“Yes, ma’am,” he says, nodding, seeming unaffected by the state of the woman right in front of him.
How far up that puny, ratfucking MC’s ass is this sheriff that he can see a woman in her condition and not give a shit?
The door slams as he shuts it behind him.
“What the fuck happened here?” I say as soon as I’m sure the sheriff isn’t listening.
“It was Switchblade,” she says. Then she goes quiet, burying her face into my shoulder.
“He attacked you? In your own home?”
A shuddering sigh rocks her body and Violet leans into me further. It’s a feeling better than I would’ve ever expected and, as angry and frustrated as I am, it puts me even more off balance.
“Talk to me, Violet. Tell me what happened, tell me what he did, and I’ll go take care of him.”
She doesn’t answer.
With my common sense finally getting a grip on the anger burning inside me, I shift on the couch, extracting her face from the crook of my shoulder and I turn, face her, and put my hands on her shoulders.
“I will not be here in Carbon Ridge very long. The more time we waste, the less time I’ll have to take care of the son of a bitch that hurt you.”
Violet’s teary eyes go wide. Then they ignite with anger, and standing suddenly, she slaps me. Hard.
“That’s what you’re worried about? Time?”
Now my anger has a new target: her.
How can she be so goddamn temperamental when I’m trying to help her?
“Yes, time. Because I sure as fuck don’t have much of it and, from the looks of it, neither do you. So take the help that I’m offering and tell me what fucking happened here.”
She sighs, fresh tears brim at the corner of her shimmering green eyes and she shakes her head.
“Can you do me a favor, Crash? Can you just go fuck yourself? And can you, for one fucking second, stop talking about how this is just small town bullshit and be a human fucking being? Do you want to know where we are right now? We’re in Kendra’s house. My best friend, Kendra. That fucking creep knocked me out, and he took her. I am a fucking wreck right now because my best friend in the entire world is in the hands of some sadistic animal, the sheriff’s can’t help me — because you know as sure as I do that they’re in the pocket of the Death’s Disciples — and the only person in this whole fucking town who actually can help me also happens to be the biggest fucking prick I have ever met. So, can you please, for once in your life, put that bullshit attitude of yours away and show me that you have a soul? Because I am so hurt right now and I need you.”
I am speechless before her. The voice coming from her lips is so raw and pained, this woman that I’ve seen show that she has a spine of steel, is breaking. And, despite every single bit of my common sense telling me I should stay away, all I want to do is take care of her.
So I hug her.
I put my arms around her and I pull her to my chest and I whisper to her, “I’m sorry. Just let it out.”
And she cries. She cries until my right sleeve is soaking wet with her tears and she’s sniffling every two seconds to hold back the snotty that’s streaming from her nose. It’s ugly, it’s messy, and it feels so damn good to hold her close.
Minutes upon minutes pass where the only sounds from her are sobbing cries and I lose myself in the sensation of having this woman against me.
Then she stops her crying, and she pulls back and wipes the tears and snot from her face with the back of her hand, and a rueful grin turns up the corners of her lips.
“Sorry about the fucking mess,” she says. “It’s been a fucking day.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just talk to me, Violet.”
Nodding, she lets out a long, shaky sigh. “I spent the night here after last night. I do that sometimes, when I’ve had a rough day. Kendra’s my best friend, she moved here with me to help me start over after I got divorced. Even before the divorce, I was a wreck, because my husband was an abusive prick, and Kendra saw how messed up I was even before I acknowledged it; I had a great job with a Petrochemical company — yeah, that’s right, your favorite bartender has a fucking Master’s in chemistry — and I buried myself in work to keep myself from thinking about how much of an awful prick my husband was and how much I hated my life. Then my grandma died. And she left me some money and a note that I should follow my dreams. So I moved here. And Kendra moved with me because she’s that kind of person, and she helped me open the bar and we both just kind of settled in here. That’s how important she is to me.”
“Your dream was to open a bar?” I say. I don’t know if I say it out of disbelief, or out of respect for her dedication to making a business out of good booze. She’s obviously got good taste, considering how much money she was willing to spend to buy that bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon that she gave away.
She laughs. It’s bitter, but anything’s better than seeing her cry; I hate seeing tears mar her beautiful features. “Surprised?”
“A little, yeah. Why go from a cushy job to being a bartender?”
“It’s not just being a bartender. I want to be a distiller, too. The whole deal. I already
