Chapter 23
Lee
It was becoming another part of our routine that Farrah worked at The Pint with me. That wouldn’t continue once she was further along, of course, but for now, I loved having her by my side as often as I could.
Things were going really well between us. We lived together in perfect harmony and I couldn’t believe how amazing she was, or how perfectly she fit into my life. It was crazy how we had found each other and how circumstances had thrown us together. To me, it was proof every day that fate and destiny and all those sappy love stories were real. It was proof that happy endings existed after all.
Farrah was doing well, too. She was worried about the pregnancy, I could tell. But she was in a good mood more often than not, and the more time we spent together, the more she opened up and showed me different sides of her I hadn’t seen before. I had a feeling that she’d buried her true self very deep down. I didn’t know what had happened to her that caused her to do that, but I was happy that it was slowly changing. I was glad she felt comfortable enough with me to begin to crawl out of her shell.
We changed to go into the pub together and climbed into the car. I took Farrah’s hand and kissed her knuckles the way I often did while we drove. She smiled at me and it was a happy smile, a genuine smile. She was beautiful when I saw those smiles. Her face lit up and it promised of a light within that I was yet to catch a glimpse of.
We had barely left the cabin when my phone rang.
“How far are you?” Hannah’s voice sounded over the car speaker through my Bluetooth system.
“We’re on our way, now,” I said.
“Could you hurry it up? We’ve got a creeper here and he’s causing shit. I don’t want him around here.”
I stepped on it. I was the muscle that took care of the guys that gave Hannah trouble. It didn’t happen very often—people were generally quite peaceful around here. But where there was alcohol there was bound to be someone looking for a fight sometimes. I was tall, and big enough to intimidate them, so Hannah called on me, even when I wasn’t working, if she needed help dealing with someone.
“Is she going to be okay until we get there?” Farrah asked.
“She should be okay. There are still the regulars that will stick up for her if things really get out of hand. And Dustin is there.” The poor guy was too small and skinny to make much of a difference, but God knows he would try.
Even though I believed Hannah would be alright until we arrived, I made a point of getting down the mountain as fast as I could. Hannah wasn’t one to cry wolf, so the fact that she called meant there was definitely an issue.
We pulled up in front of the pub and climbed out. I marched inside with Farrah on my heels.
“Where is he?” I asked Hannah when she met me at the door.
“Over by the bar. I refused to sell him alcohol when after I figured he’d had too much. He arrived here drunk already, but that was when things got hairy. He’s already thrown a beer mug and shattered it behind the bar.”
I shook my head. The crowd parted slightly and I saw him, sitting on the stool like he believed the world owed him.
He was a big motherfucker, too. Bigger than I was, and that was saying something. His dull hair was really short and he had a nasty scowl on his face. It wasn’t hard to see that he’d been drinking.
“Oh, my God,” Farrah said behind me. I glanced at her. Her eyes were glued to the man at the bar, her face terror-stricken. Her eyes were wide and she had shrunken in on herself, looking small and vulnerable.
The way she had transformed immediately told me one thing. This had to be him. This was the man from her past. Jim. She didn’t have to say it for me to know what was going on. It wasn’t hard to tell that he’d messed her up, by her reaction alone.
“Stay with her,” I told Hannah, who had noticed Farrah’s reaction as well. Her face was worried and she stepped closer to Farrah, protectively. Amazingly, Hannah and Farrah looked almost the same size, now because Farrah had become so small. I couldn’t believe the effect one person could have on another, and how she had gone from the tall, upright woman who believed the world was a happy place, to this small, terrified girl who was clearly frightened of the monster sitting at the bar.
I walked toward Jim. I was pissed off to see how Farrah had reacted, but I wasn’t going to take it out on the guy in Hannah’s place. I just needed him to get the fuck out of town. If he was willing to play nice, so was I.
“Hello,” I said, when I reached the bar, careful not to touch him. He looked like a time bomb, ready to go off at any moment. “Leeland Roper.”
He turned to face me. He smiled, but it wasn’t a pretty smile. It promised suffering. “James Horace,” he said. “But my friends call me Jim.”
Right. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave the bar. Some folks are getting a little uncomfortable and we try to keep the environment safe and friendly.”
Jim’s face split into a menacing smile.
“You know, Leeland. I’ve been talking to people around here. In such a small town, everyone knows everyone else. It’s nauseating, but it counts in my favor when I’m looking for someone, and word has it that you’re the one fucking around with my girl.”
I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to jump on him and drag him outside to show him who was boss around here. He couldn’t talk to me that way and Farrah was definitely not his girl.
“I think you’re a little confused,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Oh, no. I see her over there, trying to hide like I don’t know she’s here. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” Farrah flinched when he said it, and Jim chuckled. “Yeah, she’s always doing shit she’s not supposed to. It’s a hell of a pain in the ass, but what can you do, right?”
“I’m not going to ask you again,” I said, trying very hard to keep control of my temper. He was talking about Farrah like she was nothing more than a possession, a nuisance. “You need to leave. Now.”
Jim laughed as if I’d told a joke, and his voice was raspy.
“Listen here,” Jim said, and his smile had vanished. “I came here to talk to her,” he said, pointing a fat finger at Farrah. “I’m not leaving here until I do. You all seem to think she’s so fucking amazing. I heard the stories around town. She had you all wrapped around her little finger like she’s the queen of Sheba or something. But I know who the little bitch really is and it’s time for her to stop her shit and come home.”
“You don’t get to make that decisions,” I said. My hands were balled into fists by now and I was about ready to deck him.
Jim grabbed a bar stool and threw it across the pub with a strength fueled by alcohol and rage. The stool hit the far wall, missing everyone by some miracle, and it clattered to the ground, one leg broken.
“You want to fight me, pretty boy?” he asked. “What makes you believe you could handle someone like her?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to fight him. He was out of control and too many people were around. I could take him, but in here, someone else was going to get hurt in the process and I wouldn’t allow that, and I didn’t want to bust up Hannah’s place.
“Are you scared of me?” Jim asked. “Because you should be!” He shouted the last part of his sentence and Farrah flinched again. I saw her from the corner of my eye and she wasn’t okay. I wanted this guy gone. I wanted him out of our lives, but he was becoming a real problem.
I considered calling the sheriff. I didn’t usually back away, but some people needed handcuffs instead of a good fight to teach them a lesson.
Jim grabbed a beer mug close to him. He’d still been drinking it and the glass was half full. Jim downed the beer before he threw the mug across the room and it shattered against the glass.
“Jim,” Farrah suddenly said, standing next to me. I hadn’t seen her coming closer. “It’s okay.”
She walked right up to him, putting her hands on his chest and like a pot of oil that had been taken off the burner, and Jim suddenly calmed down.
“We can talk. But not here, not tonight. You know how much I hate it when you drink.”
Jim nodded. He was completely subdued now.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” She glanced at me. “Are you staying at the motel?”
Jim nodded again.
“Okay. I’ll come to the motel and we can talk, okay? It’s going to be okay.”
“Where are you staying?” Jim asked.
I knew without a doubt that Jim would lose his shit if he found out Farrah was staying with me.
“She stays with me,” Hannah said, stepping up to the plate.
“Yeah,” Farrah said, running with it. “Hannah is my friend.”
Jim narrowed his eyes. “You’re friends with a pub owner?”
Farrah didn’t answer him, but he seemed satisfied with what he knew.
“If you don’t come tomorrow, I’m coming to find you,” Jim threatened, some of his anger returning.
“I’ll be there, don’t worry. I’ve never lied to you, have I?”
Jim thought about it for a moment before he shook his head. “No. You do a lot of things wrong, but you don’t lie.”
“Right,” Farrah said, and I could see the effect his words were having on her. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Go on.”
Jim shot me a nasty glance before he turned around and marched out of the pub. When he was gone, the atmosphere immediately calmed down as if everyone had been holding their breath. Hannah shook her head.
Farrah looked at me with an apologetic expression.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said to her. I pulled her into a hug. “It’s fine. We’ll figure this out.”
She nodded and walked around the back to find her apron before she started serving tables. I stood behind the bar where I started serving drinks, but my mood was blacker than black. He was here for her. What the hell did he want? Farrah had said they’d been broken up for over a year. But he had come searching for her, knowing she was here. He’d been keeping tabs on her, obviously. He couldn’t have known otherwise.
I didn’t want her to see him tomorrow. I watched her as she moved around, and saw that the little light inside of her had been snuffed out when she’d seen him. I knew she was going to go see him. She was going to that motel tomorrow to talk to the man who had the ability to strip her of everything that made her, her. He had done it in a few short sentences.
And I couldn’t stop her from going. There was nothing I could do about it. It pissed me off. It pissed me off so much, I wished I had started a fight with him after all.