CHAPTER 2 #2
"There's always trouble at home. That's the problem.
" Cole had put the gun on the backbar—casually, like setting down a bottle of bitters—and was pouring coffee grounds into a filter with the focused intensity of a man who needed something to do with his hands.
"His wife left him two years ago. He's been drifting since. "
"And he comes here when he drifts?"
"He comes here when he runs out of other places.
" Cole flipped the switch on the coffee maker, and the machine beeped—the power must have flickered back on while we were talking.
Above us, the bar's pendant lights buzzed and then glowed to life, chasing away the emergency shadows.
"I'm sorry. This isn't how I imagined tonight going. "
"Which part? The intruder, or the brother?"
"Either. Both." He turned to face me, and in the warm light of the bar, I saw the exhaustion settling back into his features. The same exhaustion I'd seen in my own mirror a hundred times. "I should deal with this. You should get some sleep."
"I'm not sleeping now. I'm wide awake."
"Mara—"
"Make me one of your tincture drinks. Something experimental. Something that'll knock me out."
He studied me for a moment, and I watched the weight of the night shift across his face. The brother in the back booth. The interrupted intimacy. The gun on the backbar. He looked like a man who'd been handed a dozen problems at once and was trying to decide which one to solve first.
"I've got something," he said. "Not on the menu yet. Working title is 'Somnus.' Dream god. Supposed to promote sleep."
"Supposed to?"
"Haven't tested it on anyone but myself. It works, but it tastes like regrets."
"Sounds perfect."
He moved behind the bar with that particular grace he had—the economy of motion that spoke to years of navigating dangerous spaces.
I settled onto a stool at the counter, watching him work.
Chamomile tincture from a dropper bottle.
Something dark and herbal—valerian, maybe.
A measure of honey syrup that he'd infused with lavender.
Bourbon as the base, because of course it was bourbon; everything Cole made started with bourbon the way every hospital protocol started with saline.
Marcus had slumped in the back booth, his head resting against the wall. From the way his breathing had evened out, I suspected he'd passed out.
"Your brother," I said quietly.
"Don't ask."
"I'm going to ask anyway. Are you okay?"
Cole's hands paused over the mixing glass. "That's not a question I get asked very often."
"Maybe you should be."
He resumed stirring—slow, methodical circles that sent the ice chiming against the glass. "Marcus and I have an arrangement. He shows up when he's in trouble, I give him a place to crash, he disappears again. It's worked for fifteen years."
"Worked for who?"
That earned me a sharp glance. "For him. He's still alive."
"And you?"
"I'm still here. That's something." He strained the drink into a coupe glass—pale gold, slightly cloudy, with a single chamomile flower floating on top. "Taste this. Tell me what's wrong."
I lifted the glass. The first sip hit me with honey, then lavender, then a bitter undertow that made my whole mouth pucker. "Too much valerian. It tastes like I'm drinking a health food store."
"I know. Can't figure out how to mask it without overpowering the chamomile." He leaned against the backbar, arms crossed, watching me. "Try again. Slower."
I did. Let the liquid settle on my tongue, searching for the layers underneath the bitterness. The bourbon was there, warm and familiar, and the honey smoothed out the edges. But the valerian was still dominating, a medicinal punch that reminded me of the hospital formulary.
"It needs something citrus," I said. "Lemon peel, maybe. The acid would cut the bitterness."
"That's what the lavender's for."
"Lavender's not acid. It's floral. You need something sharp."
Cole uncrossed his arms and reached for a lemon from the fruit tray. With a quick twist of a paring knife, he shaved off a strip of peel and expressed it over the glass—a fine mist of citrus oil settling onto the surface of the drink.
"Taste it now."
I did. The difference was immediate. The lemon brightened everything, tamed the valerian, let the chamomile breathe.
"Better," I said.
"Better how?"
"Better like I'd actually order this instead of using it as drain cleaner."
The corner of his mouth lifted. "High praise from the nurse who called my last experiment 'sad mouthwash.'"
"I stand by that. The gentian was aggressive." I took another sip, and the warmth of the bourbon spread through my chest. "Speaking of things that don't taste good—what's really going on with Marcus?"
Cole's expression shuttered. "He's going through a divorce."
"Two years ago, you said."
"The divorce was two years ago. The fallout is ongoing.
" He wiped down the bar with a rag that had materialized from somewhere—always cleaning, always resetting.
"He's got a gambling problem. Runs up debts.
Disappears for a few months, comes back when the collectors get too close.
I've paid off three of them in the last five years. "
"That's a lot."
"That's family."
"It's also enabling."
The rag paused. "You sound like my therapist."
"You have a therapist?"
"Had. After the beam. Department mandated, twelve sessions.
She said the same thing." He tossed the rag into the sink.
"I know what it looks like. But Marcus is the only family I've got left.
Our parents are gone. No cousins, no aunts or uncles.
Just him. So when he shows up at four in the morning, drunk and bruised, I make coffee and I give him a place to sleep. "
"And you keep a gun in the panic room."
"I keep a gun in the panic room because of the people who sometimes follow him." He said it without drama, just fact. "It's happened twice. They never got past the buzzer, but the possibility is always there."
I set down the coupe glass. The chamomile flower had drifted to the bottom, and the last of the drink had gone cold. "That's a hard way to live."
"It's the only way I know." He braced his palms on the bar top, the same gesture he'd used earlier tonight—was it really the same night?—when he'd offered me the panic room. "I'm not good at letting people go. You've probably noticed."
"I've noticed you offered a near-stranger a room in your basement because her apartment building was being sold."
"You're not a near-stranger."
"What am I, then?"
He didn't answer right away. Just looked at me, his dark eyes steady, the scar through his eyebrow pulling tight in that expression I'd come to recognize as concentration. The bar hummed around us—refrigeration units clicking on, ice machine cycling, the faint buzz of the pendant lights.
"Someone I've been waiting for," he said finally. "For a while now."
My throat tightened. "How long is a while?"
"Since the accident. When I pulled you out of the car, you were barely conscious, but you looked at me and said, 'Tell them I'm a nurse.' Not 'help me' or 'it hurts.' You wanted me to tell them you were a nurse. Like you were worried they'd treat you wrong if they didn't know."
"I don't remember saying that."
"I remember. I remember all of it." He reached across the bar and took my hand—just held it, his callused palm warm against my fingers.
"When you moved in next door, I recognized your name on the buzzer.
Almost came over that first night to see if you remembered me.
But I didn't want to be the guy who brought up the worst day of your life. "
"So you waited."
"So I waited. For the right moment. For you to see me as something other than the firefighter who scraped you off the pavement." His thumb traced the ridge of my knuckles. "I'm still waiting, I think."
"You're not." I turned my hand over in his, lacing our fingers together. "I see you. I've been seeing you."
"For three months."
"Longer. I just didn't admit it."
Marcus snored from the back booth—a loud, rattling sound that shattered the moment like a rock through glass. Cole exhaled, half-laugh and half-frustration, and pulled his hand back.
"I should get him to the spare room. It's upstairs, above the locksmith's shop. There's a cot." He rubbed the back of his neck again, a gesture I was starting to recognize as his tell for stress. "This was not the night I planned."
"What kind of night did you plan?"
He met my eyes, and the heat in his gaze made my stomach flip. "The kind that didn't involve my brother."
"Your brother's asleep. We're awake." I slid off the barstool and came around the counter, close enough to smell the coffee on his breath and the lingering traces of bourbon on mine. "The panic room's still there. So's the fern."
"The fern's not the point."
"Then what is?"
He kissed me. Not tentative this time, not a question—an answer.
His hands found my waist and pulled me against him, and the solid wall of his chest made me feel small in a way that wasn't frightening, just safe.
His mouth moved on mine, tasting of coffee and the faint honey from the drink I'd just finished.
"You taste like valerian," he murmured against my lips.
"I told you there was too much."
"I don't mind it. It tastes better on your tongue." He kissed me again, deeper, and his hands slid down to my hips. "We should go back downstairs."
"Agreed."
"The bar's still lit up like a Christmas tree."
"Turn off the lights."
"I have to lock up. Close the register." He kissed the corner of my mouth. "Get Marcus's duffel bag out of the walkway so he doesn't trip over it when he wakes up."
"Or."
"Or?"
"Or we stay here." I pulled back just enough to look at him. The pendant lights were casting gold across his features, catching the silver in his stubble, the dark warmth of his eyes. "Right here. Behind the bar. Like we own the place."
"We do own the place. I own the place."
"Then act like it."