The effort it took not to dart for the exit.
She didn’t belong here in a crap-hole bar in the middle of nowhere. Harvey knew it. She knew it. The bartender throwing glances her way knew it. The sheer anxiety coming off her in waves pulsed every so often, a siren call he couldn’t ignore. He was already two beers in, but he was clearheaded enough to take in everything about her, from the long fingers she curled around her own bottle to the slight bounce of her right leg on the stool. Long hair worked to escape the haphazard ponytail she’d attempted. Most likely in a rush. No hint of makeup, other than maybe around her eyes, or a whole lot of effort put into her outfit. Not meeting someone then. At least, not romantically.
He couldn’t argue the jeans fit her like a glove, but the plain sweatshirt and tennis shoes did nothing to exaggerate her small frame. Like she’d gone out of her way to avoid garnering attention. Didn’t help. He’d honed in on her the moment she’d stepped through the door. He hadn’t noticed her in here before. So why in the world was a woman like her coming to a place like this?
Harvey wanted to find out. No. He needed to find out.
Her name, where she was from, where she’d gone to school, if she was in town long—all of it. An invisible hook had snagged in his chest and refused to let up, itching and clawing and aggravating. Dragging his bottle across the soft, dented andscratched wood of the two-person table, Harvey navigated around a couple of regulars, barely dodging a collision with one of the waitresses who’d made it all too clear she got off around ten. He wasn’t interested.
Heading straight for the bar, he clocked the patrons, their drinks, their moods and the exits. Couldn’t stop himself. There were just some habits that refused to die after leaving the military. He hated that the training had been so ingrained it’d practically become part of him, eroding the man he’d been before he’d enlisted. Someone his mom might’ve been proud of. Couldn’t say she’d be happy with him now, though. And maybe that was why he’d driven here straight after the funeral.
It wasn’t often he felt the need to forget there was an entire world outside of these four alcohol and sweat-soaked walls, but he didn’t want to remember today. Ever.
The woman’s gaze—the greenest he’d ever seen—centered on him before he even had the chance to get close. As though she’d sensed him as much as he’d sensed her. Every move, every dart of her tongue across her bottom lip, every shaky inhale as she watched him approach. But more than anxiety resided in those eyes. Pain. A pain that called to his, matched his, maybe even outdid his. It blistered one second and healed over the next as though it’d never existed, but Harvey had more than enough experience to know it would never really die. Whatever had driven her to this bar wouldn’t surface just once but a thousand times over. And some internal instinct told him she needed help outrunning it for the night. Anticipation widened her eyes, and he could’ve sworn she clutched her untouched beer a bit tighter.
Movement registered from his right and cut into his path. Broad shoulders blocked his view of her and pulled Harvey up short.
The man towered over her seat on the stool, leaning in. Hell, Harvey could smell the whiskey on him from three feetaway. He’d been here a while, throwing them back with the two friends looking on from their table. College kids based on their baseball hats and hoodies, from over in St. George. “I’ve been watching you from over there. You all alone? You should join us.”
Yep, that was the way to go. Intimidate the living crap out of her. Harvey couldn’t stop the cringe from taking hold, and he tightened his hand on his beer much the same as she had a moment ago. He took up residence a couple stools down. Close enough to overhear, far enough away to pretend he wasn’t interested in every word out of her mouth.
She swiveled in her chair, legs crossed, spine straight. Twisting the bottom of her bottle into the bar, she flicked her gaze to Harvey then to the man between them. Her shoulders deflated on a smooth exhale. “That depends. Are you the kind of guy that expects to me to laugh at your terrible jokes, pretend you’re not thinking about getting in my pants the entire night and then let you send dirty pictures to your friends in the morning? Because I should warn you. I was raised to take care of my partner. Wash his clothes, clean the house, wear gloves, get rid of the body and act very sad at the funeral.”
Harvey couldn’t hold in the laugh caught in his throat but saved it with a cough. Or six. He tried taking another drink, catching the kid’s attention from over one shoulder, and waved the bartender off.
“Forget you.” The kid shoved off the bar, taking two wobbly steps backward, providing Harvey with another uninterrupted view of his current obsession. “You’re like my mom’s age, anyway.”
She raised her beer in mock salute and took a drink. “I’m sure that sock by your bed will be happy to hear it.”
The flash of despair was back, though she made sure to cut her attention back to the bar. But Harvey had seen it. Hecouldn’t seem to look away. Holding his breath for the next moment that darkness reached out to him.
He turned to face her, never more patient in his life for her to look at him. And when she raised that green gaze to his, the confusion and rage circling in his head vanished. As though it’d never existed. He closed the distance between them, his beer forgotten on the bar. Not a single word spoken between them as he offered her his hand and nodded toward the door. It wasn’t needed. Because whatever connection that’d drawn him in gripped her, too. Understanding on a cellular level he couldn’t explain.
With a smile, she slid her hand into his.
“I don’t knowwhat pain you’re talking about.” Drennan cast her gaze around his bland house, anywhere but on him.
It was that same sense of anxiety he picked up on in the bar. As though her skin crawled with a thousand shards of glass. He understood that feeling, the need to escape. He shouldn’t have approached her that night and saved her from his proximity altogether, but once she’d so creatively turned down that college kid’s offer, he’d been snared. “You’re good at hiding it. I’ll give you that. One moment it’s there in your eyes, then gone the next. Like your brain is recalling whatever happened over and over to keep you safe, and you’re trying to live your life separate from it.”
Her mouth parted, and Harvey had the distinct feeling he’d hit a nerve. He’d surprised her. Good. It was only fair considering the news she’d given him in the middle of a crime scene this morning. “You never actually drank your beer that night. In the bar. You kept picking at the label like you hoped someone would come along and take it away and tell you to get out. You didn’t actually want to be there. I don’t think you werehoping anything would happen. You just had nowhere else to go.”
“You were watching me.” She leveled her chin parallel to the floor in a show of confidence, but he couldn’t help but watch the hint of pink slip up her neck and into her face.
“Kind of hard not to with the way your leg was bouncing off that stool.” When had he stepped close enough to catch that addictive scent of hers? His entire nervous system latched on to the barest hint and settled a split second later. “The entire building was threatening to come down if I didn’t distract you.”
“Is that what you were doing when you came over?” Her voice turned breathy, as though just now recognizing the mere inches between them. “Trying to distract me?”
He angled his head to one side, heart rate climbing every second he stood his ground. “I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting the death threat you delivered to that kid, but I can’t say I wasn’t a little curious if you had one saved up for me that night.”
“I might have.” The humor drained from her expression, and the darker shift was back in her eyes. “But judging by the two bottles you had on your sad little table in the back corner, you were there to pretend reality didn’t exist for as long as possible as much as I was.”
He…hadn’t expected that. Cold doused him from the inside out, and Harvey added that much needed space between them. Threading his hands through his hair, he let a low-key laugh escape his chest. Hell, she’d hooked him all over again. Dragging him in little by little with that gravitational pull that had caught him in the bar. And look where it’d led them. “Everyone needs a break from reality once in a while.”
“You said you felt I was in as much pain as you were.” Her accusation didn’t come with pity. Just a simple request to understand what had brought them to this moment. They’d gone all night without saying more than a few requisite words to eachother, using one another to escape hard truths and shattered expectations, and while he didn’t owe her anything—they didn’t owe each other anything—he could give her this. He could give her some insight into the man she’d tied herself to for the next nineteen years.
“The day we met, I’d just come from my father’s funeral.” He hadn’t told anyone but his supervisor, and that had only been to get the day to drive north and back once the service ended. He’d been the only one to show at the small local church that’d hosted, and hell, wasn’t that saying everything about his and his dad’s relationship. There’d been nothing between them for the past twenty years, but Harvey just couldn’t seem to let go.
Her expression shifted into sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
