Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Rhodes

I t had been two weeks since my run-in with Blythe at the lookout. Two weeks since I held her as she cried. Since I nearly kissed her. Two miserable weeks of not seeing her, and I was going out of my goddamn skin.

I wasn’t too proud to admit the reason I was currently bellied up to the bar at The Tap Room was because I managed to overhear a conversation my sisters were having about a night out on the town. Blythe’s name was mentioned and that sealed the deal for me.

My buddy, Hardin, cleared his throat, drawing my attention away from the table I’d been watching for the past hour.

“You know, not to sound all needy and shit, but when you invited me out for a beer, I thought maybe there’d be a bit of conversation. Maybe a game of pool or darts. At the very least, I expected you to ask me how I’ve been since the divorce. What I didn’t expect was to sit here and be ignored all damn night so you could creep on your ex from across the bar.”

A chuckle rattled up my chest. “I’m sorry, puddin’. Are you feelin’ neglected?”

Hardin sucked in his cheeks and clicked his tongue. “Yes. But you cover the next round and I’ll consider forgiving you.”

“That I can do.” I raised two fingers to catch the bartender’s attention and pointed to Hardin’s empty rocks glass and my pint, silently requesting a refill.

“You know, you could have just told me why we were really comin’ here tonight. It’s not like I wouldn’t get it. It’s been Blythe for you since you were seventeen.”

I’d known Hardin most of my life, both of us having been born and raised in Hope Valley, but it wasn’t until Marco came into the picture that I’d gotten to know him better. Marco and Hardin’s dad were friends, and Marco’s friends quickly became family friends. Everyone in his and Gypsy’s circle had taken us in, and we’d gone from being a group of misfits to having a support system bigger than I ever would have expected.

Hardin and I had been closest in age of all the kids, so it came naturally that we’d grown tight. He knew when Blythe and I started dating. He was my sounding board as my first deployment grew closer and I started to get in my own head about not being good enough. He’d tried his best to knock some sense into me, insisting that Blythe wasn’t going to realize she could do better once I was gone, and that ending our relationship would be a mistake, not that I listened. He was also the one who used his fake ID to buy a case of beer one town over so I could get trashed after ignoring his advice and breaking up with her anyway. And not once had he said “I told you so.”

That friendship had lasted through my time in the Army and his stint in veterinary school until we both eventually made our way back here.

I stood with him at his wedding. Hell, I was godfather to his oldest daughter. And I’d returned the favor, taking him out to get him shit-faced when his divorce was finalized.

“You know, she looks a lot better than she did when she first got back to town.”

“She does,” I said gruffly, emotion lodging in my throat.

My gaze shifted back across the bar, homing in on her in an instant. He wasn’t wrong. When she first arrived back in town, she looked more like a ghost than a person, a shell of who she had once been. Now the color had returned to her cheeks, her hair regained its luster, and she was finally starting to put on some of the weight she’d lost. Sadness and anger still lingered in her ocean eyes, but they weren’t as flat and dull as they had been. Little by little, the Blythe I had known was resurfacing.

The bartender came over and set our new round in front of us before smiling up at Hardin through the fan of her lashes. He shot her a wink that made her blush before picking up the glass and murmuring, “Thanks, gorgeous.”

“Christ, man.” I let out a grunted laugh and shook my head as the woman behind the bar moved down to take care of the line of customers, glancing back over her shoulder every few seconds. “Anyone ever told you not to shit where you eat?”

My buddy had kind of gone off the rails after his divorce and started whoring around town.

“Nothin’ wrong with a little harmless flirting.”

“I agree, but is that really all you’re doin’ right now? Look, brother, I’m not sayin’ you should become a monk or anything, maybe just practice a little more discretion. Have your fun over in Hidalgo Grapevine where it’s less likely to blow back on you. You’re the only vet in town, Hard. You really want to walk into work one day and see a waiting room full of one-night stands?”

He let out a scoffing laugh. “Nothing bad’s happened so far.”

I shook my head. “I can guarantee that woman right there”—I pointed at the bartender still making eyes at him—“is less than six degrees separated. Your stepmom owns the most popular coffee shop in town. You really think she doesn’t know that chick? It’s a small town, and people talk. You want to run the risk of your girls hearing somethin’ they shouldn’t?”

I knew I had him when I mentioned his daughters. I wasn’t sure there was a better father on the planet than Hardin Drake. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do for his girls. That included sitting through an hour-long torture session where they slathered his face with makeup and glitter, painted his nails bright pink, and stuck tiny little flower clips all through his hair. He wore that shit with pride because it made them happy.

“All right, I see your point. I’ll be more careful.”

I clapped him on the shoulder and took a pull of my beer.

“Speakin’ of gossip,” he started, turning the tables around on me, “you know the whole town’s talkin’, right?”

I looked in his direction, my brow furrowed. “About what?”

He let out a sigh and reached around to rub the back of his neck, discomfort spreading across his face. “Word got out that Blythe’s husband turned out to be a piece of shit before he died.” My mouth pulled in a hard line, the muscle in my jaw ticking. Hardin lifted his hands in surrender. “Hey, man. I’m just the messenger here. You know discretion doesn’t exist in a place like this. You can try to keep things under wraps, but word’s gonna get out, no matter what.”

I spun back to face the line of taps on the back wall, bracing my forearms on the bar top. “I get that. I just don’t want people talkin’ shit behind her back. She’s been through enough.”

He turned to face me head-on, his expression clean of the earlier humor. “They aren’t talking shit, brother. They’re talking about the two of you.”

It felt like someone had shoved their fist into my chest and was squeezing my heart. “What are they saying?”

The prick slowly lifted his glass to his lips and sipped on his bourbon neat like he had all the time in the goddamn world. “Well, the general consensus is that people want the two of you back together.”

I’d barely had time to wrap my mind around that statement when a voice spoke up from behind me. “Hey, Rhodes. I thought that was you over here.”

Fucking hell .

I schooled my expression and twisted my stool around. “Grace,” I greeted with a tilt of my lips so miniscule it could barely be considered a smile.

She was dressed in painted-on jeans and a shirt that showed more than a decent amount of cleavage. She batted her eyes much like the way the bartender had done to Hardin a few minutes ago and cocked out her hip. “It’s really good to see you,” she said brightly.

“Yeah, you too,” I said, mainly because I didn’t have a clue what else to say, but I knew it was a mistake as soon her face lit up.

The song the band was playing came to an end and they moved right into a slower number. “Oh, I love this song!” she declared enthusiastically. “It would be a shame not to dance to it. Feel like taking me around the dance floor?”

My head spun with ways I could shoot her down politely, but as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I caught sight of something that set my blood to a rolling boil in an instant.

“Mother fucker ,” I hissed as I shot to my feet. “You’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

The seductive look she’d been shooting me fell off her face at my sudden anger. “Is everything okay?”

“Sorry, Grace. You’ll have to excuse me.” I pushed past her before I finished speaking, barely hearing her muttered, “Uh, y-yeah. Sure. I’ll catch up with you later,” as I started toward the other end of the bar.

I didn’t know what the fuck that son of a bitch, Lonny Oswald, was saying to her, but it was clear from the narrow-eyed glare she was shooting his way that whatever it was had pissed her off, and as her mouth moved, I could see his face growing redder and redder.

My girl always had a gift when it came to flaying a person open with her sharp tongue, and from the looks of it, she was currently slicing that stupid bastard up one side and down the other. Only problem was, Lonny Oswald had always been an asshole, but as he got older, he’d gotten even worse.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” I heard him throw in her face as I closed in on Blythe’s table, and I instantly saw red.

My molars ground together and my hands clenched into fists. “What the fuck did you just call her?”

I’d had a hair-trigger temper when I was younger, but the Army had done a good job of working that out of me as it taught me how to become the man I wanted to be. Gypsy and Marco might have started those lessons by teaching me what it meant to be a good man, but my time in the service finished those lessons and taught me how to get there.

I hadn’t been quick to anger in a really long time, but all it took was one asshole looking at Blythe in a way that didn’t sit well with me to set me off. When it came to her, I would never hesitate to act first. It was in my blood to protect her, a sense that ran so deep it was etched into my bones.

Oswald smiled his slick, oily smile. “Well look who’s come runnin’ to save the day. White Trash Soldier Boy. Should’ve known you wouldn’t be too far from where she was. Always chasin’ after her like a pathetic, flea-riddled mutt that got kicked in the head one too many times.”

My smile felt as vicious as I was sure it looked. “You always had a mouth on you. Maybe I should do this town a favor and break your jaw so nobody had to hear you talk for a while.”

Blythe pushed out of her seat, standing up and coming beside me to place her hand on my arm. “Rhodes, don’t.”

“Yeah, Rhodes. Listen to your little slut.”

I lunged, but before I could get close enough, Hardin was there, pushing me back and keeping me from breaking every bone in that fucker’s face.

I could just make out Blythe’s voice through the red haze of rage clouding my head. “Rhodes, please. He’s not worth it.”

“Yeah, why don’t you get outta here, Trashbury,” he mocked, using the sorry excuse of an insult he’d made out of my last name back in middle school. “Run back home to your stripper whore sister and all those other white trash brothers and sisters of yours where you belong.”

There wouldn’t have been time for me to react if I’d wanted to. One second Blythe was right beside me and the next she was standing between me and Oswald, with the latter collapsing to the ground, gasping for breath and clutching at his throat where she’d just punched him. One hit and my girl had dropped that fucker like a sack of rocks.

“Holy shit,” Lennix cried out. “I have the biggest girl crush right now.”

I moved fast, grabbing her around the waist and hoisting her off her feet when she stepped up like she was preparing to kick him while he was down. “What did I say about insulting the people I care about, huh?” she shouted at the waste of space on the floor as he continued to choke.

“Jesus,” I grunted as she struggled against me. I held tight as I started moving us toward the exit. “Easy, killer. You’ve done enough damage. Let’s get you home before you get yourself arrested.”

“Wait. I came with Sunny.”

“I’ll call you in the morning,” my sister called out, waving a hand over her head with a big, shit-eating grin on her face. “Love you!”

The fight went out of Blythe as I carried her through the door and outside, her hands resting on my forearms wrapped around her stomach and her feet dangling in the air. “You know I can walk, right?”

Oh, I was well aware. I just wasn’t sure when I would get another chance like this—or if I’d get one at all—so I was determined to make the most of it. I took her as far as my truck before placing her back on her feet, beeping the locks, and opening the passenger door for her.

She stood in the open doorway of the truck, trepidation flashed in her Caribbean eyes as she looked around the dark, quiet parking lot. “You really don’t need to do this. Sunny can take me home.”

I lifted my hand and braced it on the edge of the door, blocking any path she might use to escape. “Get in the truck, Angel. I’m takin’ you back to your brother’s.”

Her eyes narrowed into unhappy slits for a few seconds before she let out a huff, grumbling, “Whatever,” when she realized I wasn’t going to move or back down.

I waited for her to buckle the seatbelt over her lap before shutting the door and rounding the hood. I used those few short seconds to try to get my shit together. My heart had started racing as soon as I saw Oswald in Blythe’s space, and it hadn’t stopped yet. To make matters worse, watching her take that shithead to the ground had caused my dick to take notice.

There was something about her vehement defense of me and my family that heated my blood. That side of her had always turned me on—her steadfast protectiveness.

I inhaled deeply, pulling the crisp, pine-scented night air into my lungs and letting it soothe me as I pulled open the driver’s side door and climbed in.

“Actually, would you mind taking me to my parents’ place?” she asked as I pushed the button to start the engine. “The kids and I are staying there for the time being.”

My brows dipped together in the center as I turned to her. “Isn’t their place kind of small for all four of you?”

She made a scoffing sound and tilted her head back against the headrest. “That’s an understatement. It isn’t ideal, but it’s the only choice I have at the moment. A pipe burst at Tristan’s and flooded the kitchen.” She let out a sigh that denoted her exhaustion. “It’s a mess.” Her voice lowered a few more octaves as she said, “Everything’s such a mess.”

I would have given anything to fix things for her, but if there was anything I’d learned from having sisters, it was that sometimes women needed to vent without having the answers thrown at them.

I placed my hand on the seat behind Blythe and twisted to look out the back window as I reversed out of the spot with my mind reeling.

Silence filled the cab of my truck, along with the smell of her intoxicating perfume. It was the same as it had been all those years ago. Like amber and roses. Despite how subtle the fragrance was, it packed the strongest punch.

“How’s the hand, slugger?”

She lifted the hand she’d used to punch Oswald in the throat and flexed it, opening and closing her fingers. “A little sore, but nothing a little ice won’t fix.” A pleased smile pulled at her mouth. “I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t felt really freaking good to do that.”

My dick jerked against my thigh like the fucking thing was trying to punch out of my jeans. Still, despite my arousal, I couldn’t shake the concern I felt tightening my chest. “You need to be careful with guys like Lonny Oswald, Blythe.”

She waved that away. “Oh, it’s fine. Besides, that prick’s deserved a punch in the throat since we were kids.”

“Can’t deny that. Just... try to stay away from him, okay?” Something told me she’d put herself on that asshole’s radar, and I hated the thought of her being there.