Tangled Up in You

Hennessy’s Hump Night, and the custom had been carried through the following generations.

There were those who’d feared the demise of Hump Night when Mick had taken over the place. After all, he’d done away with panty-tossing at Mort’s, but after two years of cheap well drinks and dollar beers, Truly could breathe easier knowing that some traditions were still sacred.

Mick stood at the far end of the bar, weight resting on one booted foot and pool cue in hand as Steve Castle bent over the table and took a shot. Steve was slightly taller than Mick and wore a baby-blue Attention Ladies: I loved The Notebook T-shirt stretched across his barrel chest. Mick had known Steve since flight training. Back then, Steve had had a full head of blond hair. These days he was as bald as the billiard he sent down on the table.

When Mick had gotten out of the army, Steve had stayed in until his Black Hawk had been shot down over Fallujah by an SA-7 shoulder-fired missile. In the crash that had killed five soldiers and wounded seven, Steve had lost his leg. After months of rehabilitation and a new prosthesis, he’d gone home to Northern California to find his marriage in ruins. He’d gone through a real rough time and a bad divorce, and when Mick had asked him to move to Truly and manage Hennessy’s,

he’d climbed into his truck and arrived in days. Mick had never expected him to last in the small town, but that was a year and a half ago, and Steve had just bought a house near the lake.

Steve was the closest thing Mick had to a brother. The two shared the same experiences and visceral memories. They’d shared a life that civilians did not understand, and their time in the military was something they never talked about in public.

The six ball landed in the corner pocket and Steve lined up the two ball. “Meg was in here yesterday looking for you,” he said. “I guess the whole town is buzzing like a wasp nest because that writer talked to Sheriff Potter and Harriet Landers.”

“Meg called me about it last night.” Steve was the only person Mick had ever spoken to about Meg’s unpredictable emotional outbursts and mood swings. “She isn’t as upset about this whole book business as I thought she’d be.” At least she hadn’t freaked out, which was what Mick had expected from the woman who’d been known to lose it over the sight of a wedding ring.

“Maybe she’s stronger than you give her credit for.”

Maybe, but Mick doubted it.

Steve shot, but the two hit the corner of the pocket and bounced back. “I meant to do that.”

“Uh-huh.” Mick chalked his cue and hit the remaining ten ball into a side pocket.

“I better get back behind the bar,” Steve said as he placed his cue in the rack. “Are you going to be here until close?”

“No.” Mick put his cue next to Steve’s and looked out over the bar. On weeknights, both Hennessy’s and Mort’s closed at midnight. “I want to see how the new bartender is doing at Mort’s.”

“How’s he working out so far?”

“A hell of a lot better than the last one. I should have known better than to hire Ronnie Van Damme in the first place. Most of the Van Dammes are worthless.” Mick had had to fire Ronnie two weeks ago for always coming in late and standing around jerking his gherkin when he had been there. “The new guy used to manage a bar in Boise, so I’m hoping he works out.” Eventually Mick’s goal was to find a manager for Mort’s so he could work less and make more money. He didn’t trust government pensions or Social Security to provide for him for the rest of his life and he’d made his own investments.

“Let me know if you need help,” Steve said as he walked away, his limp barely noticeable. Mick hadn’t been in Iraq when Steve’s bird had been shot down, but he’d had a few close calls and been forced to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Apache. The landing hadn’t been pretty, but he’d survived.

He’d loved flying and it was one of the things he missed most about his former life. But he didn’t miss the sand and dust and the politics of army life. He’d take getting fired at over the tedium of sitting around waiting for orders, only to gear up and have the mission scrubbed at the last moment.

These days he lived in a small town where nothing much happened, but he was never bored. Especially lately.

Mick looked out at the empty dance floor at the other end of the bar. On the weekends, he usually hired a band and the floor was packed. Tonight a few people stood around talking, others sat at tables and at the bar. By nine on Hump Nights the bar usually cleared out except for a few stragglers. Growing up, his dad had brought him and Meg to the bar occasionally and let them pour root beer into mugs. He taught them how to pour the perfect head. Looking back, that hadn’t been the best thing to teach your kids, but he and Meg had loved it.

Your father may have been a cheater, Maddie had said, but did he deserve to be shot three times and bleed to death on a barroom floor while your mother watched?

He’d thought more about his father in the past two days than he had in the past five years. If Maddie was right, his mother watched his father die, and he just couldn’t get that image out of his head.

He sat on the edge of the pool table and crossed one booted foot over the other as he watched Steve grab a Heineken from the refrigerator and twist off the top. Mick knew that the waitress, Alice Jones, had been killed behind the bar, while his mother and father had both died in front of the bar. He’d never seen photos or read the reports, but throughout the years he’d certainly heard enough talk about the night his mother had killed his father and Alice that he thought he’d heard it all. Now he guessed he hadn’t.

Over the past thirty-five years, he’d been in this bar thousands of time. Meg had a photograph of him at the age of three sitting on a barstool with his father. Generations of Hennessys had worked their asses off in the bar, and after his parents’ deaths, the place had been completely renovated and any trace of what had happened that night had long since been removed. When he walked through the back door, he never thought about what his mother had done to his father and Alice Jones.

Until now.

So your mother was perfectly justified in shooting her in the face, Maddie had said. For some reason, he couldn’t get Maddie Dupree and her damn crime book out of his mind. The last thing in the world he wanted to occupy his thoughts was the deaths of his parents. His past was best left buried, and the last person he wanted stuck in his head was the woman responsible for digging it all up again. She was a one-woman backhoe, uncovering things that were best left covered. But short of tying her up and shoving her in a closet, there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her. Although tying her up did have a certain appeal that had nothing to do with stopping her from writing.

My God, you’re like a tornado. Sucking up everything around you, she’d said, and it didn’t seem to matter that she was the last person in the world that he should want. The memory of her lips beneath his, and the sight of her looking thoroughly kissed and gasping for breath, were trapped in the center of his brain.

Mick rose from the table and moved past the dance floor toward the bar. Reuben Sawyer sat on his regular stool, looking old and pickled. Reuben had lost his wife thirty years ago, and for the last three decades, he’d sat on the same stool almost every night drowning his sorrows. Mick didn’t believe in soul mates and didn’t understand that kind of sorrow. As far as he was concerned, if you’re that lonely for a woman, do something about it that doesn’t involve a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Several people called out to Mick as he passed, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t feel like shooting the shit. Not tonight. As he moved down the hall toward the back door, an old high school girlfriend stopped him.

“Hey, Mick,” Pam Puckett said as she stepped out of the ladies’ room.

He supposed pushing past her would have been rude. “Hey, Pam.” He stopped and