Chapter 1
KIEREN
The music lulls before the next song from the jukebox kicks in, and over the noise of slurred voices and glasses clinking, I hear the click-clack of high heels behind me.
My heartbeat picks up a notch, and I set my drink down on the bar with trembling hands. My brain tells me that it’s not her. Jodie wore flat sandals. They were fiery orange with criss-cross straps that matched her summer dress. But my body hasn’t caught up.
I turn around slowly, just in case. Because maybe the flat sandals and simple style weren’t her usual attire. In the eighteen months since I met Jodie, maybe—just maybe—she’s taken to wearing killer heels and frequenting bars until closing time.
The owner of the heels wears a tight-fitting sparkly dress that ends well above the thigh. It shimmers as she walks toward me on diamante-encrusted high heels. The overall impression is of a disco ball, which makes me smile to myself.
Big mistake.
The woman thinks I’m smiling at her, and in my beer-hazy head, I don’t look away fast enough.
She gives me a slow smile and lowers her mascara-coated lashes. Her makeup is smeared in dark smudges around her eyes, and her lipstick is half worn off.
“Hey there,” she says.
At that moment, the music kicks in, and she leans forward as if we’re in the middle of an intimate discussion and not strangers at a bar.
“What’s that?”
Her breath smells of strong alcohol and the garlic mayo they serve with chicken wings at the bar.
“I didn’t say anything,” I mumble.
“My name’s Lisa,” she continues despite me turning back to the bar and taking a long gulp of beer.
When I don’t offer my name, Lisa sidles onto the stool next to mine as if my silence is an invitation, as if she likes a challenge and I’m her chosen target for tonight.
“I saw you earlier, sitting here alone all night.”
I pull at the label on my beer bottle, wondering how to get rid of Lisa without hurting her feelings.
“I’m looking for someone.”
I realize too late that’s the wrong thing to say because Lisa shuffles forward on her stool and leans on the bar with her left elbow so that her boobs are practically in my face. I pointedly ignore them.
“You just found her.”
Lisa is definitely not the woman I’m looking for. Jodie was sweet and natural with a lopsided smile and dancing eyes.
Lisa rests her hand on my arm and gives it a small squeeze while giving me what I guess is supposed to be a coy smile but, from a woman who’s clearly had too much to drink, comes out like a maniacal grin.
How easy it would be to go home with Lisa. To lose myself in a stranger for an hour or two. To forget Jodie and her haunting smile and the way her lips brushed mine and how good it felt to lie with her body next to mine.
The thought of Jodie makes my heart hurt and turns any encounter with another woman into a non-starter. How could I be with anyone else when I know Jodie is out there somewhere?
“I’m sorry.” I take Lisa’s hand off mine and place it on the bar. “I’m not interested.”
Lisa’s eyes flash dangerously, and her mouth closes in a thin line.
“You’d be lucky to get a chance with someone like me.”
I’ve offended her, and she’s not going to take it easily. I should get up and leave, walk out of the bar and go home. But I’ve had way too many beers to do anything so sensible, and I feel a little annoyed.
Who does this woman think she is? Just because a guy’s drinking alone, she thinks he’s looking for a hookup? Just because she offers herself to a man, she thinks he should take her up on it?
“Doesn’t seem like it’s that hard to get a chance with you.”
I should stop. I shouldn’t offend the poor woman, but I’m drunk and I’m hurting and I can’t stop myself.
“Excuse me?”
She puts her hands on her hips and her voice is raised, drawing the attention of the whole bar. “Are you calling me easy?”
Walk away, Kieren. Walk away, walk away, walk away.
This time, I listen to my drink-addled brain and put my hands up while I slide off my barstool. I don’t notice the man who’s come up behind me until I back into him.
I’m a decent-sized man, but this guy is huge. At least a foot taller than me and twice as wide with muscles in his arms that pop out of the tight t-shirt he’s wearing. His bushy eyebrows are drawn together in an angry line.
“What did you call my sister?”
Oh, great. She’s got Popeye for a brother and he’s pissed off.
Lisa’s wearing a smirk, which tells me she’s enjoying the trouble she’s caused. Maybe these two work as a team praying on drunk men. I don’t know what their angle is, but I do know I never back down from a fight.
“I didn’t mean to offend your sister.”
That’s when Popeye makes a fatal mistake.
I may only be five foot eight, but I’m wiry. My body is honed from years in the Special Forces, and I know how to fight.
Popeye pushes me in the chest in the way that only large men do to smaller men they’re trying to intimidate.
Big mistake.
In one move, I spin around with an upper cut to the chest and a kick that’s supposed to connect with his side belly. Only I’m too drunk and slow. Popeye takes the punch with a heave and doubles over but manages to dodge the kick.
He throws a punch that I’m too slow to dodge, and it clips me on the side of the ear. The force spins me around, and I’m too drunk to keep my balance.
I stagger backwards, falling onto a table and sending glasses crashing to the floor.
I try to stand up, but the room is spinning, and instead I slump to the floor.
Popeye is bearing down on me, but Dave, the barman, steps in front of him with his arms crossed and a furious look on his face.
The room is hazy, and I’m not sure if I’m sitting on the floor or leaning against the bar.
“Let’s go, Kieren.”
The voice is familiar, and I squint into the face of Seth, my best friend. Even with his bad leg, Seth manages to haul me to my feet because I’m fuck-all useless in this state.
My head is fuzzy, and I’m not sure what just happened.
I’m vaguely aware of Seth throwing some cash on the bar. “To cover the damage.” Which makes me wonder. What damage?
Then he’s shoving me through the door, and the cool, fresh air hits my face, making me want to puke.
I run to a bin and retch into it, but nothing comes out.
Laughing, I clutch the side of the bin and look up to find Seth with his arms folded, looking down at me like he’s my angry dad.
“What the fuck was all that about?”
I shrug because I really don’t know.
I went into the Sea Hopper looking for Jodie like I’ve been doing most nights since I got back from tour. But like every single night, she wasn’t there.
She hasn’t been at any other bar or cafe or restaurant. I’ve tried them all in a fifty-mile radius up and down the coast. But I keep coming back to the Sea Hopper, the place where we met eighteen months ago, the place where our one incredible weekend started and ended.
But Seth’s looking at me like I’m a naughty child, not his colleague in the security firm and brother in arms from our Special Forces days. A thought occurs to me.
“How did you know I was there?”
Seth looks away, and I know he’s been up to no good. He’s the IT expert in our security firm. I know he doesn’t always use ethical means.
“I was watching on the CCTV.”
That doesn’t surprise me, but I am touched by his dedication to keeping me out of trouble.
“You were checking up on me?”
“Someone has to.”
He takes my arm and leads me to his car.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together, Kieren. You can’t keep pulling shit like this. If Bronn found out, you could be off the team.”
That’s a sobering thought. Bronn runs the security firm he set up for his old Special Forces team once we all got out of the military.
Security is a good job for a man who’s only ever known the military. But since my one weekend with Jodie, I find it hard to care about anything else. If I just knew where she was, I could stop this stupid search, going to bars every night and drinking more than I should.
“Why don’t you just let me look her up for you?”
It’s as if Seth can read my mind, which wouldn’t be too hard since it’s been stuck on the Jodie page for the last eighteen months.
It’s not the first time Seth has offered to find her for me. Sure, I’ve looked her up on social media, but it’s hard to find a woman when you only know her first name. There are a lot of Jodies in the state, and none of them are her.
We kept it impersonal on purpose, believing it was a one-off thing. But Jodie ran off before I told her I wanted more. Then I was deployed, and now she’s vanished without a trace.
“I don’t want you invading her privacy.”
Because hacking into God knows what to find her is something I can’t get behind. It may have worked for Seth to get his woman, but I won’t disrespect Jodie’s privacy that way.
“Suit yourself, man.” We reach Seth’s car and I slide into the passenger seat. “But you’ve got to stop getting into trouble like this. If you want me to help you find her, I will find her. But if you don’t want me to, then you’ve got to let her go. You’ve got to move on.”
He starts up the engine, and we ride in silence to my place. I stare out the window at the lights going past and know there is no way in hell that I’ll ever move on from Jodie.