Luanne popped out from between a rack, balancing an armful of linens.Dumping them on the floor, she hurried over, sliding behind the counter to ring everything up.
“Did Margie tell you this is my shop?”she said with a proud smile.“Bought and paid for and then some.”
“She did not,” Cassie replied, shooting Margie a glance.“She was too busy tellin’ me what to do.”
“Well, now, somebody’s gotta keep things movin’,” Margie muttered.
“Older she gets, the bossier,” Luanne teased, folding the clothes neatly and stacking them inside a plastic bag.
“Bossier beats sittin’ around waitin’ on somebody else to do it.”
Cassie watched them banter, feeling for the first time in days something close to gladness—happy to have run into Luanne, happier still to see her thriving.It brought back a lot of good memories, and with them, another face rose to the front of her mind.
“Is Becca still around?”she asked.“Do you guys still talk?”
Luanne lit up instantly.“Oh, hell yes.Becca and me hang out all the time.Hey—you wanna get together?I can set it up!”
Cassie found herself smiling.“Yeah,” she said, nodding.“I’d like that.”
Margie, groaning, plucked the bag from Luanne’s hands, and started steering Cassie toward the door.“We’re gonna be late.”
Cassie swatted at her, twisting back toward Luanne.“Do you have a day in mind?”
Margie kept herding her.“If we don’t leave now, we ain’t gonna make it.”
“Would you stop shoving me?I’m not a goddamn goat.”
“I’ll text you,” Luanne called after them.“Wait—I need your number, Cas!”
“Lord above—you can call the house, Luey!”Margie hollered, the screen door slamming behind them.“She’s stayin’ with me.”
Cassie stumbled onto the porch, squinting against the sun’s glare.“Margie—we still have twenty goddamn minutes.”
“And it’s gonna take twenty-one to get there.Last time I was late to an appointment, Doc Willis gave my spot to some fella with a sick duck.I sat two hours waitin’ behind a duck named Myrtle.I don’t do late no more.”
“Doc Willis…” Cassie murmured as they climbed into the truck.“Margie, Doc Willis is a vet!”
“I know,” Margie snapped, tossing the bag at Cassie.“But you know how it goes ’round here.’Sides, he don’t charge me for checkups, and I figure what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
“Literally,” Cassie said—and a laugh broke free.
Margie glanced at her, and snorted, and just like that, they were both laughing.
Back at the clubhouse, Nash brought the hammer down, trying to drown out Cassie’s scream—the guttural, ragged sound she’d torn loose in Margie’s kitchen.Not a cry, not even a wail.Just raw pain, ripping through the air between them.
And the look onher face—Christ.Like the whole world had beat her bloody, and he’d been the one to finish the job.
Clang.Clang.Clang.
His head throbbed with every blow of the hammer—whiskey pounding behind his eyes, no sleep to clear it.He forced himself to focus on repairing the bar.It was easier than thinking about Cassie—who he was supposed to be meeting.He glanced down at his watch.Soon.
Regret hit first, anger right behind it, white-hot.He swung hard; the bracket bent flat beneath the blow, screws biting deeper into the wall.Growling, Nash swung again, the hammer crashing through the shelf into the counter below.Splinters shot across the bar, jagged pieces raining to the floor.
Shouting curses, he spun away from the shelves and hurled the hammer across the room.It clipped a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey off the edge of a nearby table, glass exploding as whiskey sprayed across the table, floor, and the man seated beside it.
Glass glittering all around him, whiskey dripping down his sleeve, Elias “Rook” Weaver didn’t even flinch.He just kept dragging steel over stone in slow, even strokes.Late twenties, lean as he was mean, dark hair skimming his jaw—Rook was a man damn near impossible to rattle.
Crusher glanced up from the jukebox, one arm hooked around a blonde, the other draped over a redhead.“Jesus, Nash.You fixin’ the bar or fixin’ to tear down the whole damn club?”The girls giggled, leaning into him.
