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Chapter One
“So you’re saying sex with two men is better than one? Just want to be clear I’m hearing my sister, the strait-laced school teacher correctly.”
Zahara pressed her lips together in the attempt to smother a laugh. With her cell phone balanced between her shoulder and chin, it proved to be a challenge to wipe leftover food off tables, gather empty plates left behind by the lunch hour crowd and convince her younger sister she wasn’t as uptight as she wanted to make her out to be.
“I’m just saying. Maybe if you were to come up and find a handsome Alaskan man or two of your own you could see what I’m talking about.” Not that she’d had a lot of time on her hands outside of teaching and working part-time as a waitress to help her sister through med school. As it was, school loans would be haunting them for the next decade, if not longer.
“Sounds like an adventure, for sure.” Restlessness strung across the wires and Zahara did everything not to sigh too heavily in her sister’s ear. Over the last few months, something had changed with each phone call home to Texas. Every time she pushed the subject Ivy became cagey and ended the phone call before they really had a chance to talk about whatever it was bothering her sister.
Something was up, but she wouldn’t get any answers over the phone. So she went for neutral ground.
“Mrs. Silva still giving you trouble about Jinx?” Their black cat earned the infamous spot at the top of their landlord’s shit list the second day they moved in and remained number one ever since.
“This time the little rascal found a way out todaresit on her balcony. The chaos that ensued earned me a solid ten-minute balling out. I timed it this time.”
Zahara shuffled the phone to the other ear and propped it up with her shoulder as she moved to another table. “Ivy, we can’t afford to get kicked out of this apartment.”
“I know, I know. I’ll keep the little furball inside.”
“Please. I don’t want to come home to miles of boxes and bubble wrap when school lets out.”
“When do you get back home?”
Zahara cleared her throat and scraped at a piece of something on the polished surface of the table. “Soon-ish.” She gathered several empty plates and stacked them in her tub rather than talk about leaving or what—or rather who— awaited her back in Houston.
“You know he still calls here asking for you? It’s gotten to where I’ve canceled our landline. A couple of your friends spotted him circling the parking lot outside the school where you used to teach, too.” Her sister's slight southern twang drew concerned.
Zahara shuddered as though the reaper raked his deadly claws over her cold grave, looking for the soul he’d nearly collected. Instinct drew her hand to her lower abdomen where the knife her ex used toconvey the message that if he couldn’t have her, no one could. He’d left a jagged scar on more than just her body.
Stick to the facts.The facts provided safety, she always told her sister and it would do good for her to remember as well. He couldn’t reach her anymore. He couldn’t hurt her again. No one would have that power over her again.
Suddenly metal grated against the hardwood flooring, tearing her attention away from the past. She jerked her head around as several rowdy tourists, muddied and pumped full of adrenaline from a successful morning climb, kicked back from their barstools, cheering for a brave soul who was just dared to try the limits of his manhood with the drink that carried the bar’s namesake.
She let out a shaky breath.
She almost felt sorry for the college-aged showoff with too much muscle and not enough brain. She’d witnessed plenty of poor fools push through her friend’s bar doors thinking they were all that and then some. They always ended head first in the toilet in less than ten minutes heaving, but it sure as hell made for good entertainment.
Zahara smiled. That dude wouldn’t forget Savage Ridge anytime soon.
Another fact, nor would she.
Feet pounded the wooden flooring and roars bounced off the four walls until she thought the hanging glasses would vibrate loose from the fixed strips above their heads. As it was, bottles rattled on their shelves as five guys the size of linebackers knocked their glasses against the polished wood of the bar before tossing back some hardcore alcohol.
“Geez! There’s enough commotion there to wake the freaking dead. In Russia.”
For a second Zahara had forgotten she had her sister on the line.
Zahara scoffed. “You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve witnessed happen here. Crazy tourists fall for Damon’s fire drink every damn time.” Shot glasses rimmed with Habanera pepper juice and filled with home-brewed shine so damn pure it put her hometown Southern boys’ hooch to shame. The man responsible for the Alaskan ‘experience of a lifetime,’ as he called it, tossed a knowing wink her way.
Damon, the quiet one of the Savage siblings, had a bit of a dark, humorous side to him not many witnessed. He and Riley, Holden’s best friend, had a lot in common. Even their quiet voices were similar, but neither needed a booming voice to be heard.
When they spoke, people listened.
Damon leaned against the back bar; arms crossed over a barrel chest with his sleeves rolled up to reveal bits of tattoos on his thick forearms.
Zahara shook her head at his antics and turned her attention back to the phone as she moved to the other end of the bar and grill to clear the last of her tables before her break.
“So, back to your too lovers, how do they feel about you leaving Savage Ridge?” her sister pried unapologetically.
