Chapter 26

Folkestone, England

In Christian’s experience, places like the Bloody Bucket, places serving free music, cheap beer, and marginally edible baskets of fish and chips were the world’s leading purveyors of hangovers.

Unfortunately for him, he had limited himself to one pint of the local brew. A brew that Ace had decreed was the sudsy nectar of the gods, and Christian couldn’t agree more. Beer was just better in Britain. None of that flat piss served ice-cold and guzzled by the twelve-pack.

Yet, despite the sad state of his near-empty pint glass, Christian was grinning as he swirled his last chip through a pile of mayonnaise.

That was another thing. He could not fathom the fuss about ketchup. If one didn’t shake a ketchup bottle or ketchup packet properly, one was left with an unappetizing slick of ketchup water. Disgusting.

There were loads of things he did not miss about England. A good, noisy, wood-paneled pub wasn’t one of them.

Popping the mayonnaise-dipped chip in his mouth, he hummed his contentment. Things could fall to shite faster than he could snap his fingers—that was just the way of the world in their line of work—but for now he was happy. As a spec-ops soldier, he had learned to appreciate life’s little moments.

Across from him, Emily halted with a forkful of fish halfway to her mouth. She cocked her pretty head. “Now that’s a new smile.” She pointed her fork in his direction. “I’m not sure how to read it.”

Usually he tried to avoid going quip for quip with her. Especially since her quick mind always surprised and delighted him, which in turn made him incredibly horny. The latter was a problem since she had given him no indication that her constant taunting and teasing would lead to anything other than more taunting and teasing.

But the devil got the better of him—or else it was simply a case of masochism—and he feigned an amazed expression. “Oh, you read? The surprises today…they just keep coming, don’t they?”

Ace snorted, but didn’t look up from his basket of food.

“Don’t let my occasional lapse into poor grammar fool you, mister,” Emily declared. “I’m a card-carrying member of Oprah’s Book Club. And speaking of reading…” She held up one of the Bloody Bucket’s laminated menus. The history of the establishment was printed on the back. “So what if two hundred years ago on this very site a local went to the town well and pulled up a bucket full of blood because someone had disposed of a murdered body in there? Does that make it okay to name a place that serves food and drink the Bloody Bucket? What is with you Englishmen?”

“Skewed senses of humor?” Christian suggested.

“I vote for lack of imagination,” Ace said, dragging a chip through a mound of ketchup. Bleck!

“You’re one to talk,” Christian scoffed. “If memory serves, your favorite place to eat in Chicago is Downtown Dogs, which serves hot dogs…say it with me…downtown.”

Emily opened her mouth to add something that Christian was sure to find wonderfully scathing or snarky. But before she uttered a word, her eyes focused over his shoulder and her lips sealed shut. He was instantly on edge.

They had chosen a four-top table near the southern wall. The location allowed him a view of the front window while Ace kept an eye on the back door. Watching the exits was one more thing they did naturally, instinctively. But the arrangement proved disadvantageous because it meant Christian’s back was to the bar. He had to crane his head over his shoulder to see what had snagged Emily’s attention. The moment he did, he wished he hadn’t.

Oh brilliant, he thought, watching the woman headed their way.

When they arrived, the pub had been mostly empty. But the clock on the wall now read half past five, and the place had filled up. Locals packed the bar area, and the tables around them had not one seat to spare. Which brought him back to the woman…

She had been sitting alone at the bar when they entered. One look at her outdated, frizzy blond hairstyle, her two-sizes too-tight clothes, and her blatant leer had told him everything he needed to know. She was the town drunk and the town score.

Every little borough had one. A woman who dolled herself up and hit the local pub in the afternoon, drinking her government support check away by evening, which was when she would start chatting up others to buy her another round. Sometimes she would blow a stranger or a local just to get her next glassful. And all the while she lived with the hope that one of the men would see past her smudged eye makeup and whiskey-sour breath to the good-hearted woman beneath.

Christian knew all about her kind of woman. His mother had been one.

“Oh snap,” Emily muttered. “My craydar is going nutso.”

“Craydar?” Ace asked, unaware they had company coming.

“The ability to spot crazy,” Emily explained from the side of her mouth just as the blond-haired woman sat in the extra chair at their table.

“Well, you three look flush and full of fun,” she said, fiddling with the cheap silver cross attached to the chain around her neck. Christian had thought she was pushing forty, but up close he could see she was probably a good decade younger.

Hard living had a way of aging the body.

A memory of his mother stumbling home and stinking of well gin tried to invade his head, but he quickly shoved it away.

“How ’bout lettin’ me join the fun, eh?” The woman’s words slurred together. “What say you all to another round?”

“Care to give us your name first, luv?” Ace asked, eyeing her curiously.

“Oh.” The frizzy blond blinked. “I’m Jenny.” She extended her hand. “And you’re the most delicious thing what’s come ’round here in a fortnight.”

Christian assumed she was attempting to look seductive when she pursed her lips at Ace, but it only served to make her look more drunk.

“Hi, Jenny.” Ace shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Ace. I’m gay. And we’re all on the clock, so another round is out of the question.”

Well, that’s cutting to the chase, Christian thought with surprise. Ace was usually the epitome of politeness. But apparently he had known women like Jenny too, and wanted to nip the situation in the bud before it had a chance to bloom into a toxic flower.

A rather ugly expression contorted Jenny’s face. She hooked a chip-nailed thumb toward Christian. “I thought he was gay, but not you,” she told Ace. Then she added, “Damned poofs,” before spitting on the ground and pushing from the table. She wobbled back to the bar.

Just like that, all the happy was sucked out of the evening. Their brief reprieve was over, and it was back to the grind.

Emily’s mouth was set in a moue of disgust as she watched Jenny retreat. But her brown eyes were liquid soft and full of concern when she turned to Ace, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m sorry she called you that. I’ll go drag her out back and kick her ass. Just say the word.”

Ace shrugged. “Sticks and stones, luv. Sticks and stones.”

“Well, you might be able to brush it off, but I can’t,” Christian snarled. A vague film of red covered his vision. “I’m going to march up to that bar and tell Drunk Jenny a thing or two.”

“And what would that accomplish?” Ace’s smile was grim. He shrugged his shoulders, and there was such resignation there that Christian felt a pang in his chest. He’d survived some pretty bad shit. But he hadn’t the first clue what it was to be judged on the color of his skin, or the god he’d been raised to worship, or the gender of the people he chose to love. He couldn’t fathom it. “It won’t change her ways,” Ace added. “Besides, she’s just a sad alcoholic lashing out at people to try to make them as sad as she is. Misery loves company and all that. I feel sorry for her.”

“That makes one of us,” Emily grumbled. And for the first time, Christian found himself agreeing with her.

There was no way to rekindle the happy atmosphere, but he hoped at least to end the evening on a lighter note. Self-immolation usually worked for that, so he sighed and donned a hurt expression. “But let’s get back to the real issue here.” Ace glanced at him curiously. “Why did she think I was gay?”

Mission accomplished, he thought when Ace and Emily burst into laughter.

“What?” he demanded, feigning a deep scowl.

“Please,” Emily scoffed. “The clothes? The hair?” She waved a hand in his direction.

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing. That’s precisely the point. It’s all thick and wavy and styled so perfectly. There’s even a well-placed whorl over your left eyebrow. Tell the truth… You do that intentionally, don’t you?”

“That’s a load of tosh.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It means bullshit, darling.”

“Why do you always gotta use fancy English terms on me? Speak American, why doncha?”

She could really pull off the tough South Side ’hood girl thing when she wanted to. Why that should intrigue him, Christian had no idea.

Wait a tick-tock. Yes, he bloody well did! It was because every time she got tough, his instinct was to tame. More than once, he had fantasized about dominating Emily until she turned pliant and submissive in his arms.

You can thank my childhood for that one too! he thought with a scowl.

He might as well have been raised by wolves. He’d had no structure. But worse than that, he’d had no power over what happened to him. Helpless, that’s what he’d been. Bloody, buggering helpless. And that had informed his adulthood. It was why he was fastidious about everything. His clothes, his hair, his car, his world. Control… It was the only way he felt safe. Felt sane.

“Before you two start trying to tear each other’s throats out again, how about we head back to Rusty’s?” Ace looked at his watch and added, “He should be home soon.”

“Anxious to see him?” Emily waggled her eyebrows. The beauty mark high on her cheek caught the light and taunted Christian.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ace feigned boredom.

“Oh, sure you do. I saw the looks passing between you two. And just for the record, Rusty’s a really good guy. I say, get your groove on, my man. We’re all down with the rainbow.”

Hold the phone. Looks? Rainbow? “Wait.” Christian blinked. “Rusty’s gay?”

Emily frowned. “How the hell did you miss that? Aren’t you supposed to have eyes in the back of your head and a sixth sense about people?”

“I—”

Before he could answer, she pushed ahead. “Didn’t you see the way he and Ace were ogling each other? It was so hot and dirty. Why do you think we had to take showers? It was to wash off the residue of all that eye sex they had while on the boat.”

“There was no eye sex,” Ace insisted. “There was maybe a little…eye foreplay.”

“If by foreplay, you mean just the tip. Then yeah. Sure, okay.”

“And on that note”—Ace pushed to a stand—“I’m out.”

“Party pooper,” Emily declared. But she too rose from the table, leaving Christian to follow suit.

When he skirted the table, Ace frowned at him. “What are you grinning about?”

“Nothing,” Christian lied, carefully rearranging his features. “Just happy to have a belly full of good English food.”

“I’m pretty sure the phrase good English food is an oxymoron,” Emily shot over her shoulder, winding her way through the pub.

A group of blue-collar city workers eyed her passage with such interest that Christian was tempted to knock their heads together. But he kept his cool by focusing on the fact that Rusty Parker was…da-da-da-dah!…gay!

Now he could stop imagining Emily naked and in the big fisherman’s arms. Never in his entire life had he been so happy to learn of another man’s sexual preferences.