Travis was seated at the bar watching the game, blissfully unaware that he was the worst man in the world. He was a big cornfed farm boy from eastern Washington in a sheepskin-lined jacket and Mariners hat, and he had a friend with him, nearly a duplicate but with perhaps ten extra years and a few hundred more cans of Skoal behind him. Neither noticed Darcy come in. They were absorbed in the game and the pitcher of beer in front of them.
Darcy wedged herself between Travis and the empty stool next to him, kicking his boot as she did. He was slow to respond to her, and when he did, he lurched in that high-momentum way of very drunk people. The pitcher of beer in front of him was still half full, but the game was in extra innings; he must have been there all afternoon.
“Darcy! Hey, babe. What are you doing here?” he asked when he finally found his focus, blinking bloodshot blue eyes at her. He turned to his companion, knocking him with an elbow. “Jared. Jared, look, it’s the girl I lived with last winter.”
Travis let a big obnoxious grin spread across his face, as though Darcy had not been leaving voicemails threatening increasingly creative vengeance upon him for the past month.
“Hello, Travis,” she managed to get out in a conversational tone of voice.Catch more flies with honey, et cetera, she thought.
Jared leaned down the bar, giving Darcy a once-over and an appreciative leer. “Damn, Travis,” he whistled. “Can you hook me up with that?”
Travis smirked, eyes flicking over her. “Yeah, you look nice. Always thought you’d clean up okay. You wanna get a seat?”
Darcy growled deep in her throat, counting to ten in her mind. She just needed the car. She just needed the car, and then she could leave. If Travis gave her the car, they were fair and square, and she wouldn’t have to carve all the weeks of aggravation he’d given her out of his carcass.
She stuck out her palm. “I assume you came to drop off my car?” she gritted out. “I can take it right now.”
Travis drew a very apologetic look over his face as he patted his jacket pocket. “Oh, hey, I was going to call you about that tomorrow. The logging gig fell through, actually, so I’m headed to interview for another snowmobile rental job in the park.”
“Fine,” Darcy said, hand still out. “I don’t care. Give me the keys.”
Travis fixed her with a look of mild contempt, as though she were the one who didn’t understand what was happening. “No, but that means I need the car this winter. I can’t sell it to you.”
Darcy felt cold fury creeping up her body, twining around her ankles. Another ten count. “You mean you’re going to give me my money back?” she asked, words precise.
Travis snorted. “Babe, that’s like ten thousand dollars. I don’t have ten thousand dollars. I’ll have to pay ya back. Areyou working in the park again this winter? If you want to shack up again, that’ll help save on rent.”
Darcy slammed her fist down on the bar, hard enough to make the pitchers of beer vibrate. “No, I don’t want to live within a hundred miles of you, ever again. I wantmy car.The one you already sold me!”
Travis’s friend Jared chuckled loudly. “Christ, your girl is spicy, bud.”
“I know, right? Why is it that hot girls are always off the crazy curve too?” His finger spun a casual circle next to his head, like he’d lowered himself for her, like he hadn’t been absolutely panting for her before she got lonely and vulnerable on the weekend of her thirtieth birthday.
“The keys. To my car,” Darcy insisted, feeling her control fray to a slender thread.
“Darcy,” he said, turning back to her and speaking as though to a small child. “I didn’t sell you jack shit. I didn’t sign jack shit. You’ve got jack shit in writing, so you’re just gonna have to chill out and wait till I have the cash to pay you back.”
“The hell you didn’t!” Darcy spat, jabbing a finger at Travis’s chest. “We had a deal, you fucking weasel. I’m going to call the finance company—”
“And tell them what, you want your money back? Good fuckin’ luck,” Travis said, his wide pink face turning mean.
Rage dimmed her vision to a hazy red as visions of knocking over the bar stool danced through her head. Darcy found that she had taken a grip on Travis’s jacket when abruptly Teagan was there, shoving the two of them apart. She hadn’t even noticed him come into the bar.
“Hey,” Teagan said in a very calm voice, tone soothingand tranquil as he looked between Darcy and Travis. “Hey, let’s talk for a minute. We’ll take a lap, and then we’ll talk.”
Darcy sputtered as Travis drunkenly craned his neck back to assess the newcomer.
“The fuck are you?” Travis demanded, instinctively suspicious of a new male in his space. Then he took in Teagan’s running shoes, Yale sweatshirt, and chinos, and he guffawed, dismissing him. “Damn, girl, you must be pretty hard up if you’re fucking tourists these days,” he sneered to Darcy. “Well, if you change your mind about this winter, you know I can fix that for you too.”
That volley snapped Darcy’s last thread of control. She grabbed the pitcher of beer, mind quickly evaluating the variable satisfaction of dumping it over Travis’s head and clocking him with it, but just as she’d tentatively decided on the first option, strong arms encircled her from behind and lifted. Beer splashed all over her stomach as she dropped the pitcher.
Darcy instinctively threw her head back and kicked with her legs. Teagan cursed when the back of her head connected with his chin, but he didn’t drop her. He picked her up in a tight bear hug and staggered backward to the door, Darcy still swearing and flailing to get free. Travis and Jared cracked up at the sight, pounding on the bar from the joy of watching Darcy hauled outside.
She was going to kill them. Both of them. Teagan too. Teaganespecially, the traitor.
Teagan was stronger than she’d thought, because even though she was fighting like a cat in a sack, Teagan got her most of the way across the parking lot before he set her down on her feet. He jumped backward like he’d just pulled the pin out of a grenade and held out his arms defensively.
“Darcy, listen for one second,” he said in that same gentle little voice as before.
