Alex had his arm before he could make contact with the table and he pushed Billy back against the bar.
“Not tonight, you fucking shit head.”
Alex swung and made contact, knocking Billy to the floor. Billy stumbled to get up, and Alex hit him again and again, far too many times. I screamed for him to stop while I held Lorna back. She was a wildcat, and she was ready to fight the man attacking her boyfriend. Ten seconds in and it had already gone on too long. Finally, Alex let up and turned to leave the bar, walking out without me. I left Lorna to tend to her broken boyfriend and chased Alex outside.
“What the hell was that?” I yelled at him when we reached his truck.
“What do you mean? That asshole needed a beating.”
I pushed against his chest. “They are going to call the cops, and you are going to end up with an assault charge.” I stamped my foot. “Seriously, this was what I was worried about. This is the same kind of shit you were pulling when we were in high school. I knew that you liked to get into fights, but I thought you were over it by now. Clearly, you’re not.”
Alex followed me around to the passenger side of his truck. “You seriously think that wasn’t a fight worth having?”
“I get it that you think you need to defend a woman’s honor, and no, I do not think that Lorna needs to be with that creep, but it’s her choice. And you leaving the guy bloody on the floor of the bar is no way to take care of things.”
“So what the fuck is this?”
I threw my hands in the air and got into the truck, slamming the door behind me. Alex came around and got into the driver’s side.
“Take me back into town. We’re done.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’re done’? We hadn’t even started!”
I shrugged and looked away from him. “Alex, I’ve got too much going on. I don’t have time for someone who hasn’t advanced beyond bar fights. This is it. It’s not happening. I don’t care what we said. If this is the way you choose to spend your nights, this is not going to work with us.”
He looked at me and shook his head. Starting the truck, he drove me back into town in silence. Leaving me at the apartment, I watched him drive away, fairly certain that we were done for good.
Chapter 9
Alex
It was almost more than I could bear to be apart from her, knowing how close she was to me. We didn’t talk after that night at the bar and as much as I knew that what happened needed to happen—that motherfucker Billy had needed a good beating for as long as I had known him and I was glad I had done it—I had some regrets because the woman I wanted more than anything else in the world now wouldn’t have anything to do with me.
No one else had seen a problem with what had happened in the bar. No one called the cops and Billy never pressed charges, probably because he knew who I was related to and figured that we had some kind of arrangement with law enforcement. It wasn’t true as far as I knew, although some people probably held my father’s name in higher regard than others around town. So there had been no legal ramifications, but losing Maddy was the worst.
Months had passed. We saw each other when we had to and were civil, but neither of us ever brought up the night at my house. The conversation at the lake might as well have never happened. No matter what I wanted to come out of this, it was all gone now. Any future I thought we had together was toast because of my actions that night at the bar, and her reluctance to get into a relationship with someone she thought didn’t have all of their shit one hundred percent together.
Never mind the house I had built or the life I had. Things were going well for me, but all that Maddy could see was the surface. But something about it didn’t make sense to me. There had to be something else going on, and I was bound and determined to find out.
I waited until one afternoon when I knew that Maddy was scheduled to be at our ranch for a few hours and then I went into town to find Lorna at the clinic. She was busy working on some files when I entered the office.
“What are you doing here?” She asked crossly. I could tell she was still a little upset and I didn’t blame her for that.
“I need to talk to you about some things. But first is Billy like that at home?”
Lorna frowned. “It doesn’t matter. We broke up. He didn’t want to have anything to do with me since I’m best friends with the girlfriend of an asshole.”
“Did you tell him that your best friend and the asshole aren’t together anymore?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He moved on.”
I kept my thoughts to myself but knew that Lorna was better without the guy. He was nothing but trouble, the same as he had been when we were in school together, and she would thank herself down the road when she had been away from him longer.
“Why are you here, Alex?” Her tone was short.
“I am here to ask you why Maddy is really back in town.”
Lorna looked down at the paperwork in front of her. “You know why. Doc Halloran was leaving the practice and looking for someone to take over. She heard about it and jumped at the chance to have it.”