Riveted

I slammed back the rest of the bourbon and let it burn its way down my throat. “Fuck you, Opie.”

He chuckled at me and turned to cash out the register behind him. “That’s why they say the truth hurts, Church.”

Before I had been Church I’d been Dash. And before I had been Dash I’d been Dashel. It was already hard enough being a kid with less than white skin and with parents in an interracial relationship, but having a name that was as uncommon as mine down in the Deep South was fuel on an already burning fire. I’d hated it growing up and even with shortening it to Dash I’d still struggled with it. But now I’d been Church for a long time, and he was a man that didn’t give any kind of shit what anyone else thought of his name. I’d earned that nickname through service and blood. It wasn’t a name that was given to me. It was one I had taken and made my own. Elma Mae was going to hate it and she was still going to call me Dashel even when I begged her not to but there was a part of me that couldn’t wait to hear the stubborn old woman tell me, I’ll call you by the name your mother picked out for you, son. That’s the name she wanted for you and you should respect it. I should, but there were a lot of things I should have done to make my mom proud that I didn’t do.

The truth Asa was laying down did hurt, because there was no hiding from him that part of the reason I was ready to bolt was because I really couldn’t stomach the idea of watching someone else take Dixie’s heart.

“Didn’t ask you for the truth.” I stuck my head out the front door and watched as the last two bar patrons climbed into their Uber. I locked the front door and shut off most of the lights and made my way back to the bar.

I liked the operation Rome had set up here. I liked the people, both the ones who worked for him and the ones he served, and I liked that the atmosphere was usually festive but pretty mellow. On the nights that heads needed to be cracked and tempers needed to be tamed I enjoyed the exertion and physicality of that as well, but I wasn’t meant to be a bouncer. I had too much training, too much experience, and frankly too many demons that needed an outlet, to babysit drunks and party girls for the long haul. It was time for me to stop drifting.

Asa finished up with the money and shot a glance at his phone. I could tell by the genuine smile that crossed his face and the way his gaze sparked that his gorgeous redheaded girlfriend was the one behind the message. Royal Hastings, the pretty Denver policewoman had recently moved in with the annoying southerner and it wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up with a ring on her finger before the year was out. The cop and the con had something special going on even if I firmly believed it was doomed to fail.

“Most folks don’t ask for the truth but that doesn’t stop me from giving it to them.” He gave me a look that told me if I was any kind of man I would take that truth he was so fond of and do something smart with it. I didn’t bother to tell him good and I didn’t really see eye to eye. We made our way to the back door after a quick stop at the office to lock the money up in the safe. Asa scribbled a note to Rome and then quickly checked the security cameras. He typed out a message on his phone and by the time we hit the parking lot at the back of the bar a brand-new Toyota 4Runner was pulling in with a smiling redhead behind the wheel.

Asa clapped a hand on my shoulder and gave me a look that burned with understanding and seriousness. I felt like he was speaking directly into my soul when he told me quietly, “The real truth is, I let something good go, so I know how that feels. Got it back and would move heaven and earth to keep it by my side, so I know exactly what you’re walking away from, soldier. Be smarter than I was and don’t let all that goodness slip through your fingers.” He turned around and walked backwards for a second while flashing me that shit-eating grin of his. “It’s always better to be warm than it is to suffer the cold, Church.”

He moved towards the SUV and I had to look away when he leaned into the driver’s side window to kiss his girl. There was so much intimacy there, so much passion that it made everything I swore I knew about love and togetherness pull against the reins that held it tight.

I gave a halfhearted wave as Royal honked the horn at me and pulled out of the parking lot, then made my way over to my Harley. It was still nice enough weather to ride, another reason I needed to get my ass in gear and head south. In a few weeks it was going to be too cold to have the bike on the road and I wasn’t interested in putting the beauty on a trailer and driving her like some expensive piece of luggage back to Mississippi.

I was swinging my leg over the chrome-and-leather beast when my phone vibrated in my back pocket. It was after two in the morning so I knew anything buzzing through at this time of night couldn’t be good. Considering I’d recently shot Denver’s top drug supplier’s right-hand man and put down another one of his henchmen for good, I was dreading seeing what was waiting for me on the display.

It was almost as bad as I expected it to be. The number was one I’d been ignoring since I landed in Denver months ago. It was a number that belonged to a man that I owed more than some simple conversation or a handful of words. It was a call I would have continued to ignore if it hadn’t come in the middle of the night and on the heels of three other calls throughout the day that I had turned a blind eye to.

It was time to stop running from my past.

It was time to man up.

It was time to be a better man, the man the person calling had tried his best to raise me to be.

“Hey, Julian.” I rested the Harley back on the kickstand and ran a hand over my face. I could practically feel the shock wafting across the phone line. He hadn’t expected me to answer and that made me a special kind of asshole.

“Dash.” His voice was even deeper and coarser than mine. People often told me I sounded like Johnny Cash but Julian Churchill really had the Man in Black’s rough growl embedded throughout his tone. “I didn’t think you were going to answer.”

I sighed and felt like the wild five-year-old he had tried to wrangle all over again. “Been busy. Took a while to settle in and get used to sleeping without bombs going off overhead.”

He didn’t say anything for a long minute and when he spoke I could tell he was trying really hard to keep the hurt and censure out of his deep voice. “You have a perfectly good bed here and last I heard there weren’t any bombs in Lowry.” Lowry was the small town where I had been born and raised, just outside of Tupelo, Mississippi. There weren’t bombs there but there was a bucket load of memories that blasted me with emotional shrapnel that hurt worse than the kind I’d had surgically removed from my skin.

“I needed time, Jules.”

“Had more than enough time, son. You need to come home.” I bristled just like I always did when he tried to tell me what to do. I thought I’d squashed that urge after we stood side by side and lowered my mom into the ground but there was something about him talking to me like I should know better that always made me feel like an unruly kid.

“Planning on it. Have to tie up a few loose ends around here, and I have to make sure I don’t leave my friend that helped me out in a lurch.” Rome would send me on my way with a pat on the back and a foot in my ass if he knew the real reason I was hiding in Colorado instead of hightailing it home. He was understanding, but the man was all about family first and he wouldn’t abide the way I’d been avoiding mine for the last decade or so. I was a coward and I didn’t want a man I’d been in the trenches with, a man I would die for and knew would die for me, to know just how deeply that weakness ran.

“Dash.” There was a sigh and then Julian cleared his throat, so I knew he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. “Elma Mae had an accident.”

I almost dropped the phone as I bolted up from my lounging position on the bike. “What do you mean she had an accident?” My fingers tightened around the phone to the point that my knuckles hurt and the blood rushing furiously between my ears made hearing his response difficult.

“She was carrying her laundry in off the line and tripped going up the stairs. She fell backwards and busted her hip. A neighbor heard the commotion and ran to help. They had to airlift her to the hospital in Tupelo. She’s also got a dislocated shoulder and a sprained wrist. She’s back in the Lowry hospital now recovering and she should be going home at the end of the week.”

“Jesus.” Elma Mae was chasing down eighty if she was a day. None of us knew her exact age and she refused to tell. She would just smile at us and tell us we kept her young. Those kind of injuries were serious for someone in their prime. In a woman Elma’s age they were life threatening. “She gonna be all right?”

“Elma is a tough old bird. It’ll take more than a tumble to keep her down. She’s been asking about you.”

Well, if that wasn’t just a fucking red-hot poker right through the guts. It was also a slap across the face with the reality of everything I’d purposely been avoiding and denying for way too long.

“I bought a Harley. Gonna have to ride it home, so I’ll be there in a couple days.” My homecoming was happening sooner than I’d planned, but there was no way I couldn’t be there for the woman that had always been my true north. When nothing else in my life made sense there was Elma Mae. She was the only safe place I had ever known and if she needed me I was going to be there to return the favor. I owed the woman everything and the fact I’d waited so long to see her after years of deployment was a startlingly clear reminder of why I was correct and considerate in staying the hell away from Dixie.

She lived in the light and I was far more comfortable hiding in the dark.

“I’ll let her know. That will make her day.” He paused for a second, which made me brace for whatever was coming next. “She mentioned a girl. Elma told me the reason you weren’t in any hurry to come home from Denver was because of a girl. That true?”

Son of a bitch. The truth might hurt but the lies I told, and they were more gray than white, were going to outright kill me. “There’s a girl.” And there was, but she wasn’t entirely the reason I wasn’t ready to face Julian or anyone else back in Lowry. She had been one of my reasons for sticking around Denver longer than I’d planned. She was an excuse that would buy me time and one that wasn’t entirely untrue.

“Do me a favor and see if you can bring her with you. Elma would love nothing more than to see you happy, to know you’re finally settling down and moving past the things that happened with your mom and with Caroline. You bring your girl home with you and give all of us some peace of mind. Make an old woman happy, Dash. You owe Elma a few years where she doesn’t have to worry about you catching bullets or ending up alone.”

Shit. I rubbed my temples and kicked at the loose gravel under the soles of my boots. “I’ll see what I can do.” That was bullshit. Dixie would drop everything and come with me if I explained the situation. She was too nice and too sweet to tell me no. Elma Mae was going to goddamn love her after she gave her a ration of hell in order to make sure she was the right girl for her boy.

“If the girl cares about you then she’ll figure out a way to be here. If she can’t figure it out, she isn’t worth your time. Come home, son, we miss you.”

I missed home, too, but I could do without the memories and reminders that had kept me away since the day I signed my life away to my country.

It was my turn to sigh. “I’ll see you soon, Jules.” He hung up and I wanted to kick myself because after all these years and all the time and effort he put into raising me I still couldn’t call the man Dad. He deserved the title, after all it was his last name I carried around with me, not that of the man who had knocked my mom up and run. He had earned it much like I had earned my name, but whenever I tried to say it the word got stuck and I fell back on something that seemed less important. It felt like I was fooling God and everyone under the sun about just how important Julian was to me if I refused to call him the only thing he had ever been to me. I was trying to trick fate so Jules didn’t end up the way so many others I loved had.

I was also going home, and I was going to put some sunshine in my pocket and take it with me.

Dixie

I’d been working bar hours long enough that it took some major commotion and ruckus to pull me out of bed before lunchtime. Even Dolly had adapted to middle-of-the-night walks and breakfast at noon since I was a worthless and cranky blob of indignation if I was forced to abandon my comfy bed while the morning sun was still in the sky. It was the one and only time I let myself be grouchy and hate everything, which meant anyone that knew me well gave me a wide berth in the mornings. My days and nights had been flipped for as long as I could remember, so when loud voices pulled me from a sound sleep the next morning well before noon, and well before the time that most people got up to start their day, I was livid. I hadn’t slept very good the night before, so it felt like I had just shut my eyes even though several hours had passed, but that didn’t mean I was in any kind of mood to be startled awake or to play referee.

I heard Wheeler’s sharp tone as I crawled out of bed almost pushing Dolly to the floor in the process. I was stunned when it was another deep, obviously angry male voice that replied and not my sister’s. I figured Kallie would show up with her tail between her legs any minute now begging Wheeler to take her back. That’s what she’d done the last time he caught her stepping out on him with another guy. She wasted no time in trying to force him to forgive and forget.

She knew exactly where her bread was buttered and there was no way she was going to let the guy that had taken care of her, coddled her, given her everything she’d ever asked for get away from her. There was also no way in hell my vain, spoiled little sister had the backbone and fortitude to weather the embarrassment of canceling her long-anticipated wedding this close to the date. If word got out exactly why Wheeler had pulled the plug on their dysfunctional relationship, Kallie would wither away from embarrassment. She might want to have her cake and eat it too, but if someone pointed out how gluttonous it made her seem she would fall apart. The girl couldn’t take criticism to save her life, which was why she had kept hold of Wheeler for so long. He loved her and everything about her … at least he had until she’d drop-kicked his heart.

I recognized the rough, growly voice with its southern drawl right away. I couldn’t figure out why Church was at my apartment this early, and I couldn’t figure out why he and Wheeler were barking at one another like two dogs staking their claim over territory in my living room. I thought that maybe I was still dreaming until I stubbed my toe on the back of the couch as I rushed into the front of my apartment to see what in the hell was going on.

I swore loudly and hopped around on one foot, which drew both of the snarling men’s attention to me. Dolly, curious about the early morning visitor, gave me a sympathetic look then happily trotted over to Church, who was standing with his arms crossed over his massive chest while he glared at me out of those amazing eyes of his. People would call them hazel for lack of a better term but hazel didn’t cut it. Hazel was too ordinary a word for a color that was so brilliantly extraordinary. Those eyes of his were something else, pretty much all of him was designed to make vaginas surrender without putting up any kind of fight. There were men that were pretty like Asa, and there were men that stole breath with their masculine beauty like Rome Archer. Then there were men who had the best of both those worlds like Dash Churchill.

“What are you doing here before Starbucks is even open, Church?” I rubbed at my sleepy eyes and stiffened when his gaze drifted down from my messy hair, which I was sure looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket, to the oversized T-shirt I was wearing that had a giant cartoon taco on the front wearing a scowl with the words “I don’t wanna taco about it” scrawled underneath. Obviously it wasn’t something I would have ever worn to bed if I’d known he was going to be my six-foot-four, testosterone-fueled alarm clock, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about my ridiculous sleepwear or my out-of-control hair now. There was also nothing that could be done about the fact I wasn’t wearing pants and even though my taco shirt was big it was still just a T-shirt and barely, and I do mean barely, covered up all the things it needed to in order for me to keep my modesty.

I cleared my throat as that mesmerizing gaze drifted down the length of my legs and back up to my heated face. I took a careful step behind the couch and crossed my arms over my chest to mimic his badass pose. Mine was more to hide the fact I didn’t have a bra on and to cover up that even though he was pissed and clearly annoyed his mere presence still had all my lady parts shaking off sleep and waking up bright and early.

“I need to talk to you. I wasn’t expecting you to have company.” The way he said it wasn’t very nice.

I stiffened and shifted my gaze to Wheeler, who was standing at the doorway not letting Church and his palpable anger all the way into my apartment. Dolly was sitting between the two men watching them like they were opponents in a tennis match. She was probably waiting to see who would give her attention first but the visual still made my lips twitch as the dog’s head swiveled back and forth.

“Wheeler, go ahead and let him in. If I’m going to be up this early I need coffee and I don’t want either of you or your male posturing to scare Poppy.” I shuffled from behind the couch and into my tiny kitchen as my no-longer-future brother-in-law stepped to the side. It was only when Wheeler was fully clear from the door that I realized all he had on was a pair of low-slung jeans. His heavily tattooed torso was on full display and his mahogany hair was mussed and messy from a night of aggravated hands pulling at it. If I was on the other side of the door and couldn’t see the tangled mess of Wheeler’s haphazard bed still on the couch, I would probably be jumping to the same conclusion that Church obviously was.

I wanted to rush to reassure him that it wasn’t what he was thinking, that Wheeler was family, but the big, broody man stomping through my living room had me eyeing him warily as Wheeler snorted and muttered, “Come on in, Church.”

Church’s head swiveled around and his jaw went tight. I thought I was going to have to take the sprayer from the sink and hose them both down. “Appreciate the hospitality, Wheeler.”

I rolled my eyes as Dolly whined when the tension ratcheted up a notch and it was no longer fun to be caught between the two men.

“All right, enough. You both have badass names and I’m sure you’re both remarkably well endowed.” I felt like I should offer them rulers to measure just to break through the hostility. “Can we chill out with the pissing contest until after I’m properly caffeinated? Please?” I looked at Wheeler because out of the two of them I knew he would be easier to sway with tired eyes and a weak smile. He looked properly annoyed by my comment about what he was or wasn’t working with behind the fly of those low-slung jeans.

He gave me a narrow-eyed look and walked over to the couch so that he could pull his shirt on. “I’ll take Dolly out for a little bit so you guys can talk.” He gave Church a pointed look as he walked towards the door with my dog happily trotting along behind him. “I’ll only be gone a few minutes.” The implication was clear, Church better state his business and go. Wheeler wasn’t a fan of the early morning wake-up call or the judgment that came with it either. His eyes flicked to me and his lips quirked. “You’re still in fine form in the morning I see.”

I rolled my eyes at his back as the door closed behind him. I popped a pod into my Keurig and looked at Church over the counter that separated us as he paced back and forth in the minuscule space that was supposed to be the dining room. I saw him pause and his step faltered when his gaze hit the tangle of sheets on the couch. He turned to look at me and I watched as a muscle in his cheek twitched as he considered me silently for a long moment.

“He wasn’t your date from last night, was he?” He walked towards the counter and curled his fingers around the edge. If I didn’t know any better, I would think he was looking for something to hold on to.

“Nope. Wheeler is supposed to be marrying my little sister in a few months. He broke up with her last night after he caught her cheating again.” I tapped my fingers on the lower counter and tilted my head to the side. “Even if he was my date from last night that doesn’t give you the right to show up here at the crack of dawn and growl at him.” I expected a flinch or a look of contrition. I didn’t get either.

Then he lifted a hand to his face and dragged it down. I noticed he looked as tired as I felt. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He didn’t look or sound very sorry, but I decided I was still too groggy to fight with him about it.

“So why are you here?” Maybe he would answer me now that he knew I didn’t kick Wheeler out of my bed to answer his knock on my door.

He sighed and his eyebrows dipped low over his fantastically-colored eyes. “Because I need a favor.”

I couldn’t control myself from taking a step back. I’d been subtly throwing myself at the man for months and had resigned myself to the fact that all we would ever have was an uneasy friendship because he didn’t return my interest. I couldn’t fathom what kind of favor would have him calling on me first thing in the morning.

I blew out a breath and watched as it sent a loose curl dancing across my forehead. “We’re friends, Church. I care a lot about you, of course I’ll do you a favor.” I felt like I would do anything for him and not just because I would do anything for anyone I cared about. He was someone special and whatever I could do to chase some of that thundercloud he lived under away I would do it.

He barked out a laugh but there was no humor in the sound. His deep voice dropped even lower as his gaze shifted away from mine. “You probably want to hear what I’m about to ask you to do before you blindly agree.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up at his somber tone. “That sounds ominous. Just spit it out.” It was too early in the morning for my brain to be firing on all cylinders.

He pushed off the counter and resumed his pacing. He put a hand to the back of his neck and I watched as his fingers flexed as he squeezed. “I haven’t been home since I enlisted in the army. That’s a decade, Dixie. That’s a long time to be gone.” He shook his head a little and let out another one of those laughs that hurt to hear. “I knew Rome was still in Colorado, so I asked him to hook me up with something until I could get my feet back underneath me. I knew he would understand.” He cleared his throat. “It’s time for me to go home.”

I nodded absently and snatched up my cup of coffee. I felt like I might need to Irish the dark brew up a little bit to get through the entirety of this conversation. I asked Church if he wanted a cup and was waved off. He was struggling to get to the point and obviously didn’t want any distractions.

“Denver has always been temporary.” He stopped and turned to look at me. I was trying desperately not to freak out that this was essentially him telling me good-bye. I’d never had him, but I was far from ready to let him go.

“When are you leaving?” My voice cracked and I didn’t bother to hide how deeply his words were affecting me. When you fell you eventually had to land but nobody warned me that part hurt like a bitch.