“Then, come on. Take your best shot.” He figured Jeremy might take one swing, but he could duck it and pin the kid on the icy sidewalk, if he had to.
From the corner of his eye he noticed Ivor Hicks jaywalking from a parking lot across the street and making a beeline for the welcoming warmth of the Spot.
Jeremy saw the old guy, too. Watched Ivor walk through the door. If possible, his lips thinned more.
“I don’t have time for this,” Santana said, his attention on Ivor. Jeremy seized the moment, flinging himself through the air, throwing a punch that landed square on Santana’s jaw.
Damn!
Pain exploded on the side of his face. Instinctively, Nate grabbed the boy and twisted him around, using a move he’d learned in the military, which sent the kid to his knees.
CHOSEN TO DIE
389
Leaning forward, the boy’s arm twisted painfully, Santana gritted into his ear. “You do not want to mess with me. Got that? I’m doing everything I can to find your mom. I wasn’t kidding when I say I care about her. I’m doing everything, every damned thing I can, to find her and make sure she’s safe.”
“She doesn’t need you!”
“If you don’t want your ass to land in jail, you’d better just walk away. Take care of your sister. This isn’t the way to deal with it.”
With that he released the boy and strode into the tavern, exercising his jaw. He knew the kid was just acting out. That his father was dead. That Regan and a half sister were all Jeremy Strand had in the world.
But the kid had better learn early on he couldn’t just throw punches.
Inside the bar, Nate walked to one of the windows and watched Jeremy pick himself up. With a glowering look over his shoulder at the bar, he walked, shoulders hunched, down the street toward a dented Chevy truck that had to be twenty years old. I’m going to find your mother, Nate promised silently, as Jeremy, still frowning, pulled away from the curb, nearly hitting a truck with a canopy that pulled around a corner too fast and gunned up the slick street. Jeremy’s truck stopped just in time and Jeremy yelled something at the guy, but the truck was already speeding across the railroad tracks at the base of Boxer Bluff.
Drawing a breath, Santana turned from the window and considered Ivor Hicks, who’d parked himself on a stool at the bar in his usual spot.
*
*
*
390
Lisa Jackson
I nearly hit the old truck!
Hell!
I have to be more careful!
Sweat breaks out over my body, but I tell myself it’s all right. The accident was avoided. Another close call averted.
It was bad enough spying Ivor walking into the tavern as I came out of the restroom. Thankfully, he didn’t see me, was more interested in some altercation on the street, so I paid my bill and headed out the back door, something I do often enough not to bring any attention to me.
I just wanted to give myself an alibi, let some of the regulars get a glimpse of me.
But not Ivor.
No way.
Not that I thought for a second he could put two and two together and come up with four, but he was the idiot who saw me just after I sent good old Brady to his Maker and he might come out of his drunken stupor enough to realize it was me at the Lazy L, not a Yeti.
The old man is a definite problem.