AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t have to hide behind anybody.” Blue planted her feet and shoved at his arm. It didn’t budge.
The grizzly bear the woman had been sitting with loomed in the doorway. He was barrel-chested, with a lantern jaw and biceps that looked like tattooed beer kegs. The woman was too focused on Blue to notice. “Your big, rich boyfriend wants to make sure you don’t get too messed up for him to fuck tonight.”
Dean scowled in the mirror. “Lady, you are one foul-mouthed, sorry excuse for a human being.”
Someone in the crowd gathering behind Grizzly Bear thoughtfully wedged the door open so nobody missed anything. Grizzly Bear leaned in. “What you doin’ in there, Karen Ann?”
“I’ll tell you what she’s doing,” Blue retorted. “She’s trying to pick a fight with me because she’s screwed up her life, and she wants to pin all her misery on somebody else.”
The woman grabbed the edge of the sink to support herself. “I work for a living, bitch. I don’t take handouts from nobody. How many times did you have to blow Big Shot so he’d pay for your dinner?”
Dean dropped his arm. “Take her, Blue.”
Take her?
Karen Ann lurched forward. She was a head taller and at least thirty pounds heavier than Blue, but she was also staggeringly drunk. “Come on, Pee Wee,” she sneered. “Let’s see if you fight as good as you suck cock.”
“That does it!” Blue didn’t know why Karen Ann had declared war on her, and she didn’t care. She shot across the tile floor. “I strongly recommend you apologize, lady.”
“Fuck you.” Curling her fingers into claws, Karen Ann made a grab for Blue’s hair. Blue ducked and drove her shoulder into the woman’s middle.
With an oomph of pain, the woman lost her balance and hit the floor.
“Goddamn it, Karen Ann! Get your ass up!” Grizzly Bear pushed forward only to have Dean block his way.
“Stay out of it.”
“Who’s going to make me?”
Dean’s mouth curled in a lethal facsimile of a smile. “You don’t seriously think you’re going through me, do you? Isn’t it enough that Pee Wee over there just kicked your girlfriend’s ass?”
That wasn’t exactly true. “Pee Wee over there” had merely given the drunken woman one push, but it had been exceptionally well placed, hitting Karen Ann right in the solar plexus. Now Karen Ann was curled into a comma and wheezing for air.
“You’re asking for it, asshole.” Grizzly Bear swung.
Dean blocked the punch without even moving his feet. The crowd hooted, including, Blue noticed, the man Dean had said was a county judge. Grizzly staggered and hit the doorframe. His eyes narrowed, and he charged again. Dean sidestepped, which sent Grizzly into the towel dispenser. Grizzly righted himself and came at Dean again. This time he got lucky and connected with Dean’s bad shoulder, which Dean didn’t like at all. Blue jumped out of the way as her fake fiancé stopped playing games and got serious.
A horrible exhilaration crept through her as she watched his surgically efficient counterattack. Few things in life were as black and white as this, and seeing justice being dispensed so swiftly filled her with longing. If only Dean, with his great strength, quick reflexes, and odd chivalry, could right all the evils in the world, then Virginia Bailey wouldn’t have to.
As Grizzly lay on the floor, the big, balding man Dean had pointed out earlier as the high school principal pushed through the crowd. “Ronnie Archer, you still don’t have the brains of a flea. Pull yourself together and get out of here.”
Grizzly tried to roll to his back but didn’t get far. Karen Ann, in the meantime, had crawled into a stall to heave.
The hairdresser and the bartender pulled Grizzly to his feet. Judging by their expressions, he wasn’t the most popular guy in town. One of the men shoved a paper towel at him to staunch the blood while the other led him out the door. Blue made her way to Dean’s side, but other than a scraped elbow and some dirt on his designer jeans, he didn’t seem any the worse for wear.
“That was fun.” He gave her the once-over. “You okay?”
Her fight had ended before it had begun, but she appreciated his concern. “I’m fine.”
The sound of retching finally stopped, and the principal disappeared into the stall. He emerged with a pasty-faced Karen Ann wobbling at his side. “The rest of us do not appreciate having the two of you make us look like a bunch of drunken hillbillies in front of strangers.” He led her through the crowd. “Do you intend to spend the rest of your life picking fights with every short woman who reminds you of your sister?”
Blue and Dean traded glances.
After the drunks were disposed of, the county judge, Gary the hairdresser, the principal, and a woman everybody called Syl, who turned out to own the local resale shop, insisted on buying Dean and Blue a drink. They quickly learned that Ronnie was stupid, but not bad. That Karen Ann was just plain mean—as one look at her split ends and bad dye job testified—and that she’d been mean even before her pretty, petite younger sister Lyla ran off with both Karen Ann’s husband and, most damning, Karen Ann’s red Trans Am.
“She sure did love that car,” Judge Pete Haskins said.
Sister Lyla, it turned out, was just about Blue’s size and also had dark hair, although hers had a tad more shape to the cut, Gary tactfully pointed out.
