Chapter Eighteen
Inside the clubhouse, past the commons and through the noise, Nash stood in the pool room lining up a straight shot on the four.
The cue ball smacked the rail, grazed the corner pocket, then died in the middle of the table—off by a fucking mile.
He muttered a curse under his breath, grip tightening on the cue until his knuckles ached.
“That was painful to watch,” Snake said, sucking his teeth slow and deliberate as he chalked his cue, eyes never leaving Nash—like he was measuring him.
Nash didn’t reply. Just kept staring at the felt while the reel in his head kept running.
Cassie at Sally’s—sparring with him, eyes bright, mouth smart, giving as good as she got.
Cassie on the back of his bike, arms wrapped around him, breath warm on his neck.
Cassie in his bed, legs locked around him, matching him push for push. Thrust for thrust.
He’d gone to sleep with her. Woken with her. Spent the whole damn day inside of her, touching her whenever he wanted.
And for a half a goddamn minute, it had been like all the years between had never happened.
Snake dropped the five. Then the six. Then the seven. Each clack of the balls against the pocket jolting Nash back to the present and the pool game he was losing…badly.
Hell. He should’ve kept his hands—and his goddamn dick—to himself. Should’ve kept the wall up between them where it clearly belonged. Because now—
Snake circled the table, tapping the cue against his palm like a taunt.
“Keep playin’ like this,” he said, “and I’m gonna start puttin’ down hard cash.”
He bent, sank the eight clean, then leaned on his cue wearing that goddamn punchable smirk of his. “Spot me another game, or you finally done losin’?”
Nash shot Snake a look, tossed the cue down, and stalked off into the commons—past the couches where patches sprawled with local girls, past the jukebox spinning Skynyrd—and headed for the bar.
Above the newly repaired liquor shelves hung the cuts of brothers long gone, their glass cases dulled by smoke and years. All but one. Fresh wood and clean glass, Connor’s box didn’t have a speck of dust on it.
Nash didn’t let his gaze linger. He dropped onto a stool and signaled for a beer.
Kara leaned in from behind the bar—eye makeup thick, tits shoved high—and slid a cold one across.
She wasn’t from Clifton. She’d come out of the lower half of the state, where strip clubs lit the highways and men drank their pay away before stumbling home.
Barely nineteen, she’d worked the bar in one of those joints when the Kings had crossed paths with a rival club, the president of which had also been a pimp who liked knocking his girls around.
Things went bad fast—for the rival club, anyway—and when the dust settled, several men were bleeding out on the floor.
While the others ran, Kara stayed. Two black eyes, heavily pregnant, and nowhere else to go.
Nash had offered her sanctuary, and she’d been working for him ever since.
“Well, ain’t you a ray of sunshine, Walker,” Kara said, slapping her rag in his direction. “Scowl any harder an’ you’ll scare the liquor clean off my shelves.”
“Don’t tempt him with a good time,” Boone said, sliding into the space on Nash’s left as Sarge claimed the stool on his right.
“Kara, honey,” Sarge said. “Pour me two fingers of Ole Smoky.”
Boone chuckled, eyeing the pour. “Only two fingers. That’s Sarge-speak for don’t test me today.”
Sarge took the glass when it came, barely more than a sip. From the corner of his eye, Nash clocked the way Sarge’s gaze swept the room—Snake angling toward the bar, the patches on the couches—before settling back in.
“Someone’s gotta keep you idiots in line,” the older man muttered.
As a beat passed, the noise of the room swelling and falling around them, Boone leaned closer.
“So,” he said casually, “you two get any sleep after Con’s run, or was that more of a private…recreational thing?”
Nash’s eyes cut to him—brief, sharp—before he shook his head and took a swig of beer.
Kara leaned in. “What was that? Who’s Nash gettin’ recreational with?”
Snake reached the bar just then. “Y’all talkin’ ’bout Walker breaking rank and takin’ off with Con’s hot-as-hell little sister?”
Nash felt the words before he registered them—a tightening in his chest, a creeping heat up his neck.
“Don’t go pokin’ a hornet’s nest,” Sarge said evenly. “’Less you’re ready for what comes out.”
Snake lifted his hands in mock surrender, lips curling. “Ain’t pokin’. Just statin’ facts.”
Kara tapped her long nails against the bar. “Cassie, huh? Heard y’all had history.”
“That’s puttin’ it mildly,” Boone said with a soft snort.
Nash turned, fixing Boone with a flat look. And Boone met his stare without blinking, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “What? Ain’t exactly breakin’ news.”
“Bet he broke her six ways to Sunday.” Snake snickered. “Hell, I woulda.”
“Say it again,” Nash spat quietly, “and I’ll break your fuckin’ face.”
Snake blinked—just once—then laughed, incredulous.
“Damn,” he drawled. “You’re real fuckin’ sensitive for a man who just dipped his wick in the finest piece of ass I’ve ever seen in this shithole town—”
“Jesus Christ,” Sarge growled. “Are you tryin’ to die?”
“If it’s such a goddamn shithole,” Boone demanded, “why don’t you move the fuck on?”
“Why don’t you fuck off,” Snake clapped back.
“Okay, kiddos,” Kara interjected. “Put the testosterone away—I just got my bar back!”
When no one answered—mainly because everyone was still glaring at Snake, and Snake was glaring right back—she slapped her rag across the bar with a loud crack.
“Hey! Hello? Earth to all you matching jacket motherfuckers—”
“Now someone better fill me in on this Cassie and Nash drama from back in the day. Y’all know I don’t get out much. Gimme the gossip.”
Yeah, Nash,” Snake said, eyes still locked on him. “Fill us in on all the ways you—”
Nash shot to his feet, but Sarge cut in first.
“They were kids, ya goddamn vultures.”
“Then they weren’t,” Sarge went on. “Shit happened. Some of it bad timing. Some of it bad decisions.”
He tipped back the rest of his Ole Smoky and set the glass down hard.
“An’ far as I can tell, neither one of ’em ever got over it. End of fuckin’ story.”
Silence settled around the room. Nash turned away from Snake and looked at Sarge instead. Sarge held his gaze, expression unreadable, like he’d said more than he meant to—and didn’t regret a word of it.
“Bad decisions,” Kara murmured, lips twisting. “That code for you fucked it up, huh, Nash?”
Nash sat back down in his seat, exhaling hard through his nose.
“Yep,” he gritted out through his teeth. “I fucked it up.”
He glanced around the bar, then back to his beer.
“Now,” he added, slightly calmer, “does anybody need that carved in stone, or can I finish my goddamn drink in peace?”
Without waiting for a reply, Nash tipped the bottle back and was halfway through a long pull when the front door slammed open and Crusher stormed in, boots pounding, hair wild.
“You ain’t gonna believe this shit,” he barked. “I was ridin’ down Dry Fork when the law came flyin’ past—two sheriff rigs and a county truck.”
He scanned the room, still short of breath.
“Figured them Barter boys finally blew their meth shack sky-high. So I followed—for the gram.”
He swallowed, voice dropping.
“But they pulled up at Con’s ol’ place. Hauled somebody out on a stretcher.”
Nash’s stool scraped hard as he shoved back.
“Cassie?” he asked, already moving.
“Don’t know,” Crusher called after him. “Couldn’t see.”
Nash hit the door, boots kicking up dirt as he flew across the lot and threw a leg over his bike. His hands shook while he jammed the key into the ignition.
They didn’t send medics into the holler unless somebody was dying—and sometimes not even then.
And who besides Cassie would’ve been inside that goddamn wreck of a house?
By the time Nash reached Wierswood, the sky had gone flat and gray. He jerked the Harley to a stop outside the emergency room and was off the bike before the engine fully died.
He didn’t bother locking up. Didn’t even yank off his helmet until he was already shoving through the sliding doors.
The waiting room hit him bright and quiet, fluorescents glaring down on rows of bolted chairs. A kid with a busted lip sat sullen beside his fretting mother; an old man hacked into a ragged handkerchief.
Nash headed straight for the triage desk. The woman behind it didn’t even glance up, fingers pecking at her keyboard, gum snapping loud between her teeth.
“I need to know who they brought in from Clifton,” he said, voice low.
Without looking, she muttered, “You’ll have to put your name down.”
“I ain’t here for me,” Nash replied, tone clipped. “They pulled somebody outta Sycamore. Where is she?”
She glanced up then, eyes flat and tired. “Not unless you’re kin, you ain’t gettin’ a word outta me.”
“I’m family,” he growled, slapping his hand down on the counter. “Now tell me where the hell she is.”
The woman’s spine went stiff, chin jerking. “You keep on like that, I’ll have security haul you out, ya hear?”
“I don’t give a damn what you’ll do—”
“Nash.”
He spun to find Cassie standing just outside the restrooms, wet paper towels balled tight in her hands. Her curls clung damp to her face like she’d just splashed water on it. Dark stains streaked her shirt and jeans.
His eyes swept her—face, arms—for cuts, bruises, anything worse than the strain in her eyes. Finding nothing, he stepped toward her, stopping himself just shy of grabbing her.
“What the fuck happened?”
Cassie tossed the towels in a bin and blew out a breath. “Some girl I found at my house. She was…seizing, I think?” She shoved a hand through her hair, leaving it wilder. “I don’t know who she is, but when she came to, she asked for Connor.”