Drynn Read online

  Emma glanced out the dining room’s two windows again. The snow was starting to come down now. Yep, she regretted it.

  *

  He’d seen the way she’d looked at him. If it weren’t for his stupid parole officer, Rufus would have happily stomped a mud hole in the pretty boy’s ass just for the way he looked. Prison, however, was a mighty strong deterrent, even for Rufus Jenkins.

  He glanced at his older brother, Marcus, who was also staring at the pretty boy, the fixings of a snarl pulling at Marcus’s face.

  “What?” Rufus demanded, slamming back his seventh beer.

  “I think we should kick his lily ass on principle,” his brother said. “Right now, I can’t think of anything in the whole world more annoying than some idiot not knowing there’s no damn sun in a bar at eleven o’clock at night.”

  Rufus’s eyebrows knotted. He turned to take another look, and for a second, all four of them watched the stranger stare lifelessly at the television screen, completely motionless.

  If only he weren’t on parole.

  “Maybe he has an eye condition,” Jessica suggested helpfully.

  “You would say that,” Rufus said, dismissing her words with a wave of his hand.

  “I know—he’s doing Yoga.” His younger brother Todd tittered, sloshing the amber liquid in his mug, lips registering a stupid, blank smile.

  “Who cares?” Jessica’s voice seemed unusually high to Rufus. He smiled. He liked watching her squirm. “He probably just pulled over because of the storm. There is a blizzard in the forecast tonight, remember? Anyway, as I was saying, after the car broke down we—” Jessica continued her story, but now she was just an irritating buzzing in his ears.

  Who’d he think he was, coming into Rufus’s bar, throwing money around like some wannabe movie star, not even taking off his sunglasses at night? No damn respect.

  “Hey!” Rufus barked. “I don’t know you. Where you from?”

  “C’mon, Rufus, he’s not bothering anyone,” Jessica said, caressing his meaty forearm.

  “He’s bothering me.” Rufus yanked his arm from her hand. “Hey! I’m talking to you! You deaf or something?” he bellowed. There could be no mistaking who he was talking to.

  The stranger remained motionless, as if he hadn’t heard. Then slowly, deliberately, he turned. “Tell me something,” he said, leaning forward on his table. “What kind of stupid, dipshit name is ‘Rufus’ anyway?”

  There was shocked silence. It took several seconds for the stranger’s words to penetrate the cloud of alcohol surrounding Rufus’s mind. Jaws around the table dropped.

  Then Todd began to laugh.

  “Oh my God,” Jessica breathed.

  Rufus was incredulous, in utter disbelief.

  Todd laughed so hard his chair creaked. “D’ju hear that?” he choked between laughs. “He called you a dipshit, Rufus. He called you a dipshit!”

  “Hope you enjoyed your life, buddy,” Marcus called in a voice that already knew the outcome, had seen it a hundred times before.

  Rufus stood, anger coursing through his veins like an impending volcanic eruption. He locked his jaw and squeezed his hands into crackling fists so tight his fingers went white. “That was the stupidest thing you ever did in your life,” he growled, all thoughts of caution and parole officers vaporized.

  “Rufus, it’s not worth it!” Jessica pleaded. “You just got out two months ago!”

  “Hell yeah, it’s worth it!” he heard Todd sing. “He called you a dipshit!”

  Rufus was a very large man. He’d been a two hundred twenty-pound fullback in high school and he’d only gotten bigger—forty pounds bigger. He was muscled like a lumberjack, thick and solid. A smile twisted the left side of his mouth. Hell yeah, it was worth it. Some begging for mercy was in order.

  “At least take him outside!” Jessica pleaded as he advanced, but her voice was distant, sliding off his brain like a broken egg.

  He stood over the stranger, towered over him. The man sat where he was, not a flicker of emotion on his cold, marble features.

  “I’m gonna hit you so hard you shit your—” Rufus swung midsentence, hurling his huge ham-fist in a sucker punch that should have shattered pretty boy’s face.

  Instead, the stranger’s hand shot out like a striking snake and caught Rufus’s wrist midair. Pain shot up his arm in a rolling wave.

  “If you initiate conflict,” the man said in a quiet rasp, “be prepared for what is evoked.”

  His hand was a steel vise, inhumanly strong, and Rufus sank helplessly to his knees, dropping to eye level. Something was happening behind those red-tinted lenses, something dark and terrible, and for the first time since he could remember, Rufus was afraid. He didn’t want to see those eyes. Energy crackled from the stranger’s body, radiating through him like heat from a fire. Rufus should have been able to rip his arm away with ease, but it felt like the bones in his forearms were going to collapse.

  “Pray to whatever god you worship that we don’t meet again,” the stranger said.

  Mind muddled by alcohol, the blatant condescension sent a second surge of anger through Rufus. Fear be damned. Do you know who I am, you little shit? He ground his teeth and forced himself to stand. Behind him, chairs scraped against the floor.

  Nobody was laughing anymore.

  Rufus thought he saw the faintest shadow of a smile on pretty boy’s face, a smirk. Anger flashed to rage and Rufus wrenched his arm away with everything his massive body had to offer. At the same instant, the stranger let go.

  There was only gravity to break his flight—that, two brothers and a table. Jessica scampered out of the way just before Rufus plowed into the table they’d been sharing. Pint glasses and peanut shells crashed to the floor. His brothers’ attempt to catch him failed and he sprawled on the bar floor in a messy, human heap.

  The stranger sipped his wine and continued watching the game as if he’d just blown his nose.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” Emma demanded, materializing from the kitchen, tongs in hand.

  Four shocked pairs of eyes were locked on the stranger sitting in the dim corner. He ignored them. Rufus tried to rub feeling back into his arm. How could a kid half his size be that…strong? Five glaring fingerprints marked his forearm where the circulation had been interrupted. Emma’s eyes widened as she began to understand.

  “I think you’d better leave, Rufus,” he heard her say in low voice.

  “What?” he demanded, his voice a mixture of amazement, humiliation and fury.

  “What do you mean, ‘what’? Look at my table! Look at my dishes!” she yelled, gesturing wildly to the mess on the floor.

  “He called me a dipshit!” Rufus yelled back.

  “I don’t care if he called you a brain-damaged baboon with crabs! Damn it, Rufus.” She raked her fingers through her short, gray hair. “We had a deal.”

  “He called me a dipshit. What’d you expect me to do?”

  “I expected you to remember our deal.” Emma squatted over the broken dishes, angrily shaking her head. “You know what? Just leave.”

  “Wait just a minute—”

  “I mean it. Now. Leave. I’ll clean up your mess. Again.”

  Rufus glared at her, then at the stranger. “We’ll be seeing each other again.”

  The man looked away from the television and regarded Rufus. “Yes, we will,” he said, then turned back to the highlights, dismissing him.

  Emma and Jessica were too engrossed picking up debris and glass to say goodbye.

  Oh, he was going to pay. If it was the last thing he did, t
hat little shit was going to suffer. Rufus would make sure of it. He snatched his coat from the brass hooks by the table and jammed a stained Jets baseball cap on his head with a snarl. Together with his two brothers, he stalked outside without a backward glance.

  He already knew what he was going to do. Gotta come out sometime, kid.

  *

  “Are you crazy?” Emma asked. “You embarrassed him, for crying out loud.”

  “My steak better not be burning,” he responded, unaffected, his voice a low rasp that crawled through her ears.

  “It’s your funeral,” she muttered and strode back into the kitchen, propping the door open so she could hear, in case Rufus got any funny ideas about coming back. Two hundred bucks was not worth this.

  She flipped the ribeye on the grill and jabbed it with her tongs. Two more minutes. In the interim, Emma snuck a peek back into the dining room through the propped-open door.

  Jessica’s shapely legs were curled into the most impractical pose imaginable for cleaning glass shards off the floor, that stupid, hypnotized expression back on her face. She shimmied her way up from the floor and swaggered toward the stranger, a seductive cock to her head that had charmed countless men. “You certainly know how to impress a woman,” she purred, leaning over his table so he could get a full look at what she was offering. Many a man had succumbed. Not this one.

  Silence.

  “Hey now, I’m not Rufus. You can talk to me. What’s your name?”

  The stranger held his forefinger to his lips in a gesture a parent might use to quiet an insolent child. Ouch! That was a first.

  Jessie blinked in surprise but was quick in her recovery. “Not very social, are you?”

  More silence. Jessica shrugged and walked away, her hips chastising him for not knowing what he was missing.

  Just as well. That fool girl had no business getting caught up with a boy like that. Emma marched back to her grill. Three minutes later she strode into the dining room, balancing the plate on the tips of her fingers as the aroma of the still-sizzling steak mixed with the scents of hemlock and oak burning in the fireplace.

  “Here you go.” She set the plate in front of him, proud despite the late hour and her eerie guest. Food was the universal bridge.

  Not even a glimmer of appreciation.

  “Anything else?” she asked, unable to keep the wry tone from her voice. She looked through the windows behind him and mentally yard-sticked the accumulating snow.

  Not too bad. Yet.

  “Fork.”

  Emma startled. “Oh yeah, fork. Sorry,” she said, stealing a silverware set from the next table over. A hot flush spread through her cheeks. “If you need anything, just ask Jessie. I’m sure she’ll be happy to take care of you.”

  Jessica looked up sourly as Emma coasted back to the kitchen for cleanup.

  Emma had no intention of getting snowed in.

  It didn’t take long. Emma was of the school that a kitchen should be clean by the time the meal is ready, so in minutes her tasks were complete. She kicked out the wedge propping open the kitchen door, watched it swing close and bounded back into the dining room, hoping the stranger would be gone or, at the very least, almost finished.

  Not even close. He’d barely taken three bites. He ate slowly and with purpose, as if waiting for something. Emma tried to imagine what he could possibly be waiting for—a woman? A drug deal? A PETA meeting?

  “How long you figure he’s gonna be here?” Emma asked Jessica, who was ignoring the handsome stranger with a shocking lack of subtlety. Emma almost told her not to bother pouting about it, but then again, a small lesson in humility would probably do the girl good.

  Jessie sighed. “He’s been sitting like that for as long as he’s been here. I don’t think he’s even watching TV.”

  “Well, I’m ready to go,” Emma muttered, brushing an imaginary crumb from the bar counter.

  “Good, me too. Tell him to hit the road.”

  Normally, Montana women didn’t need bouncers; Emma had no problem booting a guest right out the front door. This kid, however, was different. “We’ll give him ’til eleven-thirty. Let’s shut the lights off and the TV. Maybe he’ll get the hint.”

  They killed all the lights, save the ones over the bar. The only other illumination came from the dying flames in the fireplace. Bad choice. The darkness and firelight added a layer of intimacy that hadn’t been there before.

  He didn’t get the hint. Fifteen minutes ticked by and when eleven-thirty rolled around, the man showed no indication of moving.

  “I’m just gonna have to tell him to leave,” Emma said, the bravado in her voice betrayed by her lack of movement.

  “You want me to?” Jessica asked. She had her coat on, purse slung, and the continuous tapping of her fingernail against the bar was beginning to grate. Bless her blond little heart for not leaving.

  “No, I got it. I’ll be right back.” Emma reluctantly reclaimed the floor of her tavern, swallowing as she approached. “Look, I gotta close up. It’s coming down pretty hard outside, and it’s only gonna get worse. Don’t want to get snowed in.”

  She hadn’t meant it to sound like an apology.

  “Soon, but not yet,” he answered immediately.

  Damn his sunglasses. Emma liked to see a person’s eyes when she spoke to them. She bit her lip. This was ridiculous; it was her place, for crying out loud. “I have no intention of getting stuck here, mister. It’s time for you to go.”

  The first glimmer of emotion rippled through him. It was slight, but in contrast to his robot-like movements and monotone, the effect was startling—a slight flaring of his nostrils. Irritation. Her heart rate tripled. The energy field surrounding him surged and she felt a heebie-jeebie prickle the back of her neck, either in premonition or in fear. She beat a hasty retreat.

  Jessica waited with wide eyes. “That was scary,” she whispered.

  Emma nodded. Or shook. “You saw that, right? It wasn’t just my imagination?”

  “Oh, I saw it, all right. What are we going to do?”

  Emma softened at the young girl’s discomposure. Better to play this one easy. “Not a damn thing. We’ll wait it out. I don’t wanna drag poor Stan over here unless we have no choice.”

  Neither woman felt like eyeing down the stranger, so they huddled at the end of the bar and made quiet conversation, impatiently waiting for him to leave. Jessie unslung her purse.

  At one point, Emma could feel herself being watched. She turned halfway around to find the kid staring right at her. He could have been looking at Jessica or the wall behind them, since she couldn’t see his eyes, but Emma knew he was looking at her. She could feel his stare.

  The flickering flames cast malevolent shadows on his angelic face, and for a brief moment, the stranger looked almost demonic.

  “Damn, I hope he leaves soon,” Jessica whispered fiercely to Emma.

  Had she seen that too?

  “Five more minutes and we call the police,” Emma said in a voice too grim to be recognized as her own. She wondered if Stan would even be able to handle this kid. He’d probably have to call the chief.

  They didn’t hear him approach, didn’t know he was there ’til they jumped at his voice.

  “Thank you, Emma,” he said, only a foot from where they were standing. “The food was excellent.” He dropped another hundred on the bar and, like a ghost, glided toward the door.

  “You should watch your back,” Emma called after him, fingering the Benjamin between her fingers. It still hadn’t been worth it. “Rufus don’t like to lose.” />
  He gave no indication that he’d heard her, but when he got to the door, he turned. “Smart move,” he said.

  “What?” they both asked.

  “Not calling the police.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Emma asked, but he’d already closed the door behind him.

  Chapter Two

  Whenever the phone rang this late, it was never good news. Skip glared with one eye at the intruding device and debated whether he wanted to answer it or smash it. Opening his other eye, he looked blearily at the digital clock on his nightstand and growled. It read 12:11.

  It had to be the weather. He would think that people might learn how to drive in weather like this in this part of the country, or better yet, show the logic of not driving at all. Maybe the news wouldn’t be terrible, just bad. Or better yet, maybe just annoying.

  Sighing, he picked up the phone in the darkness. “Mmm-hmm,” he said, plopping his head back on the pillow.

  “Hope you weren’t planning on sleeping tonight,” came a voice he didn’t want to be hearing right now.

  “If this isn’t good, you’re fired,” Skip said, hoping he’d be able to go back to sleep.

  “Good? Well, that definitely depends on how you look at things,” Stan said, his normally jovial voice subdued.

  “Why you waking me up?”

  “Just thought you might want to know about this here little situation I have down at the Rook.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with the weather?”

  “Uh, no,” Stan said in an ominously simple voice.

  “The Rook? Please tell me Rufus doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Oh, he’s involved, all right.”

  Skip sighed in the darkness. “How? What the hell has he done this time?”

  Stan paused before he answered. “Seems like he went and got himself killed.”

  Skip opened his eyes. “Did you just say Rufus was dead?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  He put a lighter to the cobwebs of sleep that clung to his brain. “What happened?”