Give It All (2 page)

She smiled sadly as he let her go. “I know you would. And I know I’m a fool for running from what you’ve got to offer. Again.”

His lips thinned to a tired smirk. “You always were good at running.”

She nodded, throat tight and hurting. “Watch me go.” She checked for her keys, grabbed her helmet off Miah’s dresser. As her fingers closed around the door’s cool knob, she heard words at her back, nearly too soft to make out.

“You know I will.”

The old farmhouse was quiet save for the muted sounds of Miah’s mom in the kitchen. She’d be starting the coffee, probably making pancakes or eggs and bacon or some other perfect, wholesome breakfast, fit for her hardworking husband and son. Some meal Raina never would have made as well, had she ever let herself get deep enough with Miah to wind up a cattleman’s wife. A Mrs. Church. She wasn’t built for that shit. For the softer sorts of nurturing. She’d been birthed by some flighty facsimile of jailbait, raised by a bachelor bar owner who’d needed as much caretaking as he’d offered. She had zero qualifications to be the woman Miah had coming to him . . . and zero interest in
earning them. She slipped out the back, skirting the far side of the house like a coward, in no mood to run into the warm and lovely woman who’d never, ever be her mother-in-law.

Her little Honda growled to life between her legs in the cold dawn air, and as she exited the ranch’s big front lot, the grinding of rubber on gravel felt like the only noise in the world.

The wind bit, waking her quicker than coffee ever could. The closer she drew to downtown and home, the heavier the guilt grew.

Any sane girl who wanted something real, something good, would’ve taken what Miah had offered two years ago. Stayed with a man whose body roused hers and whose nature promised stability. She’d have fallen past lust and into love with him, got married maybe, had a kid or two, settled down for a life of relentless reliability. Raina had been given the chance to pick a guy worthy of acting as her anchor, and then what? Resent him for taking away her freedom? Or, worse—lose him, maybe, as she’d lost her dad? Care enough to cling, then lose him to an accident or another woman or a midlife crisis or who knew what? Miah was steady, but he was still a man.

“I can make you happy,” he’d told her once, back when they were lovers. “Why won’t you just
let
me?”

She hadn’t answered him. Hadn’t been honest and simply said, “I don’t want a man who’ll make me happy. I want to feel relief when things end, not grief. Why would anyone choose grief?”

Regrets were ugly, but they scattered like ashes soon enough.

It was attachment you had to look out for. Affection. Love. There was a certain line, where emotions were concerned, past which experiences ripened to memories, and it couldn’t be passed over lightly.

Love had bones to it. Solid, rattling things bent on cluttering you up long after the soft parts melted into the ether. You had to carry those bones around with you. Make room for them, dust them, trip over them.

She parked behind the bar and headed for the back door.

Sex and moments of easy companionship were enough—just don’t let those bones grow in. Keep it soft and shapeless with no skeleton, no means to follow you when the time comes to walk away.

Raina stepped across the very threshold where she’d been
left as a baby, and into a thousand dusty memories of her dad. She shut the door behind her, feeling interred.

Good God, what was she doing here? She should have sold this place and moved on three years ago, after he’d died, quit surrounding herself with nostalgia for the only man she’d ever truly loved, and given these wounds a chance to finally heal.

There was still time. A flashy new bar and grill was coming to town in the next year, ahead of the casino, and only a block west of Benji’s, on Station Street. The outsiders would be tearing down the derelict old tack shop and building from scratch. They had big money, and big plans, and undoubtedly stood a better chance at attracting the future gaming tourists than Raina would. They’d serve food, with a side of clean, friendly, faux-rustic charm. That basically left Raina cornering the Friday night fistfight market, with not nearly enough profits coming in to fund the overhaul she’d need to put in a kitchen, hire more staff, and undertake the renovation necessary to stay competitive.

And why bother? This place had been her dad’s project, not hers. He’d opened it just before she showed up, and with Raina’s mom MIA, he’d struggled to nurture his child and his business in tandem. This bar had been her home her entire life . . . but now it was her burden, a constant reminder of how badly she missed her father. A reminder, too, that she was still cleaning up after him, still keeping his dreams afloat, and her own on hold. It was a haunted place, its heartbeat silenced. She could sell it, and handily. Developers would be scrambling to buy up commercial real estate as the Eclipse’s grand opening drew closer.

She could find a new place to call home. A new town. A new life. It wasn’t too late . . . Was it?

Maybe this is your home now,
a voice in her head whispered.
The boneyard itself.

Can’t you hear the clattering, girl?

Duncan Welch eyed the vodka and tonic sitting before him on the bar. His second of the night, and the sun had only just dipped behind the mountains to the west and dunked the town in premature dusk.

A troubling development, one that had arrived right along with his recent professional worries.

For all intents and purposes, Duncan was on probation. He worked for Sunnyside Industries, the development company that was designing and eventually running the Eclipse, the casino slated to open in two years, here in Fortuity. He was Sunnyside’s legal counsel, and more to the point, their fixer. Up until six weeks ago, he’d been a model worker. Up until he’d met Vince Grossier, king of the local roughnecks, a man on a mission to prove that his friend had been murdered. Duncan had been drawn in to run interference between Grossier and the people at Virgin River Contracting, but then circumstances had grown complicated. He’d exploited his position to uncover information that led to very real suspicions of criminal activity on the part of VRC. Sunnyside couldn’t in good conscience fire him, not when his trespass had resulted in the exposure of a murder cover-up. But they weren’t pleased. And Duncan had never been in this position before—never given an employer cause to chastise him. Having his reputation damaged made him deeply uneasy . . . had him wondering if the careful façade he’d built around himself these past twenty years might be showing cracks.

He took a deep drink.

At least he’d cut down on the Klonopin, in recent weeks. One vice was human; two was a crutch.

He eyed his bartender. Make that three vices.

Raina Harper. So not Duncan’s style, yet he’d grown all but infatuated with her. He was tall, and so was she—perhaps five foot eight—though their similarities ended there. She was dark—wavy dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin. Black tee or tank, always, and black lace tattooed over one shoulder, like a veil that had slipped from her face and caught there. Long legs in tight jeans and cowboy boots. She was probably thirty-one or -two to Duncan’s thirty-eight, yet in some ways she made him feel hopelessly childish. She’d probably shot a gun, ridden her share of horses, taken dares, placed bets, crashed a car, fucked more people than Duncan ever would, and with far more abandon.

She made him want things he’d never given much thought to. Noisy, messy sex; nails raking his back. Instincts he didn’t trust any more than he trusted his newfound two-drink minimum.

He shifted on his stool, trousers feeling tight.

Raina was the owner of this charming-cum-rabid establishment, Benji’s Saloon, currently Fortuity’s sole watering hole. An old wooden whale of a place, its thick rafters ribbing the high ceiling, a dozen world-weary Jonahs gathered around the jukebox in the so-called old-timers’ corner, swapping tales from the bygone golden days. They’d be off soon, replaced by the next generation—noisy, lively packs of ranch workers who drank, and presumably mated, with the boundless, indiscriminate enthusiasm of youth.

Raina’s monopoly on the town’s nightlife would change when the casino was up and running . . . provided it ever got finished. Construction had been halted for a month now while the feds investigated Virgin River for widespread corruption. With progress frozen, Duncan didn’t have nearly enough to occupy him. And the idleness chafed at him like a cilice.

He watched Raina chatting with patrons at the other end of the bar.

Another woman was working—Abilene. A girl, really. She was plump and short and angelic, the perfect foil to her employer. She came over as Duncan set his empty tumbler on the wood.

“Another?”

He smiled. “I’ll wait.” He let his eyes drift to Raina’s profile. “Not that I find anything lacking in your bartending skills.”

Abilene smiled back. “I don’t blame you. Those ones she mixes you must be, like, two-thirds vodka.”

“Perhaps she thinks the tonic is a garnish.”

Abilene was called away by another customer, and Duncan went back to studying the unlikely object of his fixation. The two of them made about as much sense as Duncan made in this bar, with its gritty floors, dusty rancher clientele, and ever-flowing river of watery domestic beer. Then again, none of the things that transfixed Duncan had ever made much sense to him. Perhaps Raina was simply par for the course.

Plus, he doubted anything was ever going to happen between them. He was merely an amusement to her—an obnoxious, entitled outsider who tipped like an overzealous ATM, fit only for toying with.

Which was perfect, really, as Duncan quite enjoyed the sensation.

Abilene passed by her boss, saying something to Raina that Duncan couldn’t hear. But he could guess, as the woman turned and headed straight for him.

Slender fingers circled his empty glass, but she didn’t take it away just yet. “Another?”

“Please.”

“Two’s usually your limit. Do I need to stage an intervention?” She was teasing—hers was a bar where men proudly boasted of downing a dozen shots just to celebrate the close of a workweek.

“I’m afraid all the recent inactivity doesn’t suit me,” Duncan returned.

“Poor baby. I’d kill for a night off. Don’t think I’ve had one in three years. But even if I got one, I’d probably spend it tattooing.”

Ah yes, her side gig. Duncan rankled inside his expensive suit jacket to imagine her hands inching over strange men’s naked skin.

“At least you’re still getting paid,” she said. “Want to feel bad for somebody, save your sorrows for the dozens of construction guys who’re twiddling their thumbs for nothing, waiting to find out if they’ll ever get to go back to work at all.”

She mixed his drink and he tipped her outrageously, then watched as she gathered the empties scattered around the counter. The vodka was working, now. He felt warm and loose, urges and emotions slipping out from under the cap he kept on
his vulnerabilities, to flurry about in his blood. To make him hungry. The vodka, or the lust? In either case, he ought not to trust the way he’d recently begun gravitating toward both. Yet here he was. Night after night.

Raina had an ex, one she was still close with. Or at least Duncan thought Jeremiah Church was her ex . . . the way the man looked at Duncan sometimes, he had to wonder if there was still something simmering there. Though apparently not anything strong enough to keep Raina from flirting with Duncan, the virtual friction between them so intense it was a wonder their clothes didn’t catch fire. The question marks surrounding her and Church had gone from poking him to clawing at him as of late, however. The hazards of an idle brain. He was itchy for answers, wanted them even more than he wanted to maintain the flimsy illusion that he couldn’t care less who warmed her sheets.

He made it ten minutes—half his drink and three laps of Raina around the bar—before he blurted, “So, you and Jeremiah Church.”

She batted her lashes, posture changing utterly. She cocked her hip and chin, subtle as a cat hunkering down to stalk a mouse hole. He could just about see her tail twitching. “Yes?” she asked sweetly.

“What exactly happened between you two that he gives me a look most men would reserve for their mother’s ax murderer?”

She shrugged, graceful collarbone flashing beneath two layers of black lace—the straps of her top and the ink decorating her skin. “Guess my side effects include withdrawal or something.”

“You turn a tame man feral.”

She busied herself stacking nearby empties. “Don’t all women?”

Not the ones I’m used to.
“You dumped him, I take it?”

She smirked. “I like you drunk, Duncan. Makes me suspect you might even be half human, under all that smooth, icy snakeskin.”

A snake, am I?
How terribly Edenic. Though Raina had clearly bitten into that apple ages ago, savored every scrap of its flesh, and spat the seeds at her jilted lovers’ feet.

It didn’t matter that he’d helped her and her friends get to the truth surrounding the death of Alex Dunn. Or that Duncan
had gotten pistol-whipped in the process—by the sheriff, right before Tremblay attempted to escape. That had been a month ago. Duncan’s broken tooth had been fixed and the stitches removed from his lip, and once again he was back to being a suspect outsider in Fortuity. He’d earned the cursory nod of greeting from Vince Grossier, but that didn’t change the fact that he was the face of the company that was bringing a massive resort casino to their sleepy town. He was gifted with dirty looks daily by any number of distrustful Fortuitans, and he knew what people called him. The names ran the gamut from
faggot
to
cop killer.
The former didn’t bother him, but the latter stung. He’d risked a lot to expose Alex Dunn’s actual murderer, but to some of these locals, his mere affiliation with the casino made him complicit. Guilt by association. He was probably taking a risk even drinking here, but if there was one thing Duncan Welch didn’t abide, it was intimidation. Especially when it tried to come between a man and his vices.

Duncan’s image didn’t do him any favors, either. He was corporate. He was overdressed; he was a British expat; he was wealthy. He was cold and clean and calculating. He was wrong here, in every possible way. Wrong for Raina Harper’s bed, as wrong as her ex was right. And yet
ex
was the operative word, wasn’t it?

He sipped his dwindling drink and the alcohol spurred him to tell her, “I don’t think your ex is over you.”

“That’s his problem, not mine.”

“And you accuse me of being cold.”

She grabbed some bills left by another customer and organized the register as she spoke. “Maybe we’re not so different, then, Duncan. In any case, I’m perfectly happy on my own.”

“Handsome, rugged cowboys need not apply?”

She smiled, the gesture indulgent. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re jealous.”

“Simply curious.”

“Well, I don’t need a man, handsome or otherwise. Not for more than a night or two. I’m already everything a woman wants to be—a mother to everyone who spills their drunken souls all over this wood,” she said, stroking the bar in front of him. “A sister to my closest friends. A lover when it suits me.”

“A corruptor,” he added, lifting his glass.

“That also suits me.”

“I can appreciate your desire for impermanence.”

She smirked at that. “I’m sure you can. I bet you’re counting down the days until the casino’s built and you get to book it the fuck out of Fortuity, move on to the next job.”

“Indeed. Though it’d be unfortunate if the construction’s stalled indefinitely and I have to leave two years sooner than planned, with nothing to show for it. Just a load of unfilled foundations drilled into your foothills.”

He anticipated her reply, something to the tune of glee at the idea of the casino never arriving to take over her hometown. But she surprised him, frowning thoughtfully. “You know, it seems like an odd match for a man like you—working on the Eclipse. Luxury resort or not, gambling seems too seedy to be your style.”

“I’ll stoop to most any adjective you can think of, if the pay is good. I’m not bothered what my bosses are planning.” He sipped his drink. “Casino, water park, megachurch—it’s all the same to me. I came here only to do my job, and to do it well. My commitments are about as personal as a whore’s.”

She smiled. “A high-class one, no doubt . . . Shame my town hasn’t treated you too gentle, so far.”

Duncan’s tongue went instinctively to the smooth resin that now composed half of his left front tooth as Raina was called away to attend to other customers. He watched her at it.

Her assumptions about him offered some comfort. It seemed he still appeared to be in control, above it all. In truth, his life was feeling anything but certain. And it went far beyond all this boredom, as everyone waited for Virgin River to get the green light to recommence construction.

He tongued his imposter tooth again, feeling a kinship with it. The both of them were imitations. Passing for perfect but underneath . . . broken.

*   *   *

Raina was starting to think the evening was never going to pick up and that she’d have to send Abilene home, when a dozen regulars came through the door—a pack of young women and the ranch hands that followed them like lemmings. The lot of them tipped like shit, but they brought some much-needed energy on a quiet Thursday night like this. The jukebox made a U-turn, lazy country giving way to pop and dance music, the bass throb of foreplay.

Raina watched them, her own hips swaying softly behind the bar, body restless. She’d been trying to ignore Duncan’s
presence, but her body felt hard-wired to his. Like opposite poles, the two of them attracted. And the closer she let herself drift to him, the hotter she crackled, the harder the pull.

Then it came on—her song of the moment. She didn’t even know who sang it, but the beat was infectious, relentless, the tone of it pure red wine, making a woman’s blood pump hot and thick.

The opening notes drifted from the speakers like pheromones, and Raina knew her cue, as though this had been ordained. No patrons waiting on refills, everyone’s glasses looking refreshed, Abilene on top of the stock. The frayed tether that had lashed her back together with Miah finally cut. She skirted the bar and strode right over to where Duncan was scanning the glowing screen of his phone. He’d shed his jacket, crisp sleeves rolled up to display the elegant muscles of his forearms. She plucked the cell from his fingers. His face cocked up, gray eyes flashing cold as steel, then softening as he registered it was her, not some drunken local looking to start something.

Raina smiled to know he thought her less dangerous than her male counterparts.

“You dance, Duncan?” she asked.

“No,” he said evenly, taking back his phone. “I do not.”

“Perfect time to learn, then.” She took that smooth, manicured hand and led him to the space before the jukebox like a dog, wedging them between the younger bodies. He came willingly enough, though she suspected that it was merely some aversion to scene-making. Or perhaps the vodka’s doing. Either way, she turned, boxing herself into his space, bringing their thighs tight. Not much choice, in this crowd.