AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The Wolf got in Neil’s face, violating his personal space and slurring what I’m sure were foul insults. Neil’s face was blank. He said something low and tried to step around. The Wolf grabbed his shoulder, and Neil snatched the hand off, twisted it, and bent it back at the wrist, forcing the Wolf to go to his knees, crying out in pain. Jason and I stood, joining Ken. Will belatedly realized what was going on, and Mac began to stir out of his Olivia trance. The rest of the Wolves dramatically shoved back their chairs. The construction workers were uncertain.
An absolute silence descended on the bar, and Jill flashed me ten fingers, just in case I hadn’t noticed.
But Neil let go of the wrist and raised both hands in mock surrender.
“No harm, no foul, fellas.”
“No harm, hell,” the guy said, backed by his Wolf buddies.
The construction guys looked at each other, evaluated the playing field, and stayed in their chairs.
“Watch your beer,” I told Liz, and she nodded.
The idiot who’d started the mess took a swing at Neil, who ducked and hit him, putting him down again, and then the bar erupted.
A tall, skinny Wolf came straight at me, pulling his right hand back for a punch and I hit him with two fast, left hand jabs into the center of his face before he was aware a blow was coming. Blood exploded from his nose and he staggered back, turning as Will hit him and put him down, while I pivoted to the next Wolf, who was older, more experienced, and bigger. He had his hands up and was on the balls of his feet indicating this wasn’t his first rodeo, but the way he held his hands indicated he had not been in the ring with a mean son-of-a-bitch trainer who would beat the shit out of you with a broomstick to the side of the head for keeping the left so low.
He smiled at me and I smiled back because, hey, why not, we were manly men doing a manly thing. Then he semi-jabbed with his left, watching for my reaction. I didn’t flinch or retaliate so he had nothing to work with.
I was aware of action all around me, but one asshole at a time is one of the first lessons of brawling. He jabbed for real, then tried a hook that caught only air as I dipped right and hit him with a solid uppercut to the rib cage, delivering it from my legs pushing up through my body through my arm to my fist, that elicited a heavy grunt and probably a cracked rib.
He gave up pretending that he knew how to box, he didn’t, and charged me, head down, arms wide to wrap me in his embrace which was the standard go to in a brawl. I side-stepped, did a leg sweep and he flew by me, headfirst toward our table. He stumbled against Liz, who shoved him away hard enough that he tripped and went face down on the floor. Apparently, she takes it personally when people attack me, which was sweet.
I turned my attention back to the others, but it was over as quickly as it had started.
Jason had two unconscious Wolves at his feet and wasn’t even breathing hard, possibly because, again, he was roughly the size of a small building. He was inspecting a knuckle, making sure it wasn’t bruised. Ken and Neil and Will had taken out two that had attacked Neil. And Mac was finishing up the last one, landing solid blows on a Wolf who’d gone from being aggressive to holding both his arms tucked in tight, hands on either side of his head, trying to protect himself. He was trapped, backed up against the bar. I half-hoped Jill would break a bottle over his head like in the old westerns, but I knew she wouldn’t because in real life that could cause serious damage. Plus waste stock.
The construction workers continued to sit it out. I was waiting for them to hold up numbers, like Olympic judges, but judging from the Wolves on the floor, we’d gone for the gold.
I turned to check on Liz but she and Patsy and Olivia were still at the table, and the Wolf that Liz had shoved was nowhere to be seen, already out the door.
Lobo was standing in front of Patsy. He held up a tray, our beverages intact on it and smiled. “Saved your drinks.”
“Mac!” I yelled as he hit into his Wolf’s ribcage and the man finally dropped into the fetal position, deciding that was the best defense against an enraged firefighter who had thoughts of Olivia burning in his brain.
Mac slowly straightened and turned, face flushed. He was smiling, with a small trickle of blood on the left side of his mouth as he came back to us and sat down beside Olivia who kissed him. When she pulled back the blood was gone. Jill and Jason threw the recovering Wolves out without much trouble, and Olivia took her martini from the tray Lobo was holding and held it up for a toast. “I love this town!”
And I realized I did, too, which was why I wasn’t celebrating. Olivia might think that one fight ended things, but I knew better. The Wolves thought they owned Burney now, and one beatdown wasn’t going to change that. They hadn’t been packing, so it had been a probe to test things.
“This is going to happen again, isn’t it?” Liz said quietly to me.
I nodded, and she put her arm around my neck and pulled me close and said, “Good thing you’re such a badass,” and kissed me, and I kissed her back and wondered when I’d gotten used to Liz Danger’s arm around me and how the hell I was going to keep it there.
CHAPTER 30
We stayed late at JB’s, partly because it was a good group of people to be with and partly because Vince wasn’t leaving Jill until she closed at eleven (weeknight closing hours). The bikers were gone, but the construction guys had stayed, and there was always the chance that the Wolves would come back with reinforcements. They didn’t, and Jill joined us for a final beer before she closed up.
“You have plans for tonight?” I said to Olivia.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and I laughed. Mac really needed some finally-over-Molly time, and I was pretty sure Olivia was going to give it to him. And then she’d go back to New York and the bright lights and Mac would start dating again and eventually the right person would show up and I’d be able to stop worrying about him. There were a lot of new people coming into town for the development. It could happen.
When everybody else was talking, I asked Vince about his day. O’Toole and Bartlett were idiots, that wasn’t news, but they had too much power now. “This is not going to end well,” I said, and Vince pointed out that there had been two deaths that week, so we were pretty much beyond not well already. There was nothing new from his meeting with Skye, except confirmation that she was messed up and afraid of Cash. I wished there was something I could say that would solve things for him, but I couldn’t think of a damn thing. I couldn’t even solve my own problems, good luck solving his. I didn’t mention the ledger because this wasn’t the place to do that.
When we got back to the Shady Rest, I tried to bandage Vince’s bruised and bloody knuckles, but he refused. Evidently real men just bleed. He did wash them off though. We undressed and got into bed, and he put his arm around me which was not his usual first move.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re alone. What’s wrong?”
I looked at him, surprised.
