hire someone who also paid attention to the details.
Now that I thought about it, I could see that he’d made improvements.
It was still a dive, but one where you were a lot less likely to pick up a staph infection.
Some of the wood beams dated back to when the Painted Cat was a brothel under ownership of Brax’s great-great-great-great grandfather, and those remained sacred.
He’d sooner chop his hand off than tear them down.
But the lighting had been updated and the booths had been recovered in gleaming burgundy leather.
“You got a favorite flower, Jack?” Steven asked, pulling my thoughts.
I paused, the brown beer bottle dangling from my hand. “Why do you want to know?”
“The flowers they embroidered on Chloe’s shoes. Apparently that’s the kind of thing friends know about each other.” He jerked his head in Janie’s direction. “I don’t think that’s normal. Hell, I’m not sure I even have a favorite flower.”
I eyed him. “We’re not friends,” I said.
“No, we’re fucking not,” he agreed and for a moment I wondered if he had a death wish because he seemed to be squaring up for a fight. Janie shot him a warning look as she swiped by with a towel. He shrugged and swigged his beer. “What are those colorful flowers that look like balls?” he asked her.
Janie scrunched her face like she was thinking. “Dahlias?” She tugged her phone out of her back pocket and tapped the screen a couple times, then turned it to face him so he could see the picture. “Is this what you mean?”
“Yeah.” He studied the image for a moment. “I like those.”
I moved to the barstool next to him because, again, I had nothing better to do and I was too curious for my own good. I leaned toward Janie’s phone. “Those are nice. My mom grows dahlias.”
A woman down the bar lifted her hand to get Janie’s attention. Janie stuck her phone in her pocket and pushed away from the bar. “Holler if you need something.”
I watched her leave, then turned to Steven. “Why are you at a bar, talking to strangers about fucking flowers, when you want to be home with her?”
He rolled the bottle between his hands. “It’s complicated.”
It was funny how often I’d heard that phrase when nothing in this world had ever struck me as complicated. Not even killing people. “Nah, that’s lazy.” I shook my head. “It’s pretty simple. If you want to be with her, hooking up with a random woman at a bar is self-sabotage.”
He glanced around the bar, seeming to weigh his options. From the way his mouth tightened, I could guess that not a single person in the room held his attention like the girl waiting at home for him. “You got a better option?” he asked.
“My advice?” I tipped my beer to my lips, appraising him over the rim, and took a swallow. “Go home. Take a cold shower.”
“Unless you want to get snowed in with us,” Janie offered.
Steven’s cheek ticked. Then he swigged his beer with long, deep swallows, draining the bottle. He slapped a handful of cash on the counter, nodded to me, and he was gone.
The remaining stragglers took that as their cue to leave, too. They followed him out, one by one, until the only people left were me and Janie.
We looked at each other.
“The snow is coming down hard now,” she said. There was a question in her eyes.
“That it is,” I agreed.
But I didn’t move.