Tony was coming, stalking after me with his eyes locked on my face. He knew I saw what he was doing, but maybe my being there was what Mandy needed to get away from him. I'd drawnhis attention away from her and given her a chance to get away, hopefully. But now he was pissed and coming after me.
I opened the throttle all the way and I ran, skidding across the gravel at the edge of the lot onto the street and racing down the highway. I saw his headlight as he pulled on the highway and knew he was coming after me. There was no way I could outrun him, either. He'd gotten his nickname Lightning because his bike was the fastest in the club. The only way I'd get away from him was to go off road, which my bike may do and his would fail.
My God, what just happened?
I thought breaking it off with Garret would be the worst thing to happen today, but I just witnessed attempted murder. And now I was running for my life.
4
GARRET
The Black Anvil was half empty tonight, which suited me just fine with the mood I was in. I dropped onto a stool at the far end of the bar and slapped the counter hard enough to make the bartender look up from the glass he was drying. "Whiskey neat, and keep 'em coming."
He grabbed a bottle off the shelf and poured without a word. I liked that about him. He never forced small talk or asked a bunch of questions, and tonight I appreciated it more than ever.
The first drink went down like gasoline and I barely tasted it. I pushed the glass forward and he filled it again, and the second one burned a little less. By the third, I was starting to feel the edges of my anger soften, but it was still there, sitting right in the center of my chest like a hot coal I couldn't cough up.
I still couldn't wrap my head around why Sara would break it off when things seemed to be going so well. And why did she start pushing for something I told her from the jump I couldn't give her? It was like she'd already made up her mind before she everopened her mouth, and there wasn't a damn thing I could've said to change it.
"Another," I said, and the bartender poured.
"Rough night?" he asked, which was about as much of a conversation as I'd ever gotten out of him, though some of the guys called him Doc and spoke about him like he was a therapist or something.
"Something like that," I grumbled and swigged the whiskey he set in front of me. I didn't feel like talking about it, anyway. Talking wouldn't fix what went wrong, anyway.
He leaned against the back counter and folded his arms. "Woman trouble or club trouble?"
"Does it matter?" I scowled and rubbed a hand over my face, hoping he got the point and walked away.
Then he nodded at my whiskey and asked, "You want me to start a tab or are you paying as you go?"
"Tab," I grumbled at him, sliding my glass across the bar. It'd been a long day and maybe I'd made the wrong choice coming into this place. When I felt like this, it was better to go home and sleep it off. Last thing I wanted was to become a drunk like some of the guys who hung around here all the time.
He pulled a ticket and clipped it to the rail behind the register, then turned to me. "Just don't break anything. I had to replace two stools last week after Crawl got into it with that trucker."
"I'm not here to fight. I'm here to drink."
"That's what he said too." He walked away, and I almost smiled at that, but I didn't have it in me. I stared at the glass instead and turned it slowly between my fingers.
The thing that really got under my skin was that Sara wasn't wrong. What I had with her was way more than sex. I just couldn’t admit it to her. It had been going fine—better than fine. It was the best arrangement I'd ever had with a woman, and I'd had my share of arrangements too. But after Peter's visit to the shop, it started to eat me up that I wasn’t keeping my word to him. Then Sara brought up making it official, and I couldn’t cross that line.
And dang it if she wasn't perfect for me. We had a lot in common, which was odd with how large the age difference was, but we were two peas in a pod when it came to most things. And if we disagreed on something, it was easy enough to put it aside and focus on the things we had in common, which was more than I could say for most women.
But Peter's voice rattled around in my head too, which didn't help. I thought for sure when he got on my case, it was because he'd seen me with her and he'd had enough. Maybe it would've been better if he had, then we'd have a common party to be angry with instead of just me feeling so rejected and hurt by her.
I pushed the glass forward again. The bartender filled it and gave me a look.
"What?" I said.
"Just counting." He set the bottle back. "That's five," he said in a cautioning tone.
"I can count," I snarled while I sipped the glass, but he had a point. Drinking myself stupid wasn't the answer any more thanbeing angry and snapping at everyone. This was no one's fault but my own. I brought it on myself by getting tangled up with a girl who was off limits. It was bound to end someday, and I knew it, and every time Peter looked at me crossways, I got reminded of it.
"Well, hey there, stranger."
I didn't have to look up to know who it was. Crystal slid onto the stool next to me and crossed her legs, leaning one elbow on the bar. Some guys would've welcomed the company after a night like this, but not me.
"Not tonight, Crystal." I kept my eyes locked straight forward on the cash register and the bottles of liquor on shelves behind it. Crystal had been around town more times than my bike. I had zero interest in her advances, which I had pushed away more than once.
