Chapter Forty-Five
Nathan
I watched Bree march up to the bartender. The kiss that had been meant to distract her had set a fire in my blood, and I had to hang back and cool off. The good thing was I had made Bree mad enough to forget her fear. She leaned on the bar and flirted with the bartender over the tequila bottles, shooting me revengeful glances while she smiled at him.
I worried that sending her over was a mistake. The bartender had been staring at her since we came in, but I had misinterpreted his look. Bree was naturally attractive, but his stare had more meaning than lust in it. He looked as if he had something to tell her, and he was just waiting for the right moment.
The bartender glanced over at me, and I felt a cold slide of fear down my spine. Did he recognize me?
He looked back at Bree and gave her a wan smile. I felt a rock in my gut. The bartender was worried about Bree. He knew enough to mind his own business, but he clearly wanted to warn Bree away from me.
How did the bartender at La Puerta Roja know me?
I walked slowly toward the bar. Bree had charmed the bartender into conversation and now they were leaned close to each other over the bar. She studied the bottles and shivered at the stranger contents like a suspended scorpion with stinger intact. The bartender, on the other hand, kept his eyes on Bree’s face.
He was asking her questions. Just little things here and there, but he was probing for something.
I inched forward and heard him ask how long Bree and I had been on the road. Bree glanced up at him and then stood up. She answered with something vague and looked over at me.
The bartender frowned when he saw me coming, but he had to ask one more question. “Been together long? I’d bet you’re more like newlyweds than an old, married couple.”
Bree grinned and forgot our cover story. “We’ve only know each other for a few weeks but it feels like a lot longer.”
Then she remembered our cover story and popped her mouth shut. I walked up then and joined them at the bar.
“My wife is such a flirt,” I said.
The bartender’s frown deepened and so did my fear that he recognized me. The last time we must have met, the time I could not remember, I would have been single and proud of it.
“Drink?” the bartender asked me.
I waved my hand over the selection of bottles he’d spread in front of Bree. “Tequila works for me.”
He shook his head and turned around to choose another bottle from the back shelf of the bar. “Last time you were here, you had a preference for the cobra whiskey.”
The bartender set the bottle in front of me and grabbed two shot glasses. Then he poured and took one of the shots himself.
“The last time I was here?” I picked up my shot and sloshed a few drops on the bar between us. “When was that?”
The bartender’s eyebrows went up. “About a month or so ago.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
He gestured to the sparse crowd. “We don’t get many out-of-towners. I remember you. You came in about a month or so ago and got a taste for the cobra whiskey.”
I looked at the coiled snake in the bottle. “Then I better have another shot.”
He poured it then stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest. I raised my shot glass to him in a silent toast and hoped the burning alcohol would help me remember. The whiskey slipped down my throat like a wildfire but my memory stayed dark.
“Any recollection of who I was with?” I asked.
The bartender nodded with tight lips. He poured himself another shot of whiskey and knocked it back with a sharp motion.
I faked a laugh. “Must have been on a bender, because I don’t really recall. No offense.”
“You looked pretty sober and serious to me,” the bartender said.
“Help me out?” I asked.
He frowned, then darted a glance across the entire establishment before he answered me. “Adrian Juarez. He’s the only reason I didn’t throw you out as soon as I saw you. If you have business with him, you’re welcome, but the second your business is over, you are not coming in here again.”
I sat down hard on the nearest bar stool. “Adrian Juarez. Oh god. I knew that name sounded too familiar to be something I’d made up.”
The bartender scowled. “You got a real problem with your memory or are you just trying to be clever?”
I looked him straight in the eyes. “Do I look like I’m faking it?”
“Can’t imagine you’d come back in here in your right mind,” the bartender said.
I wondered if the spinning sensation was the whiskey or my memory fighting to return. The bartender raised the whiskey bottle again but I turned my shot glass over. The cobra in the bottle swayed back and forth, its pickled eyes still holding a sharp threat.
“Adrian Juarez,” I said. “Could you describe him?”
The bartender snorted and turned to walk away, but he stopped when I stood up. “You must really be messed up in the head,” he said.
He came back and leaned on the bar, describing the gunman we’d run into at the bank. He was the same one who recognized me when I saved Bree, the one who had called out my name in that vivid dream.
I had been right for weeks: the gunman after us was none other than Adrian Juarez.
“Do I have to tell you who he is, too?” the bartender asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know his title but I know he works for the New Mexico City Cartel.”
Bree had been listening with a blank expression but now she choked on her drink. The bartender came to her rescue with a plastic bottle of water. He twisted the cap off and handed it to her then returned to face me.
“You two looked pretty friendly, though you were here to talk business. Couldn’t tell if it was a long business meeting that turned to drinking or drinking that turned to serious business. You were here a while.” The bartender was more relaxed now that he’d decided I was insane.
“Friendly?” Bree spluttered. She put down the bottle of water and took another sip of tequila. “They were what? Drinking buddies?”
The bartender gave her a softened look but shrugged. “Like I said, looked like more than that. Adrian Juarez likes to do business here sometimes and, because of that, I don’t ask questions.”
Bree was so shocked that she leaned limply against the bar. I watched her hand tremble as she raised the tequila to her mouth again.
The worst of it wasn’t her fear or the bad memories of Juarez’s men kidnapping her, it was the fact that I wasn’t more surprised. What the bartender said rang true.
I knew Adrian Juarez, and we’d had business together before my memory went dark.
Bree refused to meet my eyes. She had worried all along that I was hiding something and now she knew the truth. Not only had I discovered the identity of the man who’d kidnapped her, but I had kept it a secret from her. And, worse than that, I knew the man.
We were friendly, the bartender had said.
I turned to her and reached out a hand. “I should have said something but I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t want to worry you.”
Bree shrank away from my hand and finished her tequila. “I think I’ll have another,” she said to the bartender.
“Bree, please…” My voice trailed off. How could I ask her for any more understanding?
She had been with me, on my side, from the first time we’d met in her old diner. I had tested her loyalty over and over again. Not to mention getting her shot at, kidnapped, and forcing her to fake her own death.
Now she was halfway across the United States and finally finding out the truth about me. It didn’t matter that I was discovering it at the same time.
“Why don’t you go back to the booth? I’ll be there in a minute,” Bree said.
I worried about the hard edge in her tone, but was grateful for a few minutes alone to gather my thoughts. I sank into the booth and tried to keep my eyes off Bree. The bartender leaned across and talked to her quietly.
My head was swimming with broken pieces from my memory. I didn’t remember the bar but I remembered sitting across the table from the gunman in his dark suit. Instead of feeling relief at finding one more clue, my stomach sank. None of it made sense.
What business could we possibly have together? And how did Maggie fit in with Adrian Juarez and the cartel?
Then the bartender laid one big hand over Bree’s and all other thoughts flew out of my mind.
I couldn’t blame her if she wanted distance between us, but the jealousy was uncontrollable. Bree was mine. Mine to hold close and keep safe.
My gut twisted again. How could I keep Bree out of danger when it was becoming more and more clear that I was the one causing all the trouble?