“Ready to go?” Myles asked, skipping up behind her and winding up to try to slap her butt again.
Only this time, with ninja reflexes and fire in her belly, she turned around and faced him square on, baring her teeth like a mother bear. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
“Whoa,” he said, rearing back and putting his hands up in fake surrender. All the while a sinister smile that said he wasn’t apologetic at all danced across his face like The Joker or Jack fromThe Shining.“Jesus Christ, Matthews, what crawled up your ass and died today? You on the rag or something?”
Sexist prick.
Yes, because the moment a woman asserts herself and tells you to back the fuck off, she has her period.
Fuck. She did not need this right now.
“Just leave me alone, Slade,” she said quietly, venom in her tone but no longer in her heart. She had bigger fish to fry, bigger, more important, more life-altering things on her mind than that sexist pig.
He rolled his eyes and just flashed that same big, creepy, wily, wolfish grin, one that showed his canines like he was some kind of mangy, starving, would-chew-off-his-own-leg-if-he-had-to-but-would-rather-chew-off-yours hyena. “We’ve got a call on another domestic. You ready?”
She nodded, swallowed and pushed everything into the back of her mind for later. “In a minute. I just have to grab my badge.”
Krista’s gut was still in knots as she pulled into the parking lot of the bar later that night. The domestic assault they’d been called out on early that morning had been disturbing, and in the last few weeks, she’d been to some doozies. But this particular one had been worse than ever and forced her to focus intently on her gag reflex to suppress the hell out of it, while wrangling in every ounce of self-control and training she had.
If it were up to her, and laws be damned, she’d have shot the bastard on sight. He’d beaten his girlfriend almost to death. He’d come home drunk after having lost his job and had taken it out on her until she’d passed out. A friend had found her the following morning and called the police. In the end, after they’d taken the victim to the hospital for her injuries, which were plentiful, they found out she’d been pregnant and the assault had caused a miscarriage. It was all Krista could do not to shed multiple tears along with her. The woman cradled her flat and bruised abdomen and wept for hours on Krista’s shoulder as Krista’s hand discreetly snaked down to her own stomach and hugged the inconvenient little miracle inside.
With a wince, a sigh and a stomach in tight knots, she pushed open the big, well-worn wooden door of the bar and was immediately hit with a wave of déjà vu: loud music, boisterous laughter, the clink of utensils against plates and beer steins being plunked back down on the tables. A cacophony of Friday-night fun in a country biker bar with just a tinge of underlying fear or perhaps threatpercolating around the edges. She knew that if things got just the least bit out of hand, or the wrong thing was said to the wrong person, all hell would break lose in an instant, and Santa Claus behind the bar—she never did learn his name—would be bringing out his shotgun to maintain order.
But she wasn’t afraid. She’d grown up in a small town. The local barkeep was her uncle, and she’d waitressed in a place very similar every summer when she’d come home from college. She could banter and joke with the best of them. And one thing that had served her well waitressing all those summers—and was continuing to do so in her new career choice—was to look past the exterior. Just because someonelookedrough around the edges and ready for a knife fight didn’t necessarily mean they were. Appearances can be deceiving, and it was better to go with your gut. Take Myles, for example. He was clean-cut and friendly, but Krista would rather spend every waking hour of the rest of her life with the bearded man in the corner wearing a leather vest half buttoned up, showing off his giant skull tattoo on his hairy chest, than an extra five minutes with Myles. To her this was normal. This was welcoming. This was home.
She took up her old perch at the bar and waited for Santa Claus to notice. When his light blue eyes finally snagged hers, his smile was heartwarming, and for just a moment, she wondered if maybe hewasSanta, taking a break from being the ultimate Arctic overlord to hang out with the mere muggles.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” He chuckled, wiping down the counter and offering a grandfatherly wink. “Was starting to think it was something I said that scared you away for so long. Or did it take just this long to get over your hangover from all the tequila?” His laugh was deep and raspy like he was just getting over a cold or had smoked since he could walk. “You here to see Brock?”
She nodded sheepishly. “You, uh … you don’t know where I could find him, do you?”
Without prompting, he placed a glass of fizzy red liquid in front of her. Krista shook her head and pushed it away, the reality of the next eight months slowlysettling in.
“Relax,” he said softly, “it’s cranberry juice and ginger ale. It’ll help calm the nausea.”
She squinted at him. “Nausea?”
Leaning against the bar, he cocked a hip and gave her a tilted eyebrow. “Honey, I’m a retired detective. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to add up the clues. You show up here, white as a sheet, about a month or soafteryou spent the night with Brocky. I’ve got five kids. Two of which were glorious accidents. I know how it works.”
Her eyes went wide. “A-are you Brock’s dad?”
Holy hell, did the grandfather just find out before the father? She was doing thisallwrong! ALL WRONG!
He shook his head. “Naw, Brock’s daddy’s been gone for some time now. But he and I were best friends. We were on the force together. Brock helped me open up this bar after I retired. He’s part owner …silentowner, mind you. Doesn’t much care for people or the chit-chat.”
“So, where is he now? How can I find him?”
He closed his eyes for a second and then swung his big frame over to the food window after one of the cooks had hit the bell. He wandered back toward her, bringing the decadent scent of greasy french fries with him. He plopped the basket down in front of her, then reached under the counter and brought out a bottle of ketchup.
“Another thing that helped my wife. She must’ve eaten nearly a thousand pounds of potatoes between all five pregnancies. It’s what she lived off for the first three months, only thing she could keep down. French fries and ginger ale.”
Krista dove in without hesitation, ravenous from not having eaten anything all day and suddenly feeling like she might chew her own arm off if Santa didn’t order her another basket posthaste.
“What’s your name?” she finally asked, licking ketchup off her finger, her eyes rolling into the back of her head at how truly magnificent everything tasted.
He smiled. “My real name is Michael, but everyone calls me Mickey.”
She took a sip of her cranberry and ginger ale. “Can you help me find Brock, Mickey?”
