Chapter Seven
Cox stood in the hallway for a moment and watched Autumn stride back to the bar, her shoulders straight and square and her head high. Her ponytail had fallen loose, and her long hair brushed her back with each purposeful stride.
His looked at his throbbing hand; the three largest knuckles were shredded and running blood. It was stupid as fuck to punch a guy in the mouth, and downright braindead to do it repeatedly, but Duck Drake deserved every damn blow. It was a fucking offense that the man was being put out of the house he’d raised his family in, that his kids were going to lose their school and friends, and that injustice was largely on Autumn and her boss. But no decent man ever hurt a woman who hadn’t done violence first, and he sure as shit didn’t throw her around like a fucking ragdoll and try to choke her out, no matter what she’d done.
Autumn’s throat was bright red and already swelling. Cox hoped the new gaps in Duck’s gums never got filled in.
Most of the crowd was dispersing, but a handful of gapers stood there, watching Cox like they expected Act II of a floor show. He stared back until they cleared space for him to pass by.
Jesse Adams, who’d helped Vince drag Duck’s unconscious heft out of the bar, had just come back in. “Hey, Cox, Duck’s coming ‘round. Vince wants to double check—you sure you wanna let him go home?”
“Yeah.” Cox wasn’t one for a big lecture when he gave a man what he deserved. Badger liked to call the Horde’s correction of town troublemakers ‘lessons,’ and he usually had some kind of pseudo-instructive gab to deliver, a habit he’d apparently gotten from Isaac. Cox didn’t give a shit if a man learned from his mistakes. If he didn’t, he’d get another beating.
To Cox’s mind, those ‘lessons’ were nothing more than gussied-up threats, and threats were wastes of breath. Just deal with the problem and let history teach the wise. The fools were on their own.
As he approached the bar, he saw Autumn grab her fifth Jameson and toss the whole thing down in a go, wincing as she swallowed. That little bit of a woman held her booze surprisingly well, but five of Vince’s pretty-woman pours had to be wobbling her knees. The adrenaline she must be awash with just now surely wasn’t making her any steadier.
Janie, the waitress on duty tonight, was tending bar while Vince dealt with Duck. As Cox arrived at Autumn’s side, she caught Janie’s attention and ordered another Jameson.
He was going to have to pour her back into the B at this point, even a pause was fairly impressive.
“Good for everybody. I want Heartland Homesteads, and any similar project I get to build, to make their communities better for the people they serve.”
“This is about making money for you. Don’t try to shine this up like a charity you’re doin’.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jesus on a graham cracker. That’s not what I’m doing!” When Cox made a face at her to convey the depths of his disbelief, she continued, “Yes, this project will benefit me, because yes, it will make my company a profit, but that’s good! I’m trying to get MWGP out of the cheap-construction in low-income locations business. That kind of work is a huge profit leader, but everybody in the industry knows it’s predatory. It’s just that nobody cares! I care! I’m trying to do this kind of development the right way and show my boss he can still make money—even more money—doing it better! Your stupid biker gang is the reason everybody around here hates me! You decided I was some big-city snake out to cheat you all blind, that every word out of my mouth is a lie, so of course everybody here thinks that’s who I am!”
As that tirade had progressed, her focus and voice had begun to clear. She was getting wily again. Her ’biker gang’ dig was bait, and he let it go by untaken. “Signal Bend isn’t a low-income location. Back in the day, yeah, but things are good now.”
Her eyes narrowed sharply. “Good for everybody? Or good for the Horde and the people you care about? Because, Cox, I did a lot of research to determine where to start this project, and while Signal Bend’s health has improved dramatically in the past fifteen or twenty years, the average income stats are barely above the poverty line. Average income. That means for everybody getting fat, somebody is just about starving. You’ve got a shiny Main Street district and some showpiece businesses. I’m sure those owners and your ‘club’” (more scare quotes) “are doing great—and by the way, I’ve noted how many of those showpiece businesses are owned by Horde and your family—but there’s a lot of people struggling along the edges of all that good fortune and better press. Signal Bend is a company town, and that’s why you don’t want anybody else building here.”
Cox stared at her. She hadn’t said anything inaccurate, but her perspective threatened to shift his own lens. Was Signal Bend a company town? What did that make the Horde, then?
She’d oversimplified things, but yeah, the Horde, or old ladies of the Horde, owned most of the most profitable businesses in town: Saxon and his family owned Marie’s. Lilli Lunden and Shannon Ryan owned the B nobody even talked about it anymore.
He didn’t bother to ask if she meant that old skeleton; she’d stopped squirming and had dropped into semi-consciousness again. He continued on his way.
Less than five minutes later, as they were almost at Marie’s, Autumn moaned and struggled in his arms again.
“Gonna yark,” she mumbled, and Cox barely got her to the grassy sward that marked the edge of Marie’s parking lot and out of his arms before half a handle of Jameson erupted from her mouth like the first break in a levee.
He crouched beside her and held her hair back while she knelt on all fours and voided the entire contents of her digestive system, moaning miserably between each retch.
When she finally seemed to be through it, she tried to fall over on her side; Cox kept hold of her with one arm while he fished in his pocket for his bandana and wiped her mouth clean.
“Okay, city girl, let’s keep movin’.”
“Wanna sleep,” she protested muddily as he stood and pulled her to her feet.
“You go ‘head and do that.” He collected her in his arms and continued toward her car. Thankfully, Marie’s was closed, and the only vehicle other than Autumn’s rental luxury sedan and the diner’s catering van was Saxon’s brother’s truck. Orville Sachs had been both cook and manager tonight. The only light coming through the front windows of the diner reached from the kitchen; he was still in there closing up.
When Cox got Autumn to the Audi, he realized he didn’t have the key fob. She wasn’t carrying a bag, so the fob was probably in a pocket.
Well, fuck.
If she wasn’t unconscious in his arms, she was all but. He shook her gently, trying to rouse her, but got only a faint mumble in reply.
“I need your key, Autumn,” he said, shaking her a little more—but not enough to get Mt. Rooney erupting again, he sincerely hoped.
Another faint and entirely unhelpful mumble. She seemed to have puked out the last of her senses as well as a bucket of booze.
So Cox sat her on the hood of her rental and set about going through her pockets as carefully as he could. He started with her jacket, and was so relieved to find it in the first pocket he actually let out a gust of breath that phewed.
Collecting her again, he got her settled in the passenger seat and buckled in. After a few minutes working out the controls to move the driver’s seat back so he could actually enter the car, he drove back up the hill to Keller Acres B Cox leaned his head back and focused on the ceiling, trying to ignore what that faint pressure was doing to him.
He stayed like that until he was sure she was fully under and for a while thereafter. Then he eased himself up and tucked her in.
He ignored the maddening urge to kiss her head before he left.