Page 2 of Breaking His Exile

She scanned the room on the way to the bar, because that was who she was now — a woman who clocked threats and knew every exit before she sat down. It was surprisingly busy for a roadhouse. Men in cowboy hats mingled with flirty women in too-tight halter tops and jeans. It all looked safe enough. The only people to give her pause were the men at the pool table, who appeared to be the owners of the bikes out front, but they weren’t wearing cuts and paid her no attention.

Still, she’d avoid them.

Then there was the man at the end of the bar, nursing a beer. He sat alone and gave off major don’t-fuck-with-me-vibes. Long dark hair, dark beard, and a stillness to him that should have felt threatening but didn’t. A huge black dog that looked like it bench-pressed small cars for fun stretched out under his stool, chin on its paws, dark eyes moving over the room in slow sweeps. Both looked semi-feral, and the fact that he was allowed in here with the dog without anyone harassing him said a lot about the kind of man he was.

Yeah, she’d avoid him. The dog, too.

The bartender was a skinny man with a grizzled beard, who looked as if nothing surprised him anymore.

She crossed to him and plastered on a smile. “Hi, I ran out of gas a few miles back⁠—”

“Need a phone?” He pulled an old wireless phone from under the bar and slid it across the bar. It came to a spinning stop in front of her.

She stared at it.

She could still call River. She knew his number by heart from all the other times she’d almost called him over the years.

“Uh, no.” She lifted her guitar. “I was hoping I could play a set for tip money? I’m good. I even had a record deal.”

It wasn’t much of one. One album that did well on the indie pop charts, a few shows, and then Mal got jealous and shut it all down.

That should’ve been her first red flag.

No, not even the first. The hundredth. But she’d ignored it just like all the others, until the day she finally saw something that she couldn’t ignore.

The bartender eyed the case, then her, and grunted. “Won’t do you a lick of good. Nearest gas station is another fifteen-mile hike down the mountain.”

“Oh, shit.” She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She’d just been so focused on earning money for gas, she hadn’t considered how she’d actually get the stuff to her truck.

“Okay, listen.” He leaned on the bar and nodded toward the small raised platform across the room that served as a stage. “You’re too pretty to be out here wandering these mountains alone. Something happened to you, I’d have to live with that, and I don’t want to. So you play your set, and I’ll give you the can of gas I keep for the generator out back. And you can keep any tips.”

She wanted to reach across the bar, grab his skinny face, and plant one on him. “Thank you! You’re an angel.”

He barked out a laugh that drew the guy at the end of the bar’s attention. “Far from it. Want a drink? On the house.”

She ordered a whiskey neat and, even though he said it was on the house, she still slid her last bill across before he finished pouring, because paying up front meant she owed nobody anything and could leave whenever she wanted. She threw it back. It burned going down, and she was glad for it.

Then she carried her case to the stage. A few people watched her as she set up, but it was the man at the end of the bar’s gaze she felt the most. She avoided looking in his direction.

She settled the guitar in her lap, dropped the mic stand two inches, and checked the tuning by ear. Three small turns of the pegs. Checked it again. The room went a little quieter in front of her, the way rooms did when they figured out something was about to happen.

She opened with the song that had landed her on several one-hit-wonder lists. Four bars of finger picking, spare, letting the notes fall into the quiet. Her voice came in on the fifth bar, and she let it come rough, the way it wanted to.

I’ve chased neon halos down empty highways,

Drank from bottles that never filled the ache.

Tried to find a home in a stranger’s arms,

But it burned out fast as a paper flame…

Easy song. Safe song. The one she could play in her sleep, in any bar, for any audience.

Maybe what I’m running from

Is what I’m searching for…

She closed her eyes for the last line. Dropped it to almost nothing. When she opened them, the pool players were watching, the women had stopped flirting, and the cowboys stared. The bartender had set down his rag, and somebody let out a single sharp whistle into the silence.