prologue
Austin Hart
The bar was busy.
Bustling with movement and people talking, but all of it had become a slow, heavy hum in my ears, almost like a low-lying buzzing that wouldn’t go away as I nursed my beer.
A couple of bikers were playing pool.
Some were swaying closely pressed up against each other with their old ladies on the makeshift dance floor by the jukebox of the old hole-in-the-wall bar that is the complete opposite of what my best friends and I ran. When Marie looked at me over the bar, I knew the woman was about to bust my balls.
“Checkin’ out the competition, handsome?” she teased. I shook my head.
“No way.” I grinned. “You think I’m smart enough to do that?”
“You’re more than a pretty face, Hart.” She shot me a disapproving look, and I chuckled at her compliment. Marie always hated when my brothers and I dumbed ourselves down.
“I don’t know about all that,” I said with a shrug and a slight sigh I wasn’t able to swallow.
“I do,” the older woman argued sternly and seriously, something that made me sit up straighter, but that wasn’t unusual.
Marie was like an aunt, kind of. Well, if I was honest, she was more like a mother figure, the only one I ever had since my mom walked out on us when I was a baby. My dad and Marie had always buzzed around one another. My old man had come in here day after day with a broken heart after my mom walked out on him, leaving him to raise four boys on his own. He might have been drinking to forget her, but I always had a sneaking suspicion he kept coming for the pretty brunette owner who had become his best friend throughout the years.
But even now, the old man was stubborn. Keeping his distance, going on and on about the Hart family curse. I’d overheard him and my uncle just two weeks ago talking about it when they hadn’t seen me. My uncle had pressed him to take a shot and finally ask Marie out. But my old man had shaken his head, saying our family curse would just end up hurting her.
Or maybe he was too much of a coward to try again after his first marriage exploded in his face?Shit, who am I to judge?It wasn’t like I had ever tried to find anything more than a warm body to heat up my bed for a night or two. Not like Merritt. My older brother Merri was happy, married and with a kid now. I was an uncle. So far, the Hart family curse seemed to be avoiding Merri and his happiness. And thank fuck for that! I’d hate to see something happen to Scarlett and him.
“What’s going on in that big brain of yours?” she asked, not bothering to beat around the bush. I opened my mouth, but before I could get a single syllable out, she shot me a look and said, “Don’t even think of telling me you’re fine. It’s been a long day, my feet hurt, and I don’t have the energy to pry it out of you, so, please do me a favor and just share.” I pressed my lipstogether to stop myself from outright smiling. I loved Marie and how easy she was to talk to.
“I’m just thinking about the curse.” She stared at me for what felt like an entire minute in sheer silence before she started to laugh.
She actually cackled.
And when she tried to catch her breath, she started all over again, making a couple of bikers hanging out move their attention towards us.
“Funny,” I muttered, sipping the beer I had been nursing for the last two innings of the game playing on the TV in the far corner, one Marie had insisted on making my dad put up since he’d kept bringing us in when we were little kids.
“Boy.” She chuckled and shook her head, wiping at the tears at her eyes. “You really know how to make an old woman laugh.” She caught her breath. “What’s really going on?” I opened then shut my mouth.
How could I tell her that I was getting to a point in my life where I was getting tired of one-night stands? That I was looking at my brother’s life and then my best friends and business partners hooking up and pairing off and wishing like hell I had that in me to find? But that the fear of this damn family curse and what it could do to someone actually made the blood in my veins turn ice cold?
I couldn’t.
“You’re not old.” I looked up at her kind brown eyes. “You’re not,” I repeated when she was about to argue with me. Her stare softened, and she patted my hand.
“You were always too sweet and charming for your own good.” She smiled. “You know that curse is nothing but bullshit, right?”
“Marie––“
“How old are you? I’ve spent how many years telling your dad that?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Thirty-six years,” she repeated with a sad smile and a heaviness that shone in her eyes. “I know I’ve never said it straight out to you, but this whole curse thing is bullshit. Your mama––“ She took in a deep breath. “She wasn’t exactly… a nice person, honey. In the long run, I think it was a godsend that she left when she did, Austin. I know it makes me sound like a monster, but it’s true. Your dad didn’t want to see it, and sometimes, I think he still doesn’t because he’s so stuck in his stupid, hard-headed crap. And maybe this is something I should have said sooner to you. God knows I told Shep“—that made my brow rise. Shep? She’d tried to talk my brother out of believing in the curse? When?—“or maybe I should keep my nose out of it, but this whole Hart family curse is stupid. It’s bullshit. And not true,” she kept talking, distracting me from the questions I had about my brother.
“Then how do you explain the last three generations of Harts?” I asked, and she leaned over the bar.
“Honey…”—her hand wrapped around mine, something she had done countless times in my life, but it had been awhile, and I noticed just how much more weathered her skin was now—“I hate to break it to you, but life happens. Love, no matter how true it might be, comes to an end. Whether it’s through breakups or death and misunderstandings. Shit happens. Life happens. The only thing that matters is what we do with that life and the love we find while we have it.” She winked at me and with a sad smile turned around and reached for another beer.
