Chapter 11

When I busted into the brewery, I saw red. There was a red mark on Brittany’s forehead, which was already working its way toward being one hell of a bruise.

I wanted to kill the man who’d dared to hurt her.

I wanted to kill her piece-of-shit ex-husband for being there, whether he’d done it or not.

But Ivy Mayberry spoke sense to me—that and her boyfriend blew a fucking rape whistle in my ear, probably permanently damaging my hearing.

“Go to her, you dumbass,” Ivy shouted into my good ear, probably damaging that one too. “Not the dudes. If you get arrested, it won’t do shit to help her.”

That was the part that got through.

Help her. You need to get her out of here.

So that was exactly what I did.

I barged past the two assholes who’d been beating on each other, circled behind the bar, and scooped Brittany up into my arms before she could tell me I didn’t need to or, worse, that she didn’t want my help. I wanted to carry her straight home—to my home—but the police had arrived outside, and a couple of officers charged in right after we came out. Another couple of guys stood outside in the cold, asking questions to a growing crowd of people who were freely offering their opinion about what had happened, including a group of elderly folks. I recognize a few of them as those old geezers Brittany walked into playing Bingo last month. I’m not surprised they came back for more. They did it because of Brittany. Because she’d made them feel accepted and at home, like they mattered.

That thought puts another lump in my throat. This could have so easily been worse. I squeeze her to my chest as one of the police officers says something to me, his words skating over my head. Or maybe Ivy Mayberry made me too deaf to hear them.

I feel her hand on my face, radiating heat, and then her voice cuts through the chaos of noise—“You can put me down now, Logan.”

I lower Brittany, my eyes on hers, riveted, and I feel like the dumbest man on the planet for not seeing what should have been so obvious.

I am in love with her.

I don’t know how to be in love with a woman, but I went and fell in love with one anyway, and here I am, in the middle of it. I’ll have to bumble my way through somehow.

“Can you answer some questions, ma’am?” one of the officers asks. He’s familiar, in the way of people in small towns, but I can’t remember his name. I also don’t feel at all patient with him.

“Why do you want her to answer questions?” I ask, wrapping an arm around her. Needing to touch her to prove to myself that she’s okay, that no permanent damage was done. “She’s the victim, for God’s sake.”

I know I said the wrong thing even before Brittany shrugs off my arm and gives me a scathing look. “I’m not a victim, Logan. I had the situation under control.”

“Didn’t look under control,” I argue, my gaze skating back to that mark on her forehead—it’s big and painful looking, and it makes me furious.

“It was,” says an older man, his bald head exposed to the elements. “We helped Brittany bring in the authorities.”

His friends nod.

“We had everything under control,” an elderly woman agrees.

Well, shit. It’s enough to make a man feel helpless and unwanted.

The officers who barged inside come barging right back out, restraining Tommy and Bill and guiding them toward a patrol car waiting at the curb. Tommy hollers something at Brittany, and I’m seeing red again. What right does he have to even say her name? What fucking right? Somewhere inside my head, I know I have no greater right, but I wasn’t the one who let her get hurt.

You were,a voice whispers in my head. Because if you didn’t retreat like a damn idiot, you would have been there. You could have stopped it.

“Here’s what happened,” Brittany says, turning her back on Tommy and addressing the officer. “My ex-husband and his idiot friend came into the brewery already drunk, and I refused to serve them anything except water. The friend spilled his water all over the bar because he was drunk and pissed, and when Tommy told him to clean it up, he tried to throw the napkin dispenser at him. Only it caught me in the forehead instead.”

My blood is pumping so hard, I can practically hear it pulsing through my veins. “That’s from a napkin dispenser?” I say thickly, staring at the mark. Willing it to get smaller.

“It was a mistake,” she says, lifting her fingers self-consciously toward it, then flinching. “Because those two are idiots.”

I hear the brewery door creak open again, and out come Ivy and Lou, looking no worse for the wear, but I can’t pay them much mind, because that mark on Brittany’s forehead keeps drawing my attention. It doesn”t look so good. I’ve heard stories about people who’ve died from head injuries because they didn’t get to the hospital in time.

“She needs to get to the hospital,” I blurt, interrupting her conversation with the officer.

Brittany meets my eyes, her fingers lifting slightly toward the injury. “I’m fine. I just got caught in the line of fire.”

For a second, I see it through her eyes—she doesn’t think I believe in her; she thinks I see her as someone small and breakable, not the strong woman she is—but then my gaze is drawn back to the squad car. I can see Tommy and Bill through the window. Tommy’s looking out at Brittany like he owns her, and I want to pulverize him.

“You said he didn’t throw the napkin dispenser at you on purpose, ma’am?” the police officer says.

“No, he was throwing it at Tommy,” she says with a scowl. “Bill’s a mean-ass drunk, always has been, and they had an argument. Tommy got pissed when it hit me, and that only made things worse.”

“You sure Tommy didn’t do that?” I ask, my tone coming out more bitter than I intended.

She busts her usual Brittany move and puts a hand on her hip. “I know what my ex-husband looks like, Logan. He’s an asshole and a cheat, but he’s never once laid hands on me.”

“They both belong in jail.”

“And that’s where they’re being taken, son,” the policeman says. “Now, if you’ll let the woman speak.”

“Hallelujah,” Brittany says, giving me a look that cuts.

“Are you okay, Brittany?” Ivy says, which makes me feel like a prize asshole because that should have been the first question I asked her, but I haven’t asked any questions at all. I’ve been too busy trying to rein in my temper. To stop it from overwhelming everything.

Then Brittany bursts into tears, and I feel like melting into the pavement or doing what I wanted to earlier and picking her up and carrying her clear home, but Ivy wraps her into a hug, and it hits me hard that I’m doing no good here. I’m making everything worse, and I should leave so someone else can fix things. Because there’s still a ball of hot rage in my gut, and I feel like a man who can only destroy, not mend. I feel like the same broken man who got that call from Cole, and then, a few years later, a call about my parents. When that happened, I leaned on my brothers to take care of everything.

I’d thought I’d come further than that, so frustration beats into me as I step away from the woman I love and let someone who’s better and more capable comfort her.

Whiskey. I need whiskey.

I pull my cell phone out and give Cole a call while I make my way toward the only other real bar in town. He answers on the first ring, and I tell him the trouble’s over.

“Is Brittany okay?” he asks, urgently.

“Yeah,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. Trying not to think of that mark on her forehead, the size of a large strawberry, and the way it’s going to swell up. “Yeah, I think so.”

“We’re on our way back, but I’ll still be a couple of hours,” he says with a groan. “The traffic’s something terrible.”

“The cops are taking care of it now,” I tell him. “I don’t think there’s any rush.”

I keep walking, faster, needing that drink and needing it bad, but before I make it very far, Ivy Mayberry catches up with me. I’ve been so wrapped up in my head that I flinch when she grabs my arm.

“You’re being an idiot again,” she says in a sing-song voice, but I’m in no mood to hear it.

“You were supposed to stay with Brittany,” I say, my tone barbed. “I was only making her feel worse. You were helping.”

“I’ll go back,” she says, “and so will you.”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say, because my rage hasn’t dissipated, and Brittany doesn’t need someone else’s righteous anger right now. She needs someone with a cool head. Logic.

We slip through the door into the heat of the bar. A group of older ladies is sitting by the table closest to the door, and one of them whistles when she sees me. Her friend, my seventh grade teacher, gives her shoulder a shove.

“God this town is too fucking small,” I say as I weave my way toward the bar, Ivy keeping pace with me.

“No shit.”

As we sit at the bar—sticky and much less well-kept than Brittany’s and Cole’s—she turns toward me. “So, what happened back there? Why’d you leave?”

“She didn’t want me,” I say, feeling like my chest has been hollowed out. The bartender comes over, thank God, and swiftly retrieves a round of whiskey for us at my say-so.

“Not how I see it, friend,” Ivy says. “She thanked me for stopping you from pounding on those jerks.”

I snort. “Because she still cares about that piece of shit Tommy.”

Ivy shoves my arm. “Because she cares about you, you jackass. She was worried you’d get arrested.”

“She said that to you?”

“In so many words.”

I sigh and throw back the whiskey. “Maybe it’s better if I stay away from her. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and it shows. I’m just going to hurt her worse. I keep doing it.”

“That’s stupid,” Ivy says, for all the world like a woman who isn’t pushing someone away same as I am.

“Probably,” I grant her. “Never told you I was smart. Why, she was willing to go out with me weeks ago, but she wanted to do it out in the open. In front of the whole town, and I was too much of a chickenshit to try. I thought my brother would shut me down, and then I’d screw up, and everyone would know.”

“Know what?”

“That I”m weak when it comes to this stuff.” I wave my hand, words eluding me, then flag the bartender down and gesture for him to bring another round. I notice that Ivy’s finished her whiskey too. “You don’t need to go round for round with me, Ivy. You’re at least a hundred pounds lighter.”

“But I’m basically a cyborg. Cyborgs don’t get hangovers. Weak when it comes to what stuff?”

“Emotions. I can’t….I shut down when something big happens. Like, back there…I was seeing red. All I could think about was how much I wanted to destroy those assholes for hurting Brittany. But that wasn’t what she needed. That’s why I left.”

She nods a few times. “Right. But a lot of people are dumb about emotions. That doesn’t mean you can’t get smarter. It’s like all those muscles you have—they get stronger because you go to the gym. If you didn’t, you’d become flabby, right?”

I laugh, caught off guard by the analogy. “What, so I’ll become better at this shit if I try harder?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely. And if you say I’m a hypocrite for not listening to my own advice, you would be correct. But I’m still going to dispense it freely. Now, I’m going to help you figure out what to say to her, and then you’re going to go back to that brewery, and you are going to declare yourself, my friend. Because it’s past time for you to take a stand.”

My heart thumps harder, but what she’s saying has the ring of truth. Past time. Past time. I need to grow up, be a man. Take a stand for what I want—and hell, I know what I want is Brittany. That knowledge has been crystallizing ever since that night just before Christmas when she kissed me and showed me the depth of the feelings I’d been stuffing down.

“All right, Ivy Mayberry, I accept,” I say. “But I”m man enough to admit I’m scared.”

She meets my gaze and smiles, her eyes sparkling. “You’d be foolish not to be. I’m scared too, but I have a feeling I’m working myself up to something, same as you’re doing.”

“To facing our fears,” I say, lifting my glass, she taps it with hers.

“To manning up.”

And then we drink together.