I’ve got this girl out here practically crying over me and my unresolved shit, when she should be inside keeping warm and getting rest after a madman scared her out of her wits.
Fuck this.
I need to handle my own mess.
Including figuring out how to keep Clark Patten away from Andrea before he gets her into trouble I can’t get her out of.
I stand, gently tugging on my hand to free it from hers.
“Thanks, lady,” I say. “I want to believe you. I do.”
I shake my head.
Then on impulse, because she pulls me every which way, I draw one of those slender hands up and press my lips to the center of her soft, warm palm. Savoring the way her breath hitches and her chest rises, her eyes widening. I want to believe she’s blushing for me and not the cold.
Her skin’s so smooth. Plush against my lips, and I linger, rubbing my beard against her palm like I’m some wild beast marking her before reluctantly pulling away.
“Think I need something a little harder than beer,” I tell her, taking a step back toward the house. “Shame I don’t keep anything potent in the house with that little moonshine monster already sneaking crap with her friends. I grounded her hard last year when Leo brought her home drunk off her ass.” I offer her a rueful, apologetic smile. “Go on inside before you freeze them little bunny ears right off your feet. Quit worrying over me and get some sleep.”
And with her watching me, her eyes still so wide with confusion, longing, hurt, something more, we part ways.
I turn and walk, crunching away into the snow, rounding the side of the house.
I’m not running from this woman, I tell myself.
Or from the specter of two dead women who make me afraid to believe I could ever love again.
Tonight, I just need to think.
* * *
Lucky for me that Brody’s is crowded, but not too crowded.
I’m not in the mood for company tonight.
Warren, Leo, Doc, they all know me as the funny guy. The big goof.
I’m the dumbass who thought Leo’s name meant Tiger back when we were kids. Not lion.
I’m always the one with an idiot joke, an easy grin, but the last one to get what’s going on.
Hell, I’m the dude who lit up a bunch of those Galentron assholes with fireworks and yelled “Merry Christmas, chucklefucks!” right before my bum leg practically pitched me off the top of Gray’s truck.
Yeah.
I’m the clown.
Because they only see me when it’s just us, and everyone needs to wind down for a laugh. I always feel like I can’t be the guy bringing the group down. Can’t let ’em see when I’m screwed up or worrying about Andrea or remembering shit I don’t want to with Ma, or Abby, or Holt.
So I laugh.
But I’m all out of laughs tonight, and I don’t think I could pull one out even for my best friends.
I find an empty barstool and settle in to order a good hard shot of whiskey. I’d walked here on purpose, forgetting the vehicle. Partly because I needed to clear my head in the icy air, and partly because I know I’ll be safer sobering up on a cool walk home than I would be driving.
I ain’t gonna get too blasted, anyway.
I just need to be sober enough to think.
To figure out why it feels like this ain’t adding up.
Clark’s a kid.
A little asshole, sure.
But I’m having trouble believing a seventeen-year-old kid’s got that much malice in him.
And that much forethought, to set a fire at the fabric store with prepared incendiaries for what?
Just to get my goat ’cause I don’t like him?
And what about that vicious note for Leo?
Leo, formerly known as Nine, has turned into a local legend to the kids. Their favorite scarred-up superhero, especially since Leo gets all self-conscious and still goes hunting sometimes all cloaked and masked like something right out of a comic book.
He ain’t nobody personal to Clark, as far as I know.
So why would Clark Patten be leaving him hate notes?
Trouble is, nobody besides Clark’s uncle—who ain’t no one to anyone, he’s never in town long enough for anybody to love him or hate him—would have the expertise to do something like that, and the tools on hand.
Still no motive.
Still no lead except Clark.
I know I’m the big bad grizzly bear when it comes to protecting my little girl, but hell.
I ain’t been that bad to the little punk.
I stare down at my whiskey, then take a deep, burning sip, letting it clear my head.
I’ll figure it out.
If I have to, I’ll bring in the boys. Maybe we can figure it out before I have to involve Sheriff Bumble.
Between us, we’ve got a decent head on our shoulders.
I sigh—then tense as someone slides into the empty seat next to me.