I step through the entrance of the bar.
Ron is fifteen feet ahead of me. Moving fast now. Moving toward the serving station where Stormy is carrying plates, his back turned, the wordsFOLLOW THIS ASS TO BIG TEX'S ROADHOUSEfacing Ron like a loud declaration of war.
Stormy doesn't see him yet.
But I do.
And every step I've taken since the night I put him in my truck has led me to this moment.
I follow Ron Jackson into my bar.
Stormy's bar now.
Chapter 38: Stormy
The tray of dirty dishes is heavy.
I balance the tray on my left palm and push through the door with my hip. I'm thinking about the coleslaw order and whether we have enough slaw mix for tomorrow and whether—
A hand grabs my arm.
Not a tap. Not a touch. A nasty grab that has fingers and intention and ownership in it. The kind that wraps around the bicep and digs in and jerks. My body knows this grip before my brain catches up. Years of memory stored deep in my bones.
I'm spun around. The tray goes flying. Dirty plates hit the new hardwood floor—the floor I polished on my hands and knees—and pieces of rib bones and coleslaw scatter across the wood in a crash.
Ron Jackson is standing directly in front of me.
He's too close. The same distance he always kept. The distance that meant there was nowhere to lean back, no air between his body and mine that didn't belong to him. His hand is on my arm and his face is inches from mine.
I can smell the whiskey on his breath, cheap bourbon, the same brand he drank in Alabama. Underneath it is the cologne I used to smell in the dark when the bedroom door opened. The smell brings bile up into the back of my throat.
His eyes are not the eyes Tex saw in the parking lot. Not the smile eyes. Not the deacon eyes. These are the eyes I know best. The one-in-the-morning eyes. The eyes that came with a punch to the ribs.
"Take that fucking shirt off," he snarls. His voice is shaking with a rage that has been building for hours, for days,for the entire time his property has been missing. "We're going home."
The old me would have muttered yes sir. Because yes sir is what kept me alive and staying alive was the only thing that mattered.
But the old Stormy didn't have a man who loved him.
I turn and look Ron Jackson straight in the eyes. At the face that smiled while it destroyed me. The face that told a church congregation he was a good man and came home and proved he wasn't.
I look at that face and something shifts in me. Not rage. Something quieter than rage. Something underneath it, something load-bearing, something that has been building in me since a man pulled me out of the rain and gave me a name and a stool and a plate of food and never once asked for anything in return.
I open my mouth and the voice that comes out doesn't belong to Matthew.
"Go home???" I yell at him. Then louder, so the whole damn world can hear it. "I AM home! And you're inmyhouse now, bitch!"
My voice doesn't shake. For the first time in my life, my voice doesn't shake.
Ron's face goes blank. The expression of a man who pressed a button that has worked for four years and nothing happened. The machine he built just looked him in the eye and said no. For two seconds, Ron Jackson looks lost, and in those two seconds I see him clearly for the first time. Not the monster, not the shadow, not the nightmare that fills doorways. Just a man. An ordinary, broken man who only knows how to control things that are afraid of him.
I'm not afraid of him.
He draws back with his other hand but doesn't get a chance to act.
Tex hits him from the side.
I don't see where Tex came from. I don't know if he was behind the bar or at the entrance or materializing like the force of nature he is. All I see is Ron's head snap sideways and his hand release my arm.
