High Ridge's Mountain Beast
1. BRIGGS O’HARE
CHAPTER ONE
brIGGS O’HARE
Rage is pain's protector—the spiked armor of those more comfortable with expressing their anger than their vulnerability. It shields their soft underbelly from a world that wounds without prejudice.
At least, that’s the poetic bullshit my social worker told foster homes every time I was shipped away after another school fight got me expelled, or my parents were deemed unfit—again.
He’s been hurt; no one taught him how to express himself properly.
He’s a good kid who’s been dealt a bad hand. His parents showed him that violence was the only way to settle conflict.
On and on Trisha would drone, trying to pave my way into a loving family that would keep me for more than a few months.
It never worked.
I was too fucked up to be saved by even the most well-meaning of foster parents, and there hadn’t been too many of those to start with.
So, the pattern continued—new home or old home, same fucking trouble—until I aged out of the system at eighteen and smartened up.
Cut off my lousy parents, who miraculously never lost full custody of me, and stopped fighting.
That didn’t change my reputation, though.
I’d already been branded a troublemaker in High Ridge, and nearly twenty years later, the name still sticks to me like gum on the bottom of my boot.
Not that I give a damn.
Nor do the surrounding counties’ businesses.
They don’t care about my wayward youth when they hire me to haul their shit to my junkyard.
O’Hare’s Salvage.
Most people consider it poetic justice that O’Hare white trash owns a garbage heap.
Because High Ridge will always see me one way.
Ask poor Asa Keller.
He’d been known as the town Beast for forever until his girl shut that down years ago. Some people whisper the moniker every once and awhile, but never where Poppy Keller can hear them.
“Small town problems… Should have set up shop somewhere else,” I mutter to myself as I press the button for another cup of coffee from the Keurig set in the corner of my office.
But the two friends I made in high school decided to stay here after graduation, and as a foster system cast-off, sentimentality won out—better to stick with Cormac and Deacon, and have each other’s backs, than ditch the only people to ever accept me.
Though things with Cormac have been rocky since he got married.
“Because you’re an asshole,” I say aloud as the coffee machine spits and groans before a stream of liquid hits my mug.
If I’d known the woman searching for my buddy at the hardware store would become Cormac’s wife, I might have kept my mouth shut. Maybe wouldn’t have directed her to the Rocking M Ranch, where Cormac promptly fell for the girl, along with his newfound son, the woman’s nephew.
Jesse.
When I think of the baby, I remember that I’d do everything exactly the same way if I had to do it over again. No kid should grow up without a loving family, and Cormac didn’t deserve never knowing he had a son out in the world.
And Davie isn’t terrible. She clearly loves Jesse and Cormac.
It’s my own baggage that makes me distrust the speed with which she and my best friend got married. Makes me question her motives beyond notifying Cormac of his biological son.
“Fucking Ashley.” My ex-girlfriend, the most recent reason for my trust issues with women and another loaded suitcase stuffed into my mountain of baggage.
For once, it’d be nice if something good entered my life and didn’t fuck it up even more.
Shattering glass whines from the security feed behind my desk, interrupting my morose walk down memory lane.
Sounds like someone is using the outdoor rage park.
I created it a few years ago, since I have acres of useless shit lying around. Rusted cars, dented appliances, and a multitude of other items deemed no longer useful.
Why not get a little bit more life out of them, earn some extra cash, and help people at the same time?
Not that anyone would call my rage park particularly altruistic, even if it is a form of therapy.
Fuck, I wish it was me out there breaking shit and releasing the swell of frustration caused by thinking of Ashley and the tension with Cormac.
My lawyer wasn't a fan when I pitched the rage park. There was a list of potential problems a mile long, but we've done what we can to mitigate liability. A signed waiver and online payment allows a patron through the password-protected gate to prevent kids from walking in and injuring themselves.
People show up at all hours of the night to use it since it's open 24/7. Another no-no my lawyer warned against, but you can't plan when you need a release. So, the space is always available for a fee and some signatures to release me from liability.
Every week, two employees clean out the area and add new things to crush—an easy enough task when our inventory changes daily.
Crack! Another crash of broken glass.
I usually don't monitor the video and audio feeds. Too focused on working rather than spying on what a High Ridge local needs to get out of their system, but some time between my third or fourth mug of coffee, the emotions wafting off the woman on the screen grabs my attention.
Maybe because she's not my usual customer.
I don't get a lot of women on the property in need of discharging their rage. Or maybe it's just that they are too afraid to venture into my domain.
But this woman didn't let my bad reputation stop her.
She hammers a mallet against a window pane and splinters the wooden panels. Again and again, she swings as tears streak down her cheeks, gleaming under one of the security lights.
I shouldn't watch.
This is a private moment.
An intimate liberation she wouldn't want witnessed, but I can't look away.
I'm impressed by her stamina. She's been at this for a while, and it doesn't appear like she's slowing down. Nor does her crying appear to be lessening.
At this rate, she's liable to get hurt—either by overexertion or accidentally hitting herself because she’s blinded by tears.
And while it wouldn't be my fault, I don't like the possibility.
Setting my mug down on my desk, I stand and stretch before snagging my phone and heading outside.
No one else is here.
I should have gone home forty-five minutes ago, but it's not like anything is waiting for me there, and at least I have work to do in my office.
My long strides eat up the gravel path between mounds of garbage that lead to the rage park. The sound of metal meeting metal echoes in the air. She must have destroyed the window frame and moved on to something else with a different weapon of choice.
Pausing behind a burnt-out SUV, I study her before she can see me. Wild curls have fallen out of a previously tidy bun. A bright yellow cardigan has long been abandoned, thrown over the chainlink fence. Her generous breasts swell beneath the thin cotton of her shirt with each heavy breath.
No, she's not the usual type to come here.
At all.
And she's definitely not dressed for it.
Even if I appreciate the way those dark jeans cling to her ass.
“Never gonna happen, O’Hare.” The classy aura surrounding her reminds me of the first time I met Ashley, and the similarity is all I need to remember one simple fact: the only way a woman like that lets a man like me touch her is when she’s slumming it. Acting out with the bad boy.
“Dammit!” The mystery woman pauses, and I wonder if she finally noted my arrival. But, instead, she pulls a phone out of her back pocket then grimaces. The glare of the bright screen highlights her round cheeks and full lips before she shoves the phone into her jeans without responding.
She raises the bat overhead again. It drops with a forceful thud, and her body vibrates from the impact.
Someone must have really pissed her off.