"Leilani?" I call out.
And that's when I see her. She's standing near the bar, her back pressed against it, her face the color of paper. Some guy I don't recognize is sitting on a stool nearby, comfortable as anything, like he owns the place. He turns around with a slow, easy smile when he hears my voice.
"Oh," the guy says, all warmth. "You must be the boyfriend. Come on in. Leilani and I were just catching up. Weren't we, sweetheart?"
Fear and something worse — something I haven't felt in a long time — is etched on her face. Her eyes meet mine.
"Remy," she whispers. "He's not supposed to be here. Get him out."
The guy is big. Tall. Dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt.
He spreads his hands like he's amused by everyone in the room. "I'm afraid Leilani and I have business to discuss. So why don't you and your friend," he glances at Nat, "give us a few minutes?"
"Get out," I say. My voice is low. Don't recognize it.
"I'd love to. As soon as Leilani signs the paperwork I've offered."
He turns back toward her and takes one step closer. Reaches for her wrist. "Sweetheart, why don't you tell your little friend here what we agreed —"
Leilani flinches.
My vision goes hazy and red, and in a millisecond, I'm across the room and pulling the guy back by his shoulder and slamming my fist into his face. At least I think it's his face. I'm so blindlyangry that I'm punching him anywhere, everywhere, with all I've got.
Normally, I'm a lover, not a fighter. But right now? I'm a freaking heavyweight MMA champion.
The guy's strong, though. In my rational moments, I'd never pick a fight with someone like that. But this isn't a rational moment. Whoever this guy is, he's going down.
He charges at me and we fall to the cold terrazzo floor, punching and wrestling. Leilani yells and I see her dive across the bar for her phone.
Somehow, I'm on the bottom and the guy hits me square in the nose. I yell. He punches me again in the eye, and a searing pain washes over me. White sparkles dance in my vision. I'm going to kill this jerk, and I grunt, pushing him up. My fist makes contact with his jaw.
"Hey," Nat says sharply. We don't pay attention and continue struggling against each other. The sound of something solid hitting flesh makes a crack echo through the bar. I feel his body press into me, then relax, and I roll away, ready to take him on.
"I said hey!" Nat yells.
"Ow, son of a—" the guy cries, obviously in pain. He struggles to sit up.
I glance over, in shock. My sister Natalia's brandishing a two-by-four in the air like some kind of pink-haired Star Wars extra with a light saber. It's then that I notice she's shed the cardigan and is in a tattered black tank top and black shorts. And the black combat boots. Back at the diner, she'd looked like a librarian in her cat-eye glasses. Now she's like a character from a post-apocalyptic movie.
"Holy crap," I whisper. "Nat?"
The guy, clutching his shoulder, struggles to his feet. He glares at my sister. "You little?—"
Her eyes narrow with fury and she circles him, holding the wood in both hands like a bat. That's when I remember: Nat was a black belt in kendo, the kind of martial art that uses swords and sticks and that kind of thing. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Leilani next to the bar, the phone pressed to her ear. "Mermosa, on Main Street. Yes, please, please hurry," she's saying, voice high and shaking.
There's pure fury in my sister's eyes, something I've never witnessed in all my twenty-nine years.
"Here's how it's going to go," Nat says, her voice icy. "You're going to never set foot in this bar again. You're going to never talk to my friend Leilani again. And you're going to never come to Cypress Grove as long as you live. Got it?"
He doesn't move — well, none of us move, we're too stunned — and Nat takes a half step forward.
"Florida has something called a Stand Your Ground law. You familiar with that?" she says.
The guy sneers but doesn’t respond.
"I'll take your silence as a no. So, I'll explain. State law says a person is justified in using deadly force if she reasonably believes it's necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm. I could have hit you square in the head with this two-by-four and possibly even killed you, and I'd have been justified. So, you should be thanking me that I only hurt your poor little shoulder. I certainly felt like you were about to cause great bodily harm to one or all of us, didn't you, Leilani?"
"Sure did," she squeaks, still holding the phone. I struggle to my feet so I can put my arms around her. But I also don't want to get too far from Nat, in case she and this guy start brawling.
