McGuire scrubbed a hand down his face, took a pull of his beer as he glanced over at his teammates playing a round of pool. Thick scruff lined their jaws, clothes slightly wrinkled, they looked more than a bit haggard. The kind of weariness no amount of sleep fixed. At least, he wasn’t the only one still adjusting.
Other than Patch.
He’d taken to living off-grid like he’d been born in a mangrove tree, his current place little more than a shack a strong wind could blow over. Not that McGuire’s home was much better. But running water and electricity had been non-negotiable.
Patch ambled over when Stone and Cross started discussing gators as suitable home security, dragging out a chair before collapsing into it. He looked tired, tense, and McGuire knew more than their last mission weighed on his friend’s shoulders. The kind of trauma that festered in the dark — filled in the emptyspaces until it became its own entity. Though, that wasn’t a topic his buddy seemed willing to discuss.
McGuire nodded at his best friend as he slapped at a mosquito the size of an aircraft carrier on the back of his neck. “I swear you don’t breathe the air down here, you drink it.”
Patch snorted. “Your sister definitely has a unique sense of humor sending us here.”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is twisted.”
Patch grinned. “That she is.”
McGuire rolled his eyes. “God, if you say one more word that can be interpreted the wrong way, I’m gonna shoot you in the ass.”
Savvy and Patch had been on again, off again, for what seemed like forever, though, McGuire knew this last time hadn’t ended well. Another topic they didn’t discuss.
Patch tipped his beer. “Consider the subject closed.”
They sat in silence for a while, the jukebox kicking out some sad country tune. A couple boats chugged out of the dock, the clock on the wall nearing midnight.
The floorboards creaked as Stone crossed the room and slapped McGuire on the shoulder, only a hint of shadows clouding his eyes. “We’re heading out. We’ve got that early run to Baton Rouge for supplies, and Cross is an ogre if he doesn’t get his beauty sleep.”
McGuire nodded as Cross flipped off Stone. “Just don’t bring back any more of that gator jerky. It tastes like a Goodyear tire.”
Cross smiled. “That’s the whole point.”
They gave McGuire and Patch a half-assed salute, still talking as they slipped out the door, their footsteps fading down the wooden walkway.
McGuire shook his head. Despite the circumstances — having left everything and everyone behind, namely his other sister Drew who, like the rest of the world, thought he was dead— they’d adapted. Found a way to matter, when they’d lost the essence of what had defined them.
Made them whole.
He sighed, shifted his focus to the bartender as she crossed the floor. Tall, lean, with long brown hair that hung in ever-present waves down her back, the girl made his heart flutter in all the wrong ways.
Riven.
That’s all. Just those big blue eyes and a sea of unanswered questions. Even the regulars didn’t seem to know her last name, most calling her “Riv,” or “darlin’,” if they enjoyed pain. A quick snap of her ever-present bar towel, which she wielded with laser-sharp precision. She didn’t talk much, floating around the bar like a ghost. There, but small. As if she didn’t want to be noticed.
As if she’d ever blend in. The woman was smart, beautiful, with the kind of curves that put any backroad to shame. She practically glowed beneath the stuttering neon sign behind the bar, her presence larger than life.
Riven gathered the empties, checked the exits, then headed back to the counter, angling so she never gave the room her back. She settled behind the cash register, gaze making the usual loop — door, dock, exits, them, door again. Every few minutes, as if she was searching for trouble. Expecting more than lonely men to stumble through the door.
Patch nudged his arm, smirked. “You’re staring, again.”
McGuire took another sip, toying with the label as he watched her watch the room. “That a crime?”
“With how often you do it, it’s bordering on stalking.”
“Shut up, it’s just…”
How did he say, she intrigued and worried him at the same time? That something about her felt familiar, comfortable. That standing next to her ignited a part of him he’d buried.
Patch eyed him, reading him like a well-worn book. “I’ll shut up if you stop gawking and just ask her out, already.”
McGuire frowned. They’d been sent to the bayou to vanish. Somehow, asking someone like Riven out didn’t fit that description. “What I was going to say is, that something’s off about her.”
