Chapter 1
Bryson
“Sense does not come before age.”
~ Rowan O’Sullivan
“You little bastard,” I seethed through clenched teeth.
“Excuse me?” Uncertainty tinged the man’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Not you,” I grumbled as I rubbed my eyes with my forefinger and thumb. I pinched the bridge of my nose before forcing my heavy lids open. “The raccoon.”
“The raccoon?” he repeated, sounding even more unsure than he had a moment before.
“Yes, the raccoon.” I sighed in frustration. A quick glance at my alarm clock had me muttering beneath my breath. “Shit.”
It was three fifteen in the morning. I’d closed up after last call at two a.m. and it had taken another fifteen minutes before I’d gotten home and flopped into bed and I had to be back up again in less than three hours.
“Mr. O’Sullivan?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Rowan O’Sullivan?”
“No, this is Bryson O’Sullivan. I’m on the account.”
I’d been telling my dad to put me down as the primary on the account for the last two years so I wouldn’t have to go through this every time I dealt with things like this. Not that I spoke to the security company that often, thankfully. But I regularly dealt with vendors, insurance companies, and the bank. For the past two years, since my dad “retired” I’d had zero authority and yet, one hundred percent responsibility for the bar. All the responsibility and no authority, I wasn’t exactly living the dream.
There was a brief pause. “Oh, yes. I see you listed here. Sir, your alarm was triggered ninety seconds ago. Do you want me to dispatch the authorities?”
“No.” Holding the phone to my ear, I pushed up to a sitting position and swung my feet over the side of the bed. “It’s fine. Thank you for letting me know.”
“You are aware that the alarm was triggered and you are declining assistance?”
I lifted my shoulder to my ear to keep the phone in place while I reached down and grabbed the jeans that I had discarded only an hour ago. “Yes.”
“To close out the alert, I’ll need the authorization code.”
“Number five is alive.”
The quote was from the movie Short Circuit, which was a mainstay in our house for family movie nights when I was a kid because it was my dad’s favorite.
“Thank you, sir. You’ll be receiving a follow-up call in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks.” I let the phone drop to the mattress as I stood and pulled up my jeans and threw on a shirt. After snatching my keys, wallet, and phone, I started towards the bedroom door carefully navigating my way. Normally, moving through my room wouldn’t take ninja skills, but currently, it looked like a tornado had hit it.
Over the past few months, I’d poured all of my focus and attention into renovating my parents’ home—the same house they’d bought twenty-two years ago when we’d moved to the United States. That and running the bar. Between the two projects I’d had no time for housework or a social life. Which I guess you could consider the silver lining, because if I brought a woman back here, she’d probably run the other way screaming.
“Goliath,” I called out as I squinted through bleary vision.
Nothing.
I tried his full name. “Goliath Slobberman.”
Silence. I pursed my lips and whistled.
Still nothing.
In a whisper so soft it would slide over silk without snagging it, I said the magic word: “chicken.”
Before my tongue even connected to the roof of my mouth to make the en sound, I heard the rattle of metal from his collar jingling and my wrinkly-faced bloodhound miraculously appeared at my side.
“You know some dogs come when they’re called.” I’d been telling him that for the past four years, and he looked as impressed by the statement today as he had when he was a puppy—not at all. I grabbed a chicken flavored treat from the front entryway before opening the front door.
“Don’t wake David up on my account,” I commented sarcastically as I stepped over the tiny tabby cat curled up sound asleep on my porch.
Goliath banked far left giving the slumbering feline a wide berth. Since the first day the cat had shown up on my doorstep, the little guy had been fearless. Goliath had been terrified of him, so I shooed him away. He came back the next day, and I once again ran him off. Then a third, fourth and so on. After about six months, I stopped shooing and named him David.
I waited on the front walk for Goliath; I had to shake my head at the tail tucked between Goliath’s legs as he practically tiptoed down the front steps.
“You’re lucky I’m allergic to cats.” I had to laugh at the thought of how much David would torment poor Goliath if I could actually adopt him and have him as an indoor cat.
As we made the short walk to the bar, I felt a wet nose press against the knuckles of my left hand that held his poultry flavored treat. “No. You get the treat after we run off that damn raccoon.”
He responded with a deep bark that cut through the peaceful early morning. The streets of Wishing Well were quiet; the only soundtrack playing was that of nocturnal insects and birds. I inhaled deeply, letting the crisp, clean air fill my lungs as my eyes drifted up to the blanket of stars covering the endless dark sky.
I was bone tired. Exhausted. But that didn’t stop me from appreciating my surroundings. I’d lived in Wishing Well since I was eight years old and unlike a lot of the kids that I grew up with, I’d never had any desire to leave the small Texas town. I loved the community I’d been lucky enough to be raised in.
The only time I’d left was to go to college, and that was only a few hours away. I’d driven home most weekends and come home every holiday and summer break. It wasn’t just that this place was home, it was that I missed the people that were home, my family. And not just the ones that I shared DNA with. There was Bud, who owned The Greasy Spoon and had caught me throwing bottles against the back of the restaurant when I was twelve. I’d been hanging out with an older group of kids who ran when Bud came outside. Instead of getting mad or insisting that I tell him who I’d been with, he just told me that I obviously had too much time on my hands and hired me to bus tables for the summer. I’d started the following day and had the best summer of my life.
There was Stan, the cook, who shared his secret recipe for his “world famous” barbecue sauce with me and taught me how to cook a steak so tender and juicy it would make the toughest cowboy tear up. Tami Lynn, a waitress at the Spoon, made sure I did my work “right the first time” and instilled a rock solid work ethic in me. Her husband Emmitt, now retired, used to work at the lumberyard with Carl, Harry, and Ray. The four men would come in every day for lunch and talk about football. I held the state record for most completed passes in a regular season for almost a decade, and they were the men that I have to thank for introducing me to the sport that garnered me a full ride to college.
There was the Reed family that lived next door to us, Sheriff Reed and his wife, Loretta. Their three boys, Hudson, Hayden, and Holden were like brothers to me. Hayden and I were the same age, and we’d been inseparable. I probably spent as many nights at their house for dinner as I did my own, and vice versa.
The residents of Wishing Well didn’t just say “it takes a village” they lived that platitude. The entire town was my family and had helped raise me, just like my parents had helped raise the kids I’d grown up with. I planned on continuing the tradition. In my late teens and early twenties, I’d assumed that by the time I was thirty, I would be married and have kids of my own, but I’d passed that milestone a few months ago, and the last serious girlfriend I’d had was over two years ago. I’d thought Ashley might be the one, but she hadn’t shared that opinion.
After four years—two and a half of which we’d lived together—I woke up one morning to a Dear John letter taped to the bathroom mirror. She wrote that she loved me but that this was a big world and small town living wasn’t for her, and that she was moving to Haiti with the charity she’d worked for over the years. I’d been heartbroken at the time but was over it now. And with time I’d come to appreciate her being honest with herself and with me. She’d most likely saved both of us years of misery.
Since then I’d dated, but not seriously.
We turned the corner, and The Tipsy Cow sign came into view. It wasn’t lit up, but it was visible thanks to the illumination from the street lamp that sat beside it. The corners of my lips tugged up in a smile. No matter how tired, frustrated, exhausted, or pissed I was, seeing the drunken cartoon bovine always made me grin. I still remembered when my dad let my sister and I choose the design for the logo when he bought the bar twenty years ago. The decision had been unanimous. Jade and I had both agreed immediately.
As we cut through the parking lot to head to the back entrance, I reached out and rubbed Goliath’s head. “All right, man, you know what to do.”
This was not our first rodeo. Goliath had to run off this little bastard about a half a dozen times before. The first time, we’d found him helping himself to a delivery that had been sitting outside. Another time I’d found him in the small kitchen area, it seemed he’d let himself in through the screen door. There was also the time he made his way up to the rafters; I still don’t know how he managed that one. I spent a good part of a week checking the roof and any possible entry point that was vulnerable. And a couple of days ago he’d found his way in through the men’s bathroom window. This time, I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten in, but it was clear he was getting smarter and braver, and he had a hard-on for the bar.
I’d run him off on my own a couple of times, but Goliath was my secret weapon. Every time that little beady-eyed bastard saw my big, slobbery beast he scurried away like his tail was on fire. It cracked me up that Goliath managed to intimidate a big ol’ raccoon but David, who barely weighed five pounds soaking wet, he cowered to like he was the scaredy-cat.
When the back door came into view, I was surprised that nothing looked out of place. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see, maybe it swinging open with scratch marks running up and down it like it’d been clawed at, but it appeared to be fine. Then I noticed the broken glass above the dumpsters that backed up to the building.
“That little shit broke the window!” I commiserated with Goliath who appeared to understand my outrage.
My nostrils flared as I unlocked the back door. Goliath’s breathing was growing heavier by the second as we entered the darkened building.
“Easy.”
As much as I appreciated my K-9 backup, the last thing I wanted was for him to get ahold of the critter. Thankfully, I never had to worry about being the owner of a disobedient dog—whenever we weren’t home that is. When we were outside those four walls, he listened to me without fail. If I told him to stay, he stayed. If I told him to leave it, he left it. If I told him easy, he backed off.
I followed Goliath through the kitchen as he sniffed the ground. He picked up a scent, and he set off through the swinging door and down the hallway that led to the front. I was right behind him, and before we reached the end of the hall, I heard a crash coming from the bar. It sounded like a bottle or glassware.
Goliath beat me to the scene, and I had expected him to be growling by the time I caught up to him, but instead, he was sitting on his hind legs, his tongue hanging loosely out of the side of his mouth, panting.
I flipped on the lights and stepped behind the bar expecting to see the relentless racoon that’d been tormenting me for months. Instead, I saw a scrawny kid sitting on his ass, his back leaning against the stainless steel ice bin, head tipped up, downing a bottle of Jameson, and a half empty bottle of Kettle One beside him.
“What the hell?!” Without thinking, I grabbed the liquor from him and fisted a hand in his shirt, pulling him up off the ground. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
“Get off me!” He pushed me, hard, as he found his footing.
I didn’t budge or let go as I repeated my question. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Anger flared in the kid’s eyes as he shoved at me again and huffed. His breath reeked of alcohol causing me to turn my head to the side. When I looked back at him, I noticed he had a pretty gnarly scar above his left brow.
One of the benefits of living in a small town is that everyone knows everyone. I obviously didn’t hang out with the teen population of Wishing Well, but I sure as hell knew who they were, and I’d never seen this kid before. I also knew that he didn’t seem too concerned about the fact that I’d just caught him breaking and entering, trespassing, and drinking my booze.
He wasn’t scared. He was pissed. Really pissed.
“What’s your name?”
His answer came in the form of a kick that if I’d had slower reflexes would have landed right between my legs. I pivoted out of the way before the sneaker even made it to knee level. Another kick came right behind the first and then small fists started flying. In less time that it took to dodge out of the way, I had him spun around and in an arm bar hold. He was still fighting, but his efforts were futile.
“Easy, Karate Kid.” I wasn’t sure what the hell this kid’s problem was, but he was only making things worse for himself.
He stilled, the only movement coming from his chest as he inhaled and exhaled in shallow pants. “Get your hands off me.”
Real, honest fear filled his false bravado. It was the first crack in his tough guy act, and I immediately dropped my hold. My goal hadn’t been to scare the actual shit out of him; I’d just been trying to gain control of the situation. The kid rubbed his wrist where I’d gripped him.
When I took a step back to give the kid some space, Goliath stepped between us. He sat with his back to the kid facing me in a protective stance. He was protecting the kid, not me. His owner. The man that saved him from the pound mere hours before it would have been game over for him. No, he was protecting the little piss ant that had broken into my bar and was getting drunk.
Most people that didn’t know Goliath were intimidated because of his size, but not this kid. He reached down to pet Goliath’s head, avoiding eye contact with me.
Goliath’s calm energy defused the situation, and I was able to relax the muscles tensed in my neck. “His name’s Goliath.”
“Hi, Goliath.” The kid continued petting his head.
In a less threatening tone, I asked again, “What’s your name, kid?”
“Milo!” A voice shrieked from the hallway that led to the back room.
My head spun towards the high-pitched scream and what I saw stopped my world from spinning on its axis. Time suspended. The hairs on the back of my neck and my arm stood straight up. The oxygen was sucked from my lungs. Everything around me disappeared. The only thing that existed was her.
Chestnut brown hair was pulled up on top of her head, and pieces fell around her face, framing it like an angel. Large, golden eyes surrounded by dark, thick lashes were complimented perfectly by a creamy, olive complexion. A nose that turned up at the end sat above the full lips that spread wide across her face even without her smiling. The white V-neck T-shirt she wore hung off her left shoulder, revealing a rounded shoulder of smooth skin that had my fingertips itching to touch it. Her navy blue sweats were rolled up to her knees and my eyes drifted down to her slender calves, delicate ankles, and Converse tennis shoes.
I’d seen my fair share of beautiful women. Every night this bar was filled with ladies showcasing their assets, God given and otherwise. Makeup highlighting lips, eyes, and cheekbones to bring out natural beauty. Skirts that hit just the right spot on the thighs to give the illusion that their legs were a mile long. Jeans that molded to curves like they were painted on. Shirts with mouth-watering cleavage that teased and hinted at what lay beneath.
There were several occasions, over the years, that the fairer sex had caused me to do a double take, stopped me in my tracks, and even rendered me speechless once or twice. But never, ever, had laying eyes on a female caused the atmosphere to change. I’d never experienced a shift in the tectonic plates of my existence like I felt now.
My dad had always talked about the way he felt the first time my mom walked by his dad’s pub, where he was bartending. He left a full bar of angry Irishmen because he caught a glimpse of her profile through the window and raced outside to catch up with her because he “just knew.” All my life when he’d told that story I’d asked him what, what did he know? Every time I got the same response. He’d smile and say he just knew. I’d never understood what he’d been talking about. Until now.
One look. That was all it took. One look at this dark-haired beauty and I just…I knew.