“You get that off today?”

He sank gingerly into the recliner across the room.

“Yesterday. It feels like it’s going to fall off.”

“I had one when I got blown up last year, but mine wasn’t as bad. My shoulder took the brunt of it.”

“It blows.”

I was going to tell him that maybe he should avoid situations where he pissed off a bunch of bikers but that seemed kind of hypocritical, so I just asked him if he knew when Jet was going to be back in town. He shook his head and bent down to rub his shinbone.

“No clue. I think he mentioned that he was coming back for a week and then he wanted Ayd to come with him to L.A. for a week after her summer classes were done.”

“I need to find someone to help me keep an eye on the bar I’ve been fixing up, I thought he might know someone.”

Those gold-colored eyes glinted at me from across the room.

“I can do it.”

I tilted my head to look at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not? I’m sick of being cooped up in the house. Ayd is on my case about everything under the sun and I could seriously do with some … companionship, if you know what I mean.”

I totally did but I wasn’t sure the Bar was the kind of place he would find it.

“Have you ever bartended before?”

Asa laughed a little. “There isn’t much I haven’t done before. All you have to do is stand behind the bar and talk to people. Trust me, I can talk to anyone.”

I thought it was probably a bit more complicated than all of that, but if he was willing to help me out, why not?

“Cool. It isn’t like some high-end, swanky bar where you’re going to be pulling tail and rolling in money.”

“Rome, I just need to get out of this house before my sister and I kill each other. She’s still working on forgiving me and frankly I’m sick of my own company. It’ll give me something to do, until I figure out where I’m going and what I’m doing from here on out.”

That all rang just a few shades too familiar, so even though I didn’t really know Asa from Adam, I was willing to take the help. Cora wrapped her arms around my neck from behind the couch and put her cheek next to mine.

“What’s on the agenda for the night, big guy?”

She and I and a whole lot less clothing were what was on my agenda, but I wasn’t going to say that in front of Asa. Good thing great minds think alike because it didn’t take much more than a look and the brush of some fingers across the top of her bare leg to get my plans for the night across to her. Seriously, having this girl in my life made everything else I was dealing with seem so much less important. My folks, my future, the bar … all of it took a backseat to the way those two-toned eyes flashed and sparkled at me.

It only took until the next weekend for things to go to hell.

I wasn’t able to spend as much time with Cora because I was at the bar until closing. It might not be a crazy-busy place but I had no clue how much went into keeping the natives from getting restless and tearing the walls down. I was surprised at how much I actually liked it, though. I liked the ebb and flow of the business, the interaction with the customers, the interaction with the liquor reps and the sales guys. I felt like I was actually working for the first time since I got back home. I missed my girl, but she was a champ about it, and I think maybe I needed some breathing room, because the more days that went by that she didn’t have her monthly visitor, the more anxious and keyed up she seemed to be. She must have blabbed to the girls because there was no escaping the narrow-eyed looks I was getting from Ayden every time we bumped into each other, or from Shaw whenever I spent time with her and Rule.

I was also surprised at what a natural Asa was behind the bar. The guy was a born bullshitter, and by the end of the night, from even just a handful of regulars and jaded barflies, he made more in tips than I had ever seen Brite or anyone else take home. He was an all-right bartender, but his gift of gab and plethora of charm made up for it in spades. I even noticed an increase in the younger, female clientele in the few days he had taken up his spot back there. I figured maybe I could talk Brite into keeping him around when he got back.

On Saturday night I left as early as I could and put Asa in charge of shutting the place down. Jet had pulled me aside a few days after mentioning that we were going to be working at the bar together in order to give me a little of Asa’s background. He warned me that essentially he was a good guy, but not to let all that Southern charm fool me. Jet said to watch my back and not to trust Asa as far as I could throw him. I always heeded warnings when they came from people I trusted, but so far Asa had been nothing but an awesome partner in crime and I missed spending time with Cora. Leaving him in charge for a night was a risk I was willing to take.

When I got to the house she was asleep on the couch. Jet and Ayden were gone for the night, so I scooped her up and took her in her room to put her to bed. She woke up when I was pulling her swirly hot-pink sundress off over her head. She blinked those wicked-colored eyes at me and tried to focus.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

She yawned and stretched her arms up over her head. The one with all the brightly inked flowers on it curled around my neck on the way down.

“I’m exhausted.”

I let her tug me down so I could kiss her on her waiting mouth.

“Long day at work?”

She shook her head and ran her fingers over the short hair on the back of my head.

“No. Just sleepy all day. I was going to stay awake and wait up for you but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”

I kissed her again and she put her hands under the hem of my T-shirt.

“You don’t have to wait up for me. I was just going to put you in bed and crawl in next to you.”

“If we’re going to be in bed together, neither one of us needs to be sleeping.”

Man, this girl was just something else, and it only took about two seconds to get both of us n*ked and down to business. I fell asleep pretty quickly afterward and as usual she was draped across the top of me from shoulder to hip. In reality it had only been a very short time since we had invaded each other’s life, but something about it just felt like this was the way it was supposed to be.

At least it felt that way until sometime in the early morning.

There was sand in my face and I couldn’t breathe. I was hot, hotter than normal, in all my gear and for some reason I couldn’t see past the red haze covering my eyes. My ears were ringing in my head and from somewhere really far away I could hear voices screaming. I wanted to lift my hand up to wipe my face, to pull my helmet off to see if that would make it easier to breathe.

I couldn’t get my arm to work. I couldn’t get most of my body to cooperate.

I managed to turn my head to the side, just enough so that the blood covering my face trailed down my nose and out of my eyes, barely letting me get a look around.

I wasn’t in the Hummer anymore.

I was on my back staring up at the sky and a cloud of dust and dirt was sticking to all the blood and sweat coating any of my skin that wasn’t covered by my gear.

I didn’t have my gun in my hands anymore, and I couldn’t see any of the other guys who had rolled out on the op with me. There had been six of us in total in the Hummer.

I wanted to call out, wanted to scream because my shoulder was on fire and I wasn’t sure what was going on under my helmet, but the river of blood covering my face showed no sign of slowing down anytime soon and I couldn’t see that great. I just didn’t know if our location was secure. Didn’t know if it was an IED or enemy fire. If any of the other guys had made it out, I wasn’t going to be the one who gave our location away to the insurgents, even if it meant I had to bleed to death on enemy soil.

I don’t know how long I lay there. I went in and out of consciousness more times than I could count, and finally, what felt like days later I opened my eyes to a medic pulling my gear off and trying to move me without breaking more of my body. I think they told me it was an IED. I think they tried to tell me I was going to have to get airlifted home. I’m pretty sure they said brain injury and possible loss of motion in my shoulder, but all I really heard was “sole survivor of the blast.”

It didn’t matter that my ears were ringing. It didn’t matter that I was probably minutes from bleeding out. It didn’t matter that it was war and things like IEDs and dead soldiers were an everyday part of life. I started screaming and screaming and screaming until I felt like everything inside me was empty and hollow. I think they doped me up to get me to calm down and minimize the damage, because when I woke up I was in Germany and they were doing surgery on my arm and trying to sew my face back together.

Everyone thought I was so lucky. I got to go home and recover. I got to live.

Every night after that I woke up either screaming or choking on blood and tears that couldn’t fall.

Bolting upright on the bed, I forgot all about the fact that I was holding on to Cora. I had cold sweat pouring off my arms and chest, and I felt like I was suffocating on blood and sand even though the desert was a lifetime ago. My lungs billowed in and out, my chest heaved up and down, and I knew I had to get away.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and scrambled to find my pants. I could feel Cora shifting on the bed behind me. I flinched away from her hands when she went to lay them on my back. All I could see was crimson and dust. All I could feel was loss and desperation. I didn’t want her anywhere near any of it.

“I have to go.” My voice sounded like I was talking over razor blades and salt.

“What?”

She reached for me again and I lurched off the bed. I pulled my shirt on over my head and refused to look at her. I heard the sheets rustle as she sat up in the bed.

“Rome, what’s going on?”

Her voice was quiet, like she was afraid she was going to spook me. She had no idea about the terrible stuff rolling around like a silent movie behind my eyes. It was so horrific.

I grabbed my phone and keys off her nightstand and made my way to the door. I couldn’t even look at her. I needed to say something, to try to explain, but the crazy, the pain, the memories were too close to the surface and I just couldn’t get to her through them. I was being an ass**le, but it was either bail on her or break down in a sobbing pile of goo on her bedroom floor. I couldn’t let her see me like that, didn’t want her to be a part of the stuff inside me that was so ugly and hard to forget.

I didn’t start to breathe normally again until I had the Harley under me and the wind in my face. The nice thing about the bike was that it didn’t matter if some of the emotion working its way to the surface leaked out, the night air just whisked it away. I felt like I was never going to sleep again.

CHAPTER 9

Cora

This Thursday-night girls’ night was unlike any the three of us had ever spent together before. Ayden was propped up in the doorway of the bathroom off my bedroom alternating between texting on her phone and staring at me with concern. Shaw was sitting on the toilet practically bouncing up and down; her green eyes were huge in her pale face and I knew she was just dying to say something. I was sitting on the edge of the tub trying to decide if I wanted to scream, or throw up, or cry, or pull all my hair out, or just laugh. Maybe a combination of all of the above. What did I know about trying to raise another person? I had spent my entire childhood shuffling from one random adult to the next. I had no idea what being a full-time parent even looked like.

“Well?” Shaw just couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

The little white stick on the edge of the tub next to me stared back at me with two glaringly bright pink lines. Not that I was really surprised. I had been tired and moody for the last two weeks, and not just because Rome had pulled a disappearing act and wouldn’t return any of my calls. I was also queasy, and it was just my luck that forgoing Mr. Perfect was going to end up biting me in the ass for the next eighteen years. I had really started to think he was worth the risk of letting that dream of someone steadfast and secure go, that I was tough enough to weather the storm that came with him, only now I was high and dry and looking back on my long-held dream of perfect and shaking my head.