to ramp up in anticipation of the impending, inevitable fight. “Where’s Dare?”
Avery pointed to where her brother had jumped into the fray with a gleeful yell, diving headfirst into several men the bouncers were trying to pull apart. Some of the fighting included breaking beer bottles, and suddenly someone was thrown at the bar. At them.
Before she could do anything, Grace was grabbed to safety by Jem and Avery was whooshed off the bar into strong arms and found herself held against Gunner’s chest. For a moment, their faces were inches apart and it would be so easy to kiss him. Actually, the perfect place—her refuge from the storm.
And then Gunner carried her and placed her in the safety of a corner near the back hallway next to Grace and flew into the melee.
“They’re all enjoying this.” Grace pointed first to where Dare was fighting with a couple of biker types. And smiling.
“For the love of all that’s good and holy,” she muttered when she saw Jem throw someone over the pool table. Key caught the guy and tossed him back to Jem.
Avery and Grace shoved away anyone who came too close to them, both trying to keep an eye on the men. Avery automatically scanned the crowd for weapons, like knives or broken beer bottles. Because if you were going to brawl, it should be about fists.
“I hope this place doesn’t get raided,” Grace said.
“Considering we’re with the owner, I’m guessing we’re okay,” Avery pointed out.
“Considering the owner just hung a man by his pants on a hook, maybe not?” Grace asked, and Avery looked to where the drunk guy who’d manhandled her literally hung by his belt loops on the coatrack nailed to the wall. “Is this what college would’ve been like?”
“I guess we’ve got some making up to do.” She noted that the bouncers had called in reinforcements. Gunner was talking to one of them who looked as if he could pick the pool table up with one hand, and he was shrugging sheepishly, looking like a little kid who’d gotten caught but was having too much fun to care.
“Closing time!” the bartender yelled, and Avery heard the sounds of sirens in the distance. A normal sound for this bar at this time of night. It was nearing two in the morning and Grace took her hand and led her out the back door and around the outside alley toward the front.
“Mama, come. Let me read you.”
Avery glanced over at the woman who’d set up shop outside the bar, promising the drunk boys and girls who stumbled out lifetimes of happiness and love and babies. “No thanks.”
“You don’t want to know your future? To see what’s coming?” the palm reader persisted.
Would knowing what she knew now have made Avery do anything differently up to this point? She could confidently answer no. She shook her head and let Grace lead her down the alley, both giggling giddily. Drunk, but fun drunk. Anyone who saw them might think they were two single college girls. They’d be so very wrong, but Avery liked the idea of being normal every once in a while.
Avery turned and found Gunner following them, but he was also staring down at his cell phone and holding it a little too tightly. When he realized she was looking, he shoved it in his pocket and shrugged.
She was more than happy to shrug it off too, especially when Jem came up to her, saying, “Sometimes all you need’s a good old-fashioned bar fight,” and Key whooped his approval. She got the distinct feeling they were disappointed that it ended so soon, that if they had their way, they’d start another one just for the hell of it.
Key threw an arm around her shoulders and she grinned at him, knew he was doing it to get a rise out of Gunner.
She’d kissed Key at that bar months ago; she’d been drunk, and he’d been too, and although they’d been good kisses during moments of boldness, exacerbated by being free of her old life and by lots of Dutch courage, she’d ended up going home to Gunner.
Ever since, Gunner had been subtly trying to push her into Key’s arms while acting jealous when she spent any time with Key. An interesting paradox, but one that told her what she needed to know.
Gunner wanted her.
She also knew that Key didn’t. Not really. Because that same night they’d kissed, Key had murmured another woman’s name in her ear. She’d dismissed it at the time because it had mingled in with the other Cajun French he’d been whispering, but now that she’d been around the dialect for a while, she knew for sure.
When she’d talked to him about this, Key had said, “I’ve known where your heart belongs. Knew it from the night he gave you the tattoo.
“I was mad because I figured he’d break your heart,” Key explained then, and now he glanced back at Gunner and then winked at her.
She swore she heard Gunner’s growl behind her, and that made her smile.
They tumbled into Gunner’s place, through the back door that led to the kitchen. Dare and Jem were cooking eggs and bacon and she sat at the table and ate and laughed. The mood tonight was exactly the note she’d wanted tonight to end on.
A far cry from two weeks earlier, when they’d been somber and moping and exhausted. Shell-shocked, really, because they’d rescued Grace from her stepfather, and they’d rescued her and Dare’s father as well, only to have him die before they could get him help.
The bright spot was that the man responsible for hurting the families of Section 8 and the operatives themselves had been killed on that island. She knew Gunner and Dare were ultimately responsible, but neither man was talking about what had happened in the room where Richard Powell was killed by his own men.
Now they were all worried about Gunner. He’d stopped taking tattoo appointments, stopped drawing. They’d been lucky to get him to go out at all—he’d been growing more and more closed off, although no one could blame him after what he’d been through.
She couldn’t do much because she had promised everyone their space, including him. And he wasn’t exactly asking her for advice. Finally, in a moment of what she deemed pure brilliance, she convinced everyone to go away, take a vacation and, most important, make some decisions about the future of the new Section 8.
A couple of months ago, she’d been all alone. Now she had a half brother, a soon-to-be sister-in-law and three other men in her life, all of whom would combine to become a mercenary group based on the original Section 8. Her father had been one of the original members, and he’d been killed for his efforts. She was a legacy, along with Dare.
Would it be all or nothing? She hadn’t been certain when the others left, but she’d had to make sure Gunner was really, truly okay.
So far, that wasn’t the case.
She’d wanted to take a room in a hotel, give him some space, and although he wasn’t exactly himself, he refused to let her leave. And he still used all the security equipment.
She figured that was simply a hard habit to break. That he was still protecting her, worried about blowback. But Rip—aka Richard Powell—worked alone and his men, who’d actually been the ones to kill him, had scattered to the wind. They were afraid for their own lives.
Tonight was the last night before Dare and Grace left for the Seychelles, before Key left for parts unknown and Jem went to Texas, although nobody knew what he’d lost in Texas, and he wasn’t telling.
After she’d said good night to everybody, bid them safe trips, knowing it would be the last time she saw them for a while, she sat on her own bed and debated.
Tomorrow, the place would be emptied of everyone but her and Gunner.
Now she padded down the stairs to Gunner’s room. His was the only one on the second floor—Key and Jem slept in the panic room on the shop level with all the cameras, because they felt most comfortable there. Gunner’s floor held the same sort of security setup.
Dare and Grace were already pretending to be on their honeymoon on the third floor, down the hall from Avery’s room, and everyone granted them their space.
She’d been sleeping with headphones on.
Now, shivering more from anticipation than the cold, she stood in front of Gunner’s door, wearing just a T- shirt that skimmed her thighs, the neckline stretched comfortably enough to fall off one shoulder. It was actually
