It was funny she used the word “found,” because all of a sudden I felt more lost than I ever had been. I didn’t know how I had missed my sister being abused and my dad being a tyrant to the point he could ignore the fact that his child was being hurt. I don’t know how I had missed that whatever was percolating between me and Rowdy when we were younger was something more important and went so far beyond kinship and camaraderie than I ever thought. And maybe most importantly I didn’t know exactly how I felt about the fact that the ghost that was always hovering between Rowdy and me was here in the flesh and going to be impossible to ignore, for both of us.

CHAPTER 13

Rowdy

I NEEDED TO GO home and take a shower and wash the sweat and sunshine off of my skin, but I wasn’t in the mood to be alone, and the one person I wanted to be with was currently accompanied by the one person I never thought I would see again. That being the case, I headed to the one place where I knew there would be someone I could commiserate with and would feed me booze even on a mellow Monday afternoon.

The Bar was actually pretty busy considering it was still an hour or so before happy hour and Mondays weren’t generally big crowd days. The regulars were all lined up in their usual spots at the bar but there was also a group of younger guys gathered around the pool tables in the back that were being loud and ridiculously boisterous. Asa was watching them with careful eyes as I made a place for myself among the grizzled war vets that sat sentinel at the scarred bar top.

“They seem fun.” The sarcasm was heavy in my voice as Asa set a beer in front of me and narrowed his eyes even further as a chorus of hoots and hollers went up as Dixie dropped off a trayful of drinks.

“I don’t know where they wandered in from but I wish they would find their way back there.”

“You need a bouncer to keep the peace.”

“Rome used to handle most of the rowdies.” He snorted as I lifted my eyebrow at the twist on my name. “But with the baby and Cora, he isn’t here as much as he was before. I don’t have any problem cracking a head here or there, but I have a record, so I have to watch myself.”

“Hire someone to do it if Rome isn’t able to.”

He moved down the bar to make a round of drinks that Dixie called for and came back wiping his hands on the back of his jeans.

“Rome mentioned some guy he was in the army with. I guess the guy is getting discharged soon and talking about heading here. I think he’s holding the spot for him. You know Rome won’t pass up a chance to help a fellow soldier out if he can.”

I nodded and picked at the label on my beer with a fingernail. “He brought the baby hiking today when we rolled up into the mountains. You shoulda seen him. This giant, burly soldier that looks like he could move the entire mountain range with his bare hands toting around this little pink bundle all wrapped up in bows and sweetness. She’s so small in his hands and he holds her like she’s glass. They’re a good team and it’s obvious RJ has her daddy wrapped around her finger.”

“Rome’s a lucky man. He deserves every bit of good that comes his way after everything he sacrificed in his life.”

I pushed the edge of my hat up and looked at him because I really wanted to know his answer to the question I was about to ask.

“Is that what it takes to be rewarded by fate, to find real happiness in life? Sacrifice?”

Asa’s gold eyes shined speculatively. “I don’t know. Maybe. I know I’ve never lived a life where I ever put anyone or anything before myself. I can’t see a way that I deserve to have the kind of life Rome has or even the kind of real thing Ayden has with Jet. And you know what . . . ?” He leaned on the back of the bar across from me and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m good with that. I’ve never done anything to deserve what they have.”

“What about turning it around? Being here now and helping Rome out, cleaning up your act so that Ayden doesn’t have to live her life wondering what’s going to happen to you or what kind of trouble you’re going to drop on her doorstep? That doesn’t equal repentance and a chance at real happiness and goodness for you?”

I hated to think the past was going to forever define the future for anyone. For Asa especially, because under all his easy charm and reckless demeanor I thought he was a really good dude.

“I’ve said it before, just because I can act right and be an upstanding guy doesn’t mean that’s what my default setting is. It’s work every day to remind myself what I have to lose if I fall back into old habits, but it’s always there—the temptation to take the easy way—the desire to think only of myself. That isn’t the kind of man that deserves anything good and real in his life. Pretty sure that if I ever got my hands on something that looked like it was meant to be, I would probably destroy it. Just ask Ayden. I always manage to destroy the good in my life.”

I sighed and took another slug of beer. “Well, shit. I stopped by hoping you were going to put me in a better mood.”

He pushed off the bar as glass broke in the back and he scowled as Dixie moved over in the direction to help clean it up only to be subjected to a series of derogatory catcalls.

“You did look a little riled up when you walked in. What’s up?”

And that was why Asa was so freaking good behind a bar. He could talk about anything. He was brutally honest about who he was and what he had done, which often made the guys that frequented this place feel way better about the things they were battling themselves, and he always seemed like he had an answer for whatever burden was laid on the bar in front of him. Even if most of the advice he doled out was bullshit, it still sounded good when it came with a cocksure smile and was laced with a southern twang.

“Salem’s sister showed up unannounced.” It was like being shot back in time seeing Poppy all black and blue like that. “I wasn’t ready for it. I’ll never be ready for it.”

I took the straw hat off and plowed my fingers through my sweat-matted hair.

“You had to know that was inevitable. You’re sleeping with one sister, at some point the other was bound to make an appearance.”

I laughed drily. “Honestly I thought Salem would’ve gotten bored by now and moved on like she does. I never thought it was going to get this serious.”

“You’re kidding yourself, Rowdy. It’s been serious since the first minute she hit the Mile High.”

“You’re telling me.”

“So the sister?”

“Poppy. She’s a sweet girl. The type that is steady, kind of old-fashioned, and real family oriented. She’s married now. I always thought she would be the perfect girl for me but now I’m seeing I might have been trying to protect myself from the fact I knew—even then—that Salem was going to leave me.” There was more hollering from the back and another shattering sound as more glass hit the ground. I saw Asa’s jaw flex and he started to move toward the end of the bar where it was open to get to the other side.

“What brought the sister here if she has a man back home?”

Dixie came scurrying by as I turned around on my stool and leaned my elbows on the bar as Asa stopped by my side. Her eyes were big and she sounded rattled.

“Those guys are out of control. They had one pitcher of beer and they’re acting like it was twenty. They threw two of their pint glasses on the floor and one of them tried to grab me when I told them I wasn’t bringing them any more. I’m not serving them anything else.”

Asa reached out and patted her on her arm. “You don’t have to. They aren’t going to be here for much longer.”

Asa had always come across as mellow and sort of unhurried, so it was slightly alarming to see a tic working in his jaw and his normally calm gaze glinting with molten sparks of anger.

“Do you need me to do anything?”

I wasn’t just going to sit there while he tried to tangle with an out-of-control group of drunken kids that outnumbered him.

“No. I got this.” He laughed a little and copied my pose. “I used to be them.”

I made a face. “That bad?”

“Way worse, actually.”

“I don’t think I would’ve liked you very much before those bikers beat your ass, Asa.”

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Not too many people did. Anyway, finish telling me about the sister?”

“She always had a knack for finding the worst kind of guy to spend time with. From the looks of her, this one took it too far. There is no way her father could’ve missed it and I think she might’ve finally had enough. What’s the use in being loyal to a family that’s going to stand by and watch you be hurt and not do anything about it?”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, and the fact I may or may not have acted like I was smacked in the face with a bag of bricks when I saw her sure as shit didn’t sit well with Salem.”

“Gotta be hard for Salem. She has you now but she thinks your sister still has a piece of you from back then. That’s a pretty twisted tapestry of history, present and future, she’s looking at.”

“Poppy doesn’t have any piece of me other than sympathy and maybe a big chunk of regret. Seeing her today made that really clear. I was shocked to see her and worried that she was all black and blue, but that was it. The way Salem works me up, the way she just understands me . . . I never had any of that with Poppy. Salem was always the one that I gravitated to, I was just too young and too scared to understand what it meant back then.”

Asa made a noise of understanding and then pushed off the bar as one of the guys in the group picked up a pool stick and swung it at the head of one of his friends. The other guy drunkenly ducked and lunged at the attacker’s legs. In a split second they were rolling around on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs as fake fighting turned into real fighting really fast.

Asa moved in the direction of the brawl with a determined gait and I quickly followed. The boys were rolling around on the floor, fists were flying, and blood was pouring out of mouths as swearwords and garbled threats punctuated heavy punches. Asa got ahold of the kid that had started the entire mess and tried to pull him off his buddy. One of the other kids in the group moved toward Asa and I just shook my head and told him, “You don’t want to do that, friend.”

The kid looked at me like he was considering his chances of taking me on, when I got distracted by Asa dropping a long string of swearwords. The kid he had pulled off the obvious loser of the boozy tussle had turned his rage onto Asa and was giving my friend a hard time. Asa had the kid by the back of the neck and one of his arms cranked up between his shoulder blades, but whatever the kid had been drinking had numbed the pain and he was giving it his all to get loose. He threw his head back and tried to head-butt Asa and threw his legs back trying to kick the much taller and much more sober man.

“Knock it off, you little shit.” Asa gave the kid a shake and looked at me as I bent down to see how the other one was faring. Not too great if his snoring and bloody face was any indication. “All of you are done here. Everyone move toward the front door.”

The kid he was wrestling with broke free by throwing his body forward and surprising Asa enough that he let him go and the young punk fell face-first on the floor. The guy rolled over on his back and looked up at us with baleful eyes.

“Fuck you. I can buy and sell this bar a hundred times over.”

Asa looked at me and then looked back at the mouthy kid who had worked his way up to his knees.

“Well, until your name is on the deed, you and your friends can get your happy asses outta my bar.”

A couple of his cohorts walked up behind the kid and helped haul him to his feet.

“You gonna make me, Opie? You put your hands on me and I’ll sue you, I’ll sue him.” The kid pointed at me as I lifted an eyebrow at him. “I’ll sue every single motherfucker in this place and I’ll have you arrested for assault. I know my rights.”