“Hey, gorgeous, can I get another shot over here?” Kat looked over at the guy at the end of the bar. He was sitting next to Buzz, one of the Skulls that had been hitting on her relentlessly since she came home. The other guy was older, probably in his early to mid-thirties, and hot in a rough and rugged sort of way. He looked like he was dressed to go hunting and he wasn’t wearing a kutte, but he’d been in the bar a few times and each time he was with one of the Skulls. She wondered what his affiliation with them was as she carried the bottle of Tecate down where he was sitting.

“The name is Kat, or Katrina,” she said as she poured the shot.

He grinned. “Can I call you gorgeous?” he asked. Buzz laughed, stupidly, as far as Kat was concerned.

“You can call me Kat or Katrina,” she said, with a smile, making sure she was facing away from Buzz.

“What about Hurricane?” Buzz interjected. “I think that name’s kind of hot.” Kat finally looked at him and rolled her eyes. As she slid the twenty off the bar that the other guy had laid there he said:

“Hurricane, huh? What’s that about?”

“Stupid, childhood name,” she said.

“I hear that. My name is Hunter.”

“Nice to meet you, Hunter.”

“I heard something different about that nickname,” Buzz said.

She was going to continue ignoring him but her subconscious overrode her good sense and she heard herself mumbling, “Nobody gives a shit what you heard, Buzz.” Before she was out of reach, Buzz put his hand on her arm. She looked down at it and back up at him. She could have easily shaken it off…but just the idea that he thought he had a right to touch her pissed her off. “Get your hand off me before I break every bone in each one of your fingers.”

He let go of her and said, “I was just going to ask for another shot…geez.”

Kat had only been back in town for two days when a group of Skulls came into the bar. She’d known a few of them from the old days and they’d all acted happy to see her. They introduced her to a couple of new guys. One of them was a hot young guy named Levi and then there was this fool Buzz. Buzz wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but there was something Kat disliked about him almost right off the bat. Maybe it was that smug, narcissistic look he carried on his face that annoyed her. He tried too hard. It was obvious that he wanted to be a badass, and even thought of himself as one, but he wasn’t. He was also loud and obnoxious, which irritated her, and most of what came out of his mouth was either perverse or idiotic. Perverts Kat could manage if there was anything else to like about them, but stupidity she couldn’t tolerate. Reluctantly, she turned back around and filled the shot glass in front of him and then she moved back over to the cash register. As she was about to put the money in, she heard Buzz talking to the guy with him:

“I heard Kat was a stuntwoman in Hollywood, and a gymnast in high school. I’d like to see how many positions she can bend that body in, starting with ass-up over my Harley.”

Kat felt her blood begin to heat up. She was about to spin around on him when she heard Hunter say, “You shouldn’t talk that way about a lady, especially in her place of business. No wonder your stupid ass never gets laid. Hell, I’m surprised you haven’t got your ass shot yet.”

Kat turned around then, with a smile on her face, for Hunter. She took the twenty that was still in her hand and laid it back down in front of him. “Drinks are on the house for you tonight.” When she turned toward Buzz, the smile fell from her face and she said, “You, get the fuck out.”

“What?”

“Are you deaf as well as stupid? I’ll say it slower…Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

“You can’t kick me out.”

Kat reached under the bar and pulled out the sawed-off shotgun. Looks of panic and a gasp swept across the other four men, all regulars at the bar. Hunter didn’t flinch as he sipped his beer and watched the show. Buzz looked like he was about to piss his pants, and trying to cover it. “This establishment reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. I’m exercising that right. I’ve asked you to leave. You refused. Therefore, you are trespassing and now I’m about to exercise my right to shoot your criminal ass.” She didn’t take her eyes off Buzz’s face, but she thought she heard Hunter chuckle beside him. Buzz narrowed his dark eyes at her and said:

“You’ll be sorry. Dax is going to hear about this.”

Kat feigned a shocked expression. “Oh, now he’s going to tell on me. I can’t have that. I guess I’ll just have to kill you and get rid of the body.” She pulled back on the action bar of the shotgun and Buzz scrambled off his stool.

“You’re fucked in the head,” he said as he made his way to the door.

“And don’t you forget it,” she told him. She waited until he’d disappeared outside before she put the shotgun back underneath the counter. When she looked up, Hunter was smiling. “Thanks,” she told him.

“No problem. You’re fun.”

Kat laughed and shook her head but before she responded she heard a crash out front and the floor simultaneously vibrated underneath her. It sounded like something had hit the wall of the bar.

“Fuck!” she yelled, before running toward the door. Hunter was there before she got there and every other nosy drunk at the bar was behind her. She imagined about twenty different things, most of them involving Buzz doing something stupid to get back at her. When she stepped outside and saw what had happened, she told herself she should have known. “Jesus. What the fuck?” She jogged after Hunter, who was already pulling open the passenger door of the van, Dillon’s van. The front end of it was smashed up against the brick flower case that lined the walkway in front of the bar. Dillon was slumped behind the wheel. Kat was still cussing as Hunter reached inside and pulled Dillon over the passenger seat and out the door. He set him down on the pavement. His forehead was bleeding, but his eyes were open and he was looking around like he was confused. Even from two feet away, Kat could smell the alcohol. “What the fuck, Dillon?”

He smiled up at her and that pissed her off even more. If she still had the shotgun in her hands she might have used it on him. “Sorry, Kitty-Kat…I guess I didn’t realize how fast I was going…”

“You drunken idiot!” Hunter had taken a bandana out of his pocket and he was putting pressure on the cut on Dillon’s head throughout the father/daughter exchange. “What the hell were you doing driving? You don’t have a license and the insurance isn’t going to cover this. God damn it, Dillon! I’m trying to get this catering thing going and you just have to go and screw it up!”

“It’s just a scratch,” he said, slurring his words. “I’ll fix it.”

“You should probably get him to the hospital,” Hunter said. “He’s gonna need stitches.”

“Stupid ass!” she said to Dillon. “Do you have any idea how much that’s gonna cost? Too bad old Doc is still in prison or I’d call him and have him stitch you up in the back room with no anesthetic. That might teach you a lesson.”

Dillon started to say something else, but suddenly his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp. “Think he passed out,” Hunter said.

“You think?” Kat asked sarcastically. She felt bad. Hunter was only trying to help…but could her life be a bigger pile of shit? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said. “You don’t have a car, do you?”

“Sorry, no. Just a bike.”

She looked at the van. “You think I can drive it?”

Hunter looked up at the smoke coming from under the hood. “I’d have it checked out first if I were you.”

“Damn!” She turned and looked at the handful of regulars who were standing around, watching the show. “Does anyone have a car they can take us to the hospital in?” She didn’t want to call an ambulance. Dillon didn’t have medical insurance and that would cost a fortune.

The customers all looked at each other. Kat knew it was her causing their reluctance. The men had all continued to come into the bar once she came back home and took over for an incapable Dillon…but they were all afraid of her. She thought it was ridiculous, grown men afraid of a little woman…just because she had a little temper. She hadn’t killed anyone…yet. She folded her arms and sighed.

“I got the wife’s Chevy,” Vince, a construction foreman who spent more time in the bar than he did with “the wife,” said hesitantly as he held up his keys. Kat had already served him three beers and a couple of shots.

“You’re as drunk as Dillon.”

“I’ll stay here, you can drive,” he said as he handed her the keys. Kat took them and looked over the four patrons of the bar.

“Can I trust y’all not to rob us blind while I’m gone?” The four drunks feigned innocent looks and Vince said:

“I’ll keep an eye on things for you, Kat.” Kat sighed and looked down at Dillon. He was still unconscious, so she didn’t have much choice.

“One of y’all help Hunter get him to the car.”

Vince went over and grabbed Dillon’s legs. Hunter took hold of him under the arms and they loaded him into the backseat of Vince’s wife’s car. Kat wondered if the woman would be surprised to find blood and sweat all over the seats the next morning, or if twenty years of being married to a drunk had left her anything to be surprised about.

“You need me to go with you?” Hunter asked her.

“Nah, I got this, thanks for your help.” Kat wouldn’t mind taking Hunter home with her and getting naked, but she didn’t want to worry about making small talk with the guy while they waited around the hospital. Forced conversation only seemed to put a damper on a good fuck, if you asked her. She started the car and looked over her shoulder at Dillon. His head was still bleeding and his eyes were closed, but he was moaning, so at least he wasn’t dead. Dillon might not believe it, but Kat was glad about that.

She drove to the hospital as quickly as she could, watching closely for cops. The last thing she needed was an expensive ticket to pay. They were in dire straits as it was, and as much as she’d like to blame Dillon’s illness and the crappy way he ran the bar before she got there, she knew that she had to shoulder some of the blame.

She didn’t park the car when she got to the hospital. She pulled into the ambulance bay and yelled at an orderly she saw going in the door. A few moments later he reappeared with a female nurse and they asked questions about what happened as they loaded him onto a gurney. Kat parked the car and went into the front then and spent another twenty minutes filling out paperwork that was bound to cost her a fortune. After she finished, she was told to have a seat and wait. Patience was not her strong suit, but no amount of trying to get into the back seemed to be getting her anywhere. She finally took a seat, as far away from everyone else in the waiting room as she could get, and before long her memories wandered back to that fateful day…the one that put the crack in the foundation of her and her father’s relationship and led them to where they were now…on the verge of total collapse.