Anna combed her fingers through her hair. She gave up and shook it out in frustration, flipping her head over and back up again. The weekend spent in a holding cell was bad enough. She had to sit by and watch as Johnny spoke with the detective about the incident. She only heard bits and pieces, but all of it was total bullshit. The bump on her head finally went down, but it did little to calm her rage. She paced the cell, waiting for them to tell her what the bail amount was set at so she knew how much she would be screwed over by this jackass setting her up.

“Anna Crawley?” an officer said as he reached her holding cell. “You’ve been bailed out by your lawyer. He’s here and has asked to speak with you.”

She frowned. “Lawyer? I don’t have a lawyer.”

“You do now. I’ll take you to one of our interview rooms if you want to grab your boots, ma’am.”

Anna wanted to ask him who this lawyer was, but if the person had bailed her out, she wouldn’t question her good luck. She snatched up her boots, slipped them on, and followed the officer through the other cells to an interview room.

“He’ll be along in a few minutes. He’s bringing the paperwork you need to sign.”

“Thanks, I think,” Anna said and was left alone in the room.

She picked one of the hard-back chairs and sat down. Her stomach growled and she was dying for a shot of tequila to make up for the shitty few days she had. Once she was out of here, she had to swing by the bar and see how bad it was. She wanted to call Missy and tell her this was all a misunderstanding, but the detective had made it quite clear he doubted her story of a third attacker, or that she went there to help Johnny. When she argued with him until she was blue in the face, he pulled out his tablet and slid it around so she could see the fight she and Johnny had gotten in a few days before.

“I overreacted there, I’ll admit it,” she had told him, “but you don’t understand. This guy has raised the rent on my place—both places, and twice now—because I don’t want to be with him! He told me flat out if I had sex with him, he’d forget the extra money!”

“Ma’am, all I have to go on right now is the evidence in front of me,” he had explained. “You were found with the weapon in your hand, the door was broken in, and the call for the police came from Mr. Tory’s phone.”

Anna ran through it in her mind, but all she could remember was the sounds of a struggle, walking into his dark apartment, and being whacked over the head. She never saw another person or heard another voice, which they liked to point out repeatedly when she tried to calmly explain to them the circumstances of her being in Johnny’s apartment. Since she had a lawyer now, she guessed she should keep her mouth shut and not say anything that might get her into even more trouble.

She rested her eyes, leaning back in the chair, and wondered who was crazy enough to represent her when a man cleared his throat. “Hello, Anna.”

Her eyes shot open and she jumped to her feet. The chair slid back so hard it hit the wall. “Harry? You’ve got to be shitting me,” she snapped when she saw the tall man with perfect black hair and a three-piece suit standing in the doorway.

His lips thinned and he adjusted his tie. “You could say thank you.”

“For what, exactly?” She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him intently.

“For bailing you out and agreeing to represent you in this case.”

She laughed bitterly, her lips curling into a leer. “Seriously? And why the hell would you do anything nice for me?”

He cleared his throat again, his neck getting redder the longer he stood there. “I’ve decided to do someone I know a favor. And this is my pro bono case for the year, so don’t worry, I won’t expect you to pay me.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to anyway.”

They stared each other down, and Anna waited for him to decide to turn around and leave. However, he walked into the room, closed the door, and sat down at the table. “Mind?”

“No, of course not,” she muttered and flipped the chair around so she could lean on the back as she watched him meticulously pull out a pen, a notepad, and a file filled with papers.

His gaze remained down and his jaw clenched so tight she wondered how he hadn’t cracked his teeth yet. Over the long months since she’d seen Harold, he hadn’t changed at all. His mannerisms were exactly the same, and that stern face he wore when he was getting ready to work was the same as she remembered. She used to poke fun at it, telling him he needed to lighten up and learn to have fun in his life if he had to be so serious at his job. He scoffed at her countless times that she had too much fun in her life and being serious about something now and again would do her good. Yeah, some good it did her. She took her situation with Johnny very seriously, thinking she was saving his ass, and now hers was in a sling.

He spread out the papers in the file, and she spied the police report. “Now, I want you to start from the beginning of the incident and tell me everything that happened.”

“Sure, Harry, whatever you say.”

His fingers gripped his pen so hard she was amazed it didn’t break. “Harold, if you please.”

She grinned. “Well, Harold…wait, I’m sorry, are you really going to do this?”

“Do what? I need to know your side of the story so I can start building my case to defend you and keep you out of jail,” he explained as if he was speaking to another one of his clients.

But Anna was far from just a client. Her brow arched as she shifted her jaw in annoyance. “No ‘hi Anna, how have you been?’ No, ‘how’s the bar treating you?’ Nothing? You don’t even care, do you?” she accused sharply.

She clutched the top of the chair, holding back the raw emotions flaring to life at the sight of this man who she would have sworn for a few moments was the one she wanted to be with for the rest of her life. He had proved her wrong and she’d walked away, never expecting to see him again. A voice in the back of her mind wanted to fix her hair and cover up the crappy clothes she wore, but they were all she had. She didn’t even have her leather jacket to cover up the tattoos on her arms he looked at so disapprovingly. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand to look at him and glanced away, desperate to be out of this room and away from a man who had broken her heart and, as far as she could tell, didn’t even realize it. Or worse, didn’t care. He hadn’t responded to her words yet, and she held her breath, waiting for him to call her out for being a fool. The old pain welled up, and she swallowed it, forcing herself to give him nothing of her this time.

He folded his hands on his notepad and breathed out heavily through his nose. “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here, now would I?” he told her as if lecturing a child. “Now, can we please get through what happened that night?”

He lied. The tic in his jaw started up as it always had when he lied to her.

“Whatever you say, Harry.” She watched his shoulders stiffen. Good, you should be uncomfortable. You should hate being here with me right now and lying to my face. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me what happened that night,” he said, holding his pen at the ready.

“That night or before that night?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this shit with Johnny started a few weeks ago—well, maybe further back than that,” she mused. Grinning, she picked at the peeling edge of the plastic table. “It probably started the night I slept with him.”

Harold cursed and the pen dropped from his hand. “You did what?”

“I had a rough night, had a bit to drink, and Johnny was there,” she said simply as if that explained fully what had run through her mind that night. Really, it didn’t even scratch the surface. She glanced up, expecting to see him looking disgustedly at her, but his eyes shone with jealousy and his nostrils flared in anger. That was not the reaction she expected to see, not after so long of being away from him. “Problem, Harry?”

“Of course not. It’s your life. You may do with it what you will,” he quipped, picking his pen back up and rolling his shoulders.

Anna’s hands curled around the edge of the table. She pictured reaching across and smacking him for saying that to her after all this time. She bit the inside of her cheek and glanced towards the door. Hitting her lawyer wouldn’t look good in the eyes of the detective outside this room. One by one, her fingers unclenched from the table, and she wrapped her arms around the back of the chair to stop herself from doing anything stupid.

“So after this…incident,” Harold said loudly, trying to continue the story, “what happened?”

“Johnny wanted a relationship and I turned him down.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Look, do we have to do this here? You paid my bail, right?”

“Well, yes,” he said, confused.

“Then why don’t we take this back to the bar? I haven’t had a chance to clean up or shower in days and I could use a drink.”

He scowled at her as if she was an insubordinate child. “I think a drink is the last thing you need, but,” he amended when she opened her mouth, “I understand your need to freshen up. I’ll drive you back to The Crawler and you can see to your needs.”

“Thanks, that’s so kind of you,” she muttered. “Was there really no one else willing to take my case?”

“Let me ask you something, Anna. If I hadn’t come along, would you have the money to pay your own bail and hire a lawyer?”

She hung her head, unwilling to meet his gaze and see the arrogant eyes staring back at her, already knowing the answer. “I’ll buy you a drink and you can have dinner at the bar. It won’t even get us close to even, but you never cared about that.”

He picked up all his papers and packed them in his briefcase. “The day is wasting and we have much to get through.” He stood by the door, waiting for her.

Anna swung the chair back around and shoved it under the table. She stalked past him and out the door of the room to the desk where she had to sign herself out and gather the few possessions she had on her when they’d arrested her. There wasn’t much, but when she spotted the necklace in the bag, she cursed, completely forgetting she had it on. She tried to tuck the simple silver chain with the diamond and obsidian skull and key charms on it out of sight. Harold was beside her, his eyes narrowed on the charm. A moment later they widened and he tugged at his tie.

He had given her that necklace a month before she walked away. During that time, she had hoped that maybe he would finally let her in and really give them a chance, but he failed to pull through. She kept the necklace and wore it nearly every day, partially out of habit but mostly because she missed the bastard.

When they reached the front doors of the station, she peered out and cursed to see snow falling from the sky. “Figures.”

“Where’s your coat?”

“I didn’t come in with one. What are you doing?”

“You’re not walking out there in a tank top,” he grunted and shrugged out of his heavy, wool suit jacket. “Here, slip this on. My car is parked out front. It’ll keep you warm ‘til we get to the car.”

Anna held the coat by the collar. The heavy scent of his woodsy cologne hit her nose, bringing back so many memories of nights curled up in his arms as they snuggled on the couch. Or when he would pull her close as they walked down the street, his arm wrapped securely around her as if to say he would never let go.

But he did let go. No, not even that, he shoved you away.

“I’ll be fine,” she uttered and held it out for him to take.

“Anna, it’s snowing and it’s maybe twenty degrees outside. Put the damn jacket on or we’re not going anywhere.”

“I grew up here. I’ll survive a few minutes.”

He pushed her hand with the coat towards her chest and lowered his tall frame so his face was even with hers. “Put the damn jacket on. You can be stubborn and prideful later when you’re not risking getting pneumonia.”

Grumbling under her breath, she slipped the jacket on and sighed. His eyes slid towards her and she turned the sigh into a cough as the leftover warmth flowed through her body down to her toes curling in her boots. She wrapped the jacket around her and led the way out of the station. He drove the same fancy Camaro, dark green with black stripes. It didn’t match his personality, at least the one he showed the world. Anna nearly broke through that wall of his, but she only managed to catch glimpses of the real Harold buried beneath the pompous, proper exterior. Her dad told her to watch out for two-faced people. She never understood his words until she met Harold. The change was so fast, sometimes she missed it when the man beside her was no longer her Harold but a stranger she almost couldn’t bear to look in the face.

“Are you getting in or what?”

Anna stared down at her hand on the handle of the car door as snowflakes fell in her hair. “Right, sorry.”

She ignored his curious stare as she slipped into the leather seat and slammed the door. He climbed in behind the wheel and took off towards The Crawler. She curled into the fabric of his jacket, turning her face so she could breathe in more of the scent that haunted her dreams. She told herself so many times that if she ever saw Harold again, she would let him have it, tear him apart, and walk away with her head held high.

Instead, she was on the verge of turning into a puddle. She missed him more than she realized until he showed up to save her from being thrown in jail for something she didn’t do. How could she possibly resent him now?

Because he’s not doing it for you and you know it. He said it himself, you’re his pro bono case, his freebie for the year. He’ll get you out of this mess and you’ll never see him again.

Anna watched the snow blow past the car window as he drove, not speaking. The day she left Harold, she refused to speak a word, too. He asked her why, but it hurt her too much for him not to realize what he had done to her. She had turned around and walked out. She could clam up as well as he could about her emotions and her life. He only needed to know about what happened with her and Johnny, nothing more.

* * *

The bar was as Harold remembered. He sat in the back corner table where Anna planted him and observed the lunch crowd. He recognized a few faces at the bar, some of Anna’s regulars. He pulled the papers out of his briefcase when a shadow fell over the table.

“Harold,” a woman snapped.

He glanced up and smiled charmingly. “Missy, you’re still here, I see.”

She ground her teeth, gripping the small plastic tray hard in her hands. “Drink?”

“What, no pleasantries for an old patron of the bar?”

“Patron? Ha! Don’t make me laugh, I might strain something.” She chewed her gum loudly and tapped her foot on the floor. “Drink, yes or no? I have actual patrons to take care of instead of your rich ass.”

“Beer, if you please. Whatever’s on tap is fine,” he ordered.

“Sure, whatever,” she mumbled and turned away.

“Missy?” he called and she paused. “How has Anna been?”

She was smiling when she turned back around, but it was far from pleasant. She leered at him as she leaned in closer, resting her tray on the table. “You’ve got some nerve, you know that? You let her walk out of your life, didn’t even try to fight for her, and you want to know how she’s been?”

Harold’s mind flashed back to that rainy night, staring in through the bar windows from the sidewalk as his heart seized and his feet refused to move. Watching the violet-headed woman shooting back tequila at the bar and drowning her sorrow over leaving him. Half a year had passed, and no matter how many times he ran through those six months together, he found no reason for her leaving so abruptly.

“Yes, I do,” he finally answered firmly.

Missy gnawed her bottom lip. He expected her to walk away, but her brow wrinkled and she glanced hastily over her shoulder. “She’s been good, I guess, but not the same. Not since you.”

“Does she ever talk about me?”

“Nope, you’re getting nothing else out of me. You want to know what’s been going on in that girl’s head, you talk to her. I’ll get your beer, and you better behave yourself.”

Sitting alone, Harold let the music from the speakers flow around him, taking him back. They had spent so many nights in this very booth. He loved watching her work and interact with her customers, her friends. She was a natural social butterfly, and everyone seemed to love her when she was around. He ran his hand over the booth seat beside him. A ghost of a touch pressed against his lips and his eyes slipped closed, reminiscing the times they spent in this corner booth after closing hours, kissing passionately with the taste of salt and tequila on her lips and bourbon on his. Being with Anna awoke the wild spirit inside of him he had hidden for so long, buried beneath the expectations of his parents. Too many disapproving looks from when he was a kid curtailed who he wanted to truly be, but with Anna, that wall had started to crumble, just enough for him to see the old Harold, the one who wouldn’t mind being called Harry.

He dreamt on the rare occasion about what his life might be like if he’d let her all the way in and gave them that chance. He wondered if that was the reason she left him, and those thoughts always led him back to his annoyance at her disappearing from his life without giving him a damn reason. Anna was very different from the people Harold surrounded himself with, but with time, she would have figured out a way to fit in. He’d told her that countless times, but she refused to change.

“Beer,” Missy announced as she set the glass down. “Anna texted me, said she’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Thanks.” He sipped the beer and considered switching booths.

Being here was uncomfortable, having so many reminders of the woman he had his longest relationship with. He moved his jacket to the other side, and the faint scent of her wafted under his nose. He shoved the fabric as far away from him as he could and loosened his tie, ready to get this case over and done with. He would defend her because it was his job, but after seeing a side of her anger he had never witnessed in the police station, doubts filtered into his mind that maybe she was capable of beating a man with a bat.

Anna appeared in the doorway to the back stairs he knew led up to her apartment. Her violet hair was damp and pulled back in a loose braid hanging over her shoulder. She wore tight black jeans, her boots, and a sweatshirt hanging low on her right shoulder.

His eyes took in her body, remembering how it felt to have his hands on those curves and cupping that ass as he kissed her deeply. She stomped towards his table, a beer in her hand, and slid into the other side of the booth.

“Sorry,” she told him with an apologetic smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“No problem. I was catching up with Missy and seeing what you’ve done with the place.”

“I’m sure Missy loves seeing you again, and I haven’t done anything to the place. I never had the heart, you know that,” she mused. “Is it going to be a problem with me living down the hall from the person I supposedly assaulted?”

“Johnny Tory said he was fine with you staying in your place as long as you didn’t come near him, and he isn’t allowed to step foot in your bar. It’s a unique circumstance because he’s the landlord, but at the moment, you’ll be fine. Just do us both a favor and stay clear of him,” he said sternly.

“You say that like I’m gearing up to go after him again, which I didn’t do the first time.”

His gut clenched to see her in such distress over this incident, but he sensed the anger coming off her in palpable waves. Whether it was directed at him or Johnny, Harold was uncertain.

“Are you ready to discuss what happened now?” he asked, trying to stick to the case. He was here to do a job and that was what he would do. Nothing more. This wasn’t about checking up on his ex or seeing how she was doing without him in her life.

“Yeah, let’s do this.”

“Okay. You said you were with him one night. How long ago was that? I want to establish a timeline of your relationship with him.”

She gulped half her beer and licked her lips. Harold’s gaze flickered to the movement, and he inwardly kicked himself for even thinking kissing Anna again was a possibility. “Five months ago…or so.” She drank more of her beer, fidgeting in her seat so the leather squeaked against her legs.

Harold’s pen moved across the page then stopped. “About five months ago.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

The night he saw her drinking at the bar was a week after she left him. He dug through that memory, staring in through the pouring rain running down the windows. Johnny Tory. Had he seen him at the bar that night? Was he the man who had draped his arm around Anna and whispered in her ear as she laughed? His hand clenched and something snapped loudly.

“Harold?” Anna whispered. “Are you alright?”

He scrunched his eyes, shaking his head, and saw the bent pen in his hand. He dropped it to the notepad. “Damn it, no—I mean, yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You’re pale all of a sudden. Are you feeling all right?”

She slept with that guy a week after she left you. A week!

“I’m fine, really. So you said about five months ago?” He jotted down the quick note, but the image of Johnny with Anna, having her as he never had the chance to, bit at him. A painful spike of jealousy shot through his chest, and he drank half his beer in one swallow to take the edge off.

“Yeah. It was a mistake really. I was drunk and so was he,” she explained stiffly. “We…uh, we went back to normal after that, or at least I did, but he kept trying to find another way to woo me back to him.”

“I could have told him that wouldn’t work,” Harold grunted.

“What was that?” she snapped.

“Nothing at all. Please, continue.”

Her arms crossed over her chest and she squared her shoulders. “You didn’t try to get me back.”

“I meant I knew it would never work,” he corrected.

“Really, and you would know this how? It’s not like you tried,” she jeered. “I walked out of your life and you never once tried to figure out why or come after me.”

The words to set her straight were on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them. He had come to the bar that night to beg her to come back, to be with him, but he was too much of a coward—a jealous, angry, confused coward—to go all the way into that bar and talk to her.

“Can we get back to the case?” He jotted down a few more quick notes to check into Johnny’s past and see if there were any other complaints from tenants or women he dated.

“Fine, if all you want is this to be is a job, then that’s what it’ll be.”

“Fine,” he repeated.

She scratched her forehead, evidently annoyed. “About two weeks ago, he started dropping more hints that he wanted us to have another night like we had before. A relationship with benefits, so to speak,” she said with a disgusted curl of her lip. “And he also kept talking about being a partner with me in the ownership of this bar to help with the financial burden.”

“And you said no?” he asked.

“I’m not an idiot. Of course I did. I’m not going to run this bar with a man like him. A few days after, he came to me and said he raised the rent on my apartment and the bar.” The anger slipped away, and in its place was a weariness Harold failed to notice earlier. There were bags under her eyes and stress lines around her eyes he remembered she would get when money was tight. “He swore he’d told me about it before, but he never did and there was no written notice.”

“What happened next?”

“I told him I would start paying the new rent this coming month, but he said he needed the rest of the money. I’ve tried to get it, but if I pay him, I can’t order what I need for the bar, which means I can’t make money.” She held her head in her hands. “Bastard. He had me trapped.”

“And is that what led to the public fight in the bar?”

She cringed as she lifted her face. “You saw that video, too, huh?”

“Not one of your finer moments, I’ll admit, especially since you’re seen wielding the bat you allegedly beat him with,” Harold pointed out. “We can work with it, though. It’s quite clear from the argument that he’s pushing you for more than money.”

He’d watched the video once, but he would have to see it again to really tear it apart. Johnny stated a few times in there about her taking care of the matter in the way they discussed. Now that Harold understood the advances he’d made towards Anna, her blow up made more sense. A jury might realize the same when he had a chance to present both sides of the story to them.

“After that, I told him not to come back to the bar. He’d get his money.”

“And now we’re at the night of the attack. Walk me through what you did.”

She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, planting her palms flat on the table. “I don’t drink when I work, you know that. I picked up a bottle of tequila to take upstairs and noticed when I was cleaning that my bat was missing.”

“From the bar?” he asked. “Who else knows it’s there?”

“Missy, Pat, me, and Daryl, my new cook. No one else should, though…at least, they’re not supposed to,” she added.

“After you took the bottle, you went upstairs?”

She nodded. “I took the back stairs like I always do. I had my keys to my front door in my hand, but I didn’t go inside. The bat was leaning against the wall by my door.”

“And you didn’t take it upstairs?” he asked, confused, knowing already that bat never left the bar. She told him that herself.

“No. I picked it up to take it inside when I heard yelling from down the hall. I took the bat with me and followed the yelling to Johnny’s apartment. I called his name,” she said deliberately. “I remember doing that. Something crashed inside. I tried the door and it was open, but the lights were off. I reached for my phone to call the cops when someone whacked me over the head and everything went dark. The next thing I know, I’m in handcuffs and he’s feeding the cops some shit story about how I beat his ass with a bat. It’s fake. Everything he said is a fucking lie.” She slapped her palms on the table and winced.

Harold read back through his notes. He would need to know more, of course, about her situation with Johnny and about the man himself, but it was a good start. “The only evidence the cops have are witnesses who state the bat belongs to you and they all saw the fight two nights before,” he explained. “And, of course, Johnny’s statement that you broke into his place and beat him up.”

“Why would he do this to me?” she whispered, and Harold wondered if the question was meant for him to answer. “What is he hoping to get?”

Harold flipped over his pages of notes and slid them aside. “He could be trying to get money from you for his injuries, essentially sue you for enough to put you out of business. Has he ever shown interest in owning the bar instead of only being your partner?”

“No—hell no, and I’m not giving it up,” she sputtered.

“Depending on how this case goes, you might not have a choice,” he told her, trying to be as realistic as possible. “If there’s a chance of keeping you out of jail, you’ll have to move out of this building and close down The Crawler.”

“And go where?” she snapped. “With what money? This bar is all I have and you know that.”

“You would rather go to jail?”

“I would rather not lose the only connection I have to my parents and my past,” she shot back. “He will not take this place from me. He won’t take anything from me.”

Harold pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I can’t guarantee anything. If he offers you a deal, it might be in your best interest to take it and not go to court.”

“What if we can prove that he’s lying?”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” he asked.

She fumbled for words and sagged in her seat. “I don’t know, but I’m not giving up.”

“I didn’t say I was either. We’re only getting started, Anna. Give me time to get a handle on this situation and see what I can find out,” he reassured her. “If I can find a way to prove he set you up, I’ll find it. Don’t you trust me?”

Her eyes darkened and she stood abruptly from the table. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that I do. Do you need anything else from me?”

His hand that had moved across the table to place on her arm fell to the table top. “No, no, we’re done for today. Just remember you can’t leave the city and stay away from Johnny. I’ll be in touch.”

“You need my number?”

“No, I still have it,” he replied, noting the surprise on her face. He packed up his briefcase, picked up his jacket, and slid out from the booth. “I’m sure you won’t believe me, but it’s been good seeing you.”

“Sure it was. Too bad you had to wait until I was thrown in jail.”

Tell her, you idiot! Tell her you came here that night! He hesitated, wondering what she would do if he did admit he came here. She’ll call you a moron for not actually stepping inside the bar. You came here and you did nothing to try and get her back.

“Right. I’ll talk to you soon,” he mumbled, and ducking his head, he hurried out of the bar, sensing her eyes on his back as he reached his car and sank into the seat. Angrily, he chucked his briefcase and jacket into the backseat. His hands gripped the steering wheel and he considered his next move. Logically, he needed to speak with Johnny and figure out who this man was, but after hearing how he treated Anna—his Anna—he was far from being in a sound enough mind not to go after the man and make him really hurt.