welcome mat either. Instead of calling it a night, she came toward him, the ass-wiggling a thing of the past. Her footsteps were firm, her eyes steady, and beneath all that makeup, she looked like a woman who knew her way around the world’s power centers.
“Thanks to whatever it was you ordered for me, I’m sober,” she said with deadly seriousness. “I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t need your protection.” She lifted her chin. “I’ve spent a decade under guard. That’s more than enough. As of right now, we’ve broken up. I want you to leave.”
A blinding fury claimed him, the kind of fury he’d thought was behind him. He slammed his drink down on the bar. “You’ve got it, sister.”
LUCY HAD GOTTEN RID OF Panda, but she’d also lost her party spirit. Why did he have to show up and spoil everything? Still, she shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that. It was Temple’s fault. Her smug certainty that Lucy had fallen in love with him had made Lucy panicky.
She shouldn’t be. Temple was wrong. Lucy wasn’t the kind of woman to fall in love with one man two and a half months after she’d been in love with another. And she especially wasn’t the kind of women to fall in love with someone who was so guarded that he refused to reveal anything about himself. Still, some part of her wished she hadn’t announced they were breaking up quite yet, even though summer was nearly over and he’d be leaving soon.
She waited long enough to be sure she wouldn’t run into him outside before she left the bar. The parking lot was full. Since she’d taken his car, she half expected to see that he’d driven off in it and left her stranded, but he hadn’t. He was still taking care of her. Her eyes prickled even though she knew it was better to get their breakup over with now.
She didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to talk to anybody. She glanced toward the car but couldn’t make herself get in. If she’d had sneakers with her, she could have gone for a walk to clear her head, but her heels weren’t designed for a nighttime hike. Still, the air was warm, the moon full. She picked her way through the cars and around to the side of the bar, harshly lit with a single flood.
The building perched above an inlet. If she owned the place, she’d have put an open patio back here. Instead, she saw a pair of Dumpsters, an equipment shed, and a broken-down picnic table. Judging by the crushed cigarette packs and litter of butts on the ground, this was where the employees took their smoke breaks.
She made her way carefully over the uneven ground to the picnic bench and sat. The damp wood was cool against her bare thighs, and the air smelled of lake and cooking oil. She heard the roar of motorcycles, and for a moment, she wanted to believe one of them belonged to Panda, her own Sir Galahad rushing to rescue her from the dismal swamp of her own thoughts.
She gazed at the lights from the homes across the water. After his blowup with Temple, she wouldn’t be surprised if Panda was gone by this time tomorrow. But what about Lucy herself? How long was she going to stay? She envisioned herself standing on the bluff behind the house, autumn leaves falling around her, then snowflakes. She saw spring arriving; another summer. Years passing. Her hair turning gray, face wrinkling, the strange old lady who’d arrived one summer and never left. Eventually they’d find her mummified body buried under a mountain of petrified homemade bread.
She shivered. A loud voice intruded. “Hold on. I gotta take a piss.”
“You always gotta take a piss.”
“Fuck you.”
Footsteps crunched in the gravel. A man with an unkempt beard and a bandanna wrapped around his head appeared behind the building. As his companion stopped by the Dumpster, the bearded one spotted her. “Hey.”
They both wore boots, scruffy jeans, and scruffier hair. These guys weren’t the lawyers and high school guidance counselors who turned biker on weekends. They were the real thing, and from their unsteady walks, they were both drunk.
Lucy Jorik would have been frightened, but Viper knew how to handle situations like this. “Hey, yourself.”
“You care if I take a piss?” the bearded biker said in a voice louder than necessary. “You can watch if you want.”
The man by the Dumpster snickered. “Trust you, man, to find a chick back here.”
Viper wasn’t easily cowed, but she wasn’t stupid either. The bar was too noisy for anyone to hear her, and she was keeping this conversation short. “I’ve got better things to do.” She rose from the bench.
Dumpster man swaggered toward her. “He’ll let you hold it for him.”
As she smelled the liquor on them, her uneasiness grew, but Viper didn’t believe in showing fear. “I couldn’t find anything that little.”
They hooted with laughter. Even though her knees had started to shake, she loved how tough she was. This summer hadn’t been a waste after all.
Except her wisecrack had opened the door to a camaraderie she didn’t want, and they were both closing in on her. “I like you,” the bearded one said.
Dumpster man had a narrow, sloping forehead and a unibrow. “Come on inside and have a drink with us.”
She swallowed. “Sure. Let’s go.”
But they didn’t move, and the smell of liquor and body odor was making her queasy.
“You got an old man?” The one with the beard scratched his stomach like Panda used to, except this was the real thing.
“An old lady,” she retorted. “I don’t go for guys.”
She thought she was being smart, but the look they exchanged wasn’t encouraging, and Beard Man’s eyes were creeping all over her. “You just haven’t found the right one. Isn’t that right, Wade?”
“Yeah, like I haven’t heard that before.” She managed a sneer.
A fence blocked the far side of the bar, so she’d have to slip past both of them before she could get to the parking lot. She’d always felt safe on the island, but she didn’t feel safe now, and her Viper face was slipping. “Let’s get that drink.”
“No hurry.” Wade, the Dumpster man, rubbed his crotch. “Scottie, go pee.”
“Can’t. I got a boner.”
Their stench made her want to retch. Her heart had started to race. “I need a drink,” she said quickly. “You can come with me or stay out here.”
But as she tried to slip past them, the one named Wade grabbed her arm. “I like it out here.” He squeezed until it hurt. “You really a dyke?”
“Leave me alone.” Her voice was suddenly high-pitched, all the toughness gone.
A man interrupted. A knight in shining armor calling out from the corner of the building. “Everything okay back here?”
“No!” she exclaimed.
“Girlfriend’s drunk,” Wade shouted back. “Don’t pay her no attention.” He palmed the back of her head and smashed her face into the reek of his T-shirt so she couldn’t cry out.
Her knight in shining armor turned out not to be a knight at all, but one more person who didn’t want to get involved. “Okay, then.” She heard his steps fade away.
She had no Panda to protect her, no Secret Service.
She started to struggle. Pushed hard against him, twisted, got nowhere. She tried to gasp for air but came up short. The more she struggled, the tighter he held her. She fought harder. Lashed out with her shoe. The hard toe connected.
“Bitch! Grab her legs.”
Her head was suddenly free, but as she started to scream, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind, wrenching her neck. One of them caught her legs. Her shoes dropped off as her feet left the ground. She was screaming in her head, a silent scream that did her no good at all.
“Where do you want to take her?”
“Behind those trees.”
“I go first.”
“Bullshit. I saw her first.”
